Suzuki Roshi's Zen 3. Not Sticking To Any Teaching

I think sometimes if you read Suzuki Roshi's words and think about what he is saying, you might think that he is rather wishy-washy. He often will not take a definite position about things, or if he does, he will soon say that the opposite is true also. He often used the phrase, "the other side".  It meant, well this is one way to look at things, one kind of truth, And then there is also the other side, the other way to look at it. Both are true and both are therefore also false. Sometimes people refer to this as the non-dual point of view, but that term has always struck me as excessively philosophical --and dualistic. Non-dual is very dualistic, because it implies that non-dual is good and dualistic is bad. But dualistic is also part of non-dualistic. The real non-dualistic is both non-dualistic and dualistic. These kinds of thoughts are what happen if you use terms like dualistic and non-dualistic, and this is why I do not like to use them.

Suzuki Roshi understood the idea of non-dualistic not as a philosophical concept but as a way of being. He understood it as freedom, as not being caught by anything, not being limited by views, even Buddhist views or Zen views. Practice is beyond all views, it includes all views and honors all views but it doesn't stick to any views. So he was always interested in pointing out to people the nature of their sticky views, and encouraging them to unstick themselves from them.

There is one famous story about Suzuki Roshi driving up to the city from Tassajara with a student who was an ardent vegetarian. In those days, as I suppose still now, people had some quite definite ideas about was was right and wrong to eat, or good for you or not good for you. When Suzuki Roshi and the student stopped at a restaurant for lunch the student was quite surprised and challenged by the fact that Suzuki Roshi ordered a big hamburger. Probably rare. The student ordered a salad or something like that. But the student was even more surprised when the food came and Suzuki Roshi took the salad for himself and pushed the hamburger plate, without a word, in front of the student. I do not think that this meant that Suzuki Roshi disapproved of vegetarianism. It was not any particular view that he was against or for, rather how do you hold the views that you hold. This was the question for him.

To practice the Way is to be present in each moment, which is beyond time. Suzuki Roshi spoke of this over and over again. When you hold onto views, any views, you create a fixed world, a world of linear time, a world of suffering and opposition. Not sticking to views is not wishy-washy if you're not sticking to views truly comes from the heart of your practice. When your practice is faithful, you stand firmly in the middle of your own life, which is not separate from all of life. Standing in that place, truth is clear, it is not confusing. But how to express truth may change according to circumstances. When your practice is faithful, you will not get mixed up between the truth and its expression --you will know the difference and so you will stand firm with truth but very flexible with its expression. You will know what is important and what is trivial, what is truly helpful and what is not helpful. And even if you do not know what is helpful, you will have the patience and confidence to go forward in the best way that you can, without getting confused or caught or pushed off center. This kind of practice is a subtle thing. It has more to do with a feeling for life than it does with any rules or doctrines. Over and over Suzuki talked about how there are no rules, no definite procedures, and that even when there are definite procedures one should understand that these are completely contingent. One of my favorite phrases of Suzuki Roshi came in response to the question, what is the essence of Zen. He said "Not necessarily so."