This story, involving a western trainee staying at a large Japanese monastery, illustrates how easily we can be caught up in our own views and opinions, even when those around us are doing their best to help and support us in going beyond them. It can be very difficult to let go of our own preconceptions of what Buddhist training ‘should’ be.

This story is taken from The Wild White Goose, a book by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett, the founder of the OBC. The book is based on the diaries she kept in the 1960s whilst she was training at Sōjiji Temple, one of the two main temples of Sōtō Zen in Japan. Kōhō Zenji was Rev. Master Jiyu’s master, and was the Chief Abbot of the temple. Rev. Master Jiyu was the only female monastic and the only foreigner in the monastery, and she faced many difficulties whilst she was there as a result of this.

The story consists of three diary entries, from March and April 1966, and starts a few weeks before the large Jūkai retreat at the temple. This annual retreat is a week of meditation and ceremonies during which those attending make a commitment to living by the Buddhist Precepts. During the week the ceremony of Lay Ordination is held, which in the Sōtō Zen tradition is the way in which someone formally becomes a Buddhist. In the UK the Jūkai retreat is held each year at our main monastery, Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, in Northumberland.

When Rev. Master Jiyu’s diary was published the names of the people who feature in it were changed, as many of them were still alive. Her master, Kōhō Zenji, is referred to in the diaries as Zenji Sama. Sections below that are in square brackets are explanatory notes which are not part of the diary entry. The numbered footnote, however, was one of many that were included in the published diaries.

3rd. March.
I started the Jūkai classes for the foreigners to-day. At least eight people wish to be officially received as full Buddhists. Of the four-hundred that came for the New Year some sixty to eighty come regularly each week to five different classes. Out of the above-mentioned, eight wish to become full Buddhists and, eventually, some say they will become full priests [i.e. they hope to be ordained as Buddhist monks]. It is really wonderful news for Zenji Sama. I went to see him and told him all about it. It was as if the sun shone from his face. He said he will arrange the many things that will be needed to make it possible for the eight to do Jūkai. He thinks that unless he makes the arrangements there will be no room for them to meditate in, no way in which they can get meals and no place for them to sleep. He promised he would help me with all this and I left him.

This section illustrates the many challenges that Rev. Master Jiyu faced in training at the temple, and in trying to make Zen accessible to the westerners who visited. Many of the ‘foreigners’ referred to here would have been US service personnel, as the Americans had many bases in Japan in the 1960s, and at this point Rev. Master Jiyu was running the foreign guest programme at the temple.

The Chief Abbot of the temple has now said that he will help make the retreat happen for the foreigners, which is promising, but after she leaves him Rev. Master Jiyu realises that even this might still not be sufficient to guarantee that they will have the necessary facilities.

Halfway down the corridor I went back again. In spite of the assistants, in spite of everything, I returned.

“Zenji Sama,” I said, “would you give me the right to order the rooms and other things for the foreigners’ Jūkai?”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because other people may pretend that you didn’t say that the foreigners could come or that you forgot to make the arrangements. If I say that you have given me the authority to book the rooms and the food no-one will dispute my word. I am sure of it.”

He smiled. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Thank you, Zenji Sama,” I replied and left him.

This first diary entry sets the scene, and then the next one comes just over a month later, when the retreat is just starting.

9th. April.
The foreigners came to-day for Jūkai. The Guest Office, however, refused to let me have any rooms for them to sleep in and I was forced to go and see Zenji Sama again this morning. I told him that the office was refusing to allow the foreigners to stay in the temple for the nights of Jūkai although I had told them that Zenji Sama had given his permission for them to do so.

Zenji Sama nodded his head sadly. “Very well,” he said, “send for the chief guest master.”

I told the assistant and the chief guest master arrived.

“I have instructed Jiyu to use my chief guest room for the foreign guests who will be here during Jūkai,” he [Zenji Sama] said. “That guest room is to become the Zendō [Meditation Hall] for all foreigners in this temple. Since I can no longer sit in it with my guests it is wasted space. The foreigners may thus have it for their Zendō without taking any space usually available to others. Do you understand?”

A gasp of horror came from the chief guest master. “But, Zenji Sama, that is your private guest room!”

At this point Kōhō Zenji was essentially confined to his bed, and this was the reason that he couldn’t use his guest rooms, and so wanted to make them available to the foreign guests. He had had a stroke about eighteen months before this, and was coming towards the end of his life. He died in November of the following year, 1967.

“Yes,” he replied. “I am aware of the fact but you say there are no spare rooms in the temple. I shall be moving into my new private house on the other side of the temple soon—the house that has been specially built for me by a friend. That means that this house will be completely empty and I am giving at least two of its rooms to Jiyu to use for these eight foreigners—so that she may teach them, lecture to them and prepare them. I want them to become my disciples before I die. I want all eight of them and, when I am dead, Jiyu will look after them for me.”

The chief guest master glared at me but could not argue.

“What about the food, Zenji Sama?” I asked.

“The kitchen will provide food for these guests.”

“What about payment?” cried the chief guest master.

“Jiyu has already arranged that. They will pay the same as do all the Japanese guests who come here.”

The chief guest master bowed. “Very well, Zenji Sama.” He swept out of the room.

“Thank you, Zenji Sama,” I said and bowed.

“It will be good to have my disciples in the room beside me,” he said, “I will be able to feel their closeness. Bring them to see me often. I want to see them at least once a day.”

“Yes, Zenji Sama.”

The foreign guests aren’t familiar with the different conventions and traditions within the monastery, and perhaps aren’t even too clear who Kōhō Zenji is, and his position in the monastery. They certainly don’t realise what an honour they are being accorded, not just in using the Chief Abbot’s guest rooms, but in getting to meet with Kōhō Zenji every day. It is these different perceptions of what is going on when they meet Kōhō Zenji that form part of the background to the incident with the cream cakes which happens towards the end of the retreat.

I went away and made the necessary preparations for the guests to move into their new accommodation. I had an incredible amount of difficulty in getting beds to put in the room. Finally, however, after a lot of argument, I succeeded.

It is truly amazing how much the foreigners are getting out of this particular Jūkai. When I went to bed to-night—and I slept in the same room that they did—the feeling of joy and anticipation was so real, so wonderful, so different from the jaded¹⁰³ feeling that one frequently gets from the Japanese.

103. Wrong thinking even if true.

Even with all she has done to try to ensure that things go smoothly, still there are difficulties in getting basic items such as beds. We can’t know whether the resistance she was encountering was due to her being a woman and a foreigner, or was resistance to the idea of Americans staying in the temple, but some of the senior officers of the temple are clearly not happy with the situation.

In the second paragraph, Rev. Master Jiyu catches herself being judgemental about the Japanese monks she is training with, and points out in the footnote that it isn’t appropriate to respond this way, whether regarding their apparent lack of enthusiasm or their apparent resistance. We can never really know what is going on in someone else’s mind, or what they have experienced in their life that leads them to respond in this way. The offering we can make in the situation is to do our own training, be aware of how we ourselves are responding, and not fall back into complaining about others, or blaming them when things don’t work out as we hoped; this is still the case even if their deliberate actions have resulted in the difficulties we now face. Complaining about it in our own mind just causes us to have a disturbed mind, and doesn’t do anything to address the situation. If there are things that we can do to improve the situation, then we should do our best to do them. Having a complaining mind doesn’t help with this at all, and in fact is more likely to lead us to act on our anger or frustration, rather than straightforwardly doing whatever we can do to help make the situation a success.

13th. April.
This is the last day of Jūkai. There are something like four thousand other guests in the temple but, as far as the eight foreigners and I are concerned, close as we are in this huge and magnificent set of guest rooms, close to Zenji Sama, it has been a very, very wonderful time.

Rev. Master Jiyu realises what a privilege it is to be able to spend time with Kōhō Zenji, and to train together in his guest rooms, even if the visitors don’t.

Zenji Sama sent for us again to-day. He wanted us all to have a final tea with him before the eight went back to their bases. One of them was very disgruntled during tea and Zenji Sama, who had been propped up in bed, beckoned me over with his good hand and asked what was wrong.

“Well, Zenji Sama, he feels that there’s been too much tea-drinking and too many cream cakes in here with you. He says he came here to be disciplined and we have not disciplined him.” I felt that it was unwise not to tell the truth.

The old man’s face crinkled into a slightly wicked, impish grin. “Give me that dish of cream cakes,” he said.

“I beg your pardon, Zenji Sama?”

“Don’t argue. Give them to me.”

I gave him the dish. He held it with his one good hand while I supported the other side for fear that he should drop it.

“Call him here,” he said.

I spoke to the young man concerned, asking him to come over to Zenji Sama’s bed.

“My friend,” he said, looking the young man straight in the eye, “I want you to eat this whole dish of cream cakes.”

The young man stared at me. “What’s he talking about?” he said.

“I think his meaning is this,” I replied. “You are saying you came here to be disciplined and you are complaining that you weren’t disciplined. But discipline doesn’t have to be what we want it to be.”

He stared at me again. “You mean . . . .”

“I mean this—discipline can be having to sit and eat cream cakes and drink tea; or it can mean being beaten in the Meditation Hall. Discipline is discipline. It does not necessarily take the form that we want it to take.”

The young man took the dish of cream cakes, put it on the floor, walked to the door and stalked out. Zenji Sama’s chuckle followed him.

You could summarise this story by saying that the young man was complaining that he wasn’t getting the full ascetic experience that he expected from training at the temple, and that Kōhō Zenji replied to him by saying, ‘Well if you want an ascetic experience, eat this whole plate of cream cakes.’ Eating the cream cakes, however, didn’t fit the young man’s image of what he thought the discipline of Buddhist training ought to be, and so he rejected it.

The discipline that Kōhō Zenji and Rev. Master Jiyu are trying to convey here is the willingness to follow; the willingness to follow the teaching, and the willingness to follow where the teacher is pointing. What they are pointing out is that if we have our own preconceived opinions of what training is, and we are unwilling to let go of these, then we are actually holding back from fully engaging with training; we are just doing our own thing still. If we do this then we will continue to be driven by our own confused desires and misconceptions, rather than allowing the teaching to guide us.

If we are willing to submit ourselves to this gentle discipline, then that means being willing to do what is asked of us. This is an essential aspect of our practice, but it is important to realise that it doesn’t mean being subservient or ‘just following orders’. It does involve the willingness to let go of our own views and opinions.

If, when we visit a temple, we are assuming that discipline will be practised in certain ways and not in others, and if we are only willing to do those things that we are comfortable with, then we will never really be fully giving ourselves to the discipline of training. Much of the time it might feel like we are doing very good training and following the teacher’s direction, but if that’s just because we have only been asked to do things that we are happy with and were willing to do anyway, then we are still operating in our own comfort zone. The challenge comes in training when we are asked to do something which either we really don’t want to do, or which we can’t see the purpose for doing. How do we respond when we find ourselves out of our comfort zone in this way?

Of course sometimes it is good to have someone explain to us what the purpose is, but there has to come a point in our training when we trust enough to be willing to follow. That doesn’t mean we will do anything that anyone says, but with particular people, for example with Dharma teachers and other Sangha members, we are willing to follow where the teaching leads. We follow with our eyes and ears open and our brains engaged, but we are willing to let go of our own views and opinions.

An example of this is when people are on retreat at a temple and there is a working meditation period, which is a standard part of a retreat schedule. When someone comes in to give out the jobs, we might be thinking, ‘I’d really like to work out in the garden today’, for example, but then we are asked to help in the kitchen instead. Are we willing to let go of our own views and opinions, our own preferences, and just go along and do that, or do we start arguing and saying, ‘but it’s such a lovely day, and I’m really strong, I could really help in the garden’. Or perhaps it is the other way round and we would rather be in the kitchen, and similar justifications and resistances arise.

Of course, if there is something that we are not physically able to do then we should say so, but that is a different issue. What this is about is the willingness to follow, not our ability to do a job.

Being willing to follow when someone else is asking us to do something is relatively easy to do; it can be much more difficult when what is calling us to follow arises within us, something which we realise deep down is good to do, and yet seems to go against our views and opinions, or how we have done things up until now. When things arise in our practice which are pointing us in a particular direction, are we willing to take that step? Are we willing to step beyond our comfort zone?

We don’t really know whether the ‘young man’ in the story was actually male or female, young or old, as Rev. Master Jiyu often changed these attributes in the published diaries. Whoever they were, however, they don’t yet seem ready to step beyond their comfort zone, and they probably also don’t realise what a privilege it is to have tea with the Chief Abbot each day, something that the other 4,000 people in the temple wouldn’t have got to do at all.

So instead of judging them as being very ungrateful, for complaining about having to drink tea and eat cakes with Kōhō Zenji, perhaps we can be sympathetic to the position that they found themselves in. Then perhaps we can see what a missed opportunity it was in their own Buddhist training, that they weren’t able to make use of these occasions to see the life of Buddha in action right before them, just by spending time with such a senior monk and seeing how he trained in his own difficult situation. It’s interesting that the very first paragraph of that first diary entry on the 3rd of March relates to exactly this. Rev. Master Jiyu writes:

3rd. March.
No time to write this diary before to-day since I have been studying non-stop in addition to attending many ceremonies and giving lectures. The Director gives me no teaching in words; just to watch him every moment that I am with him is an unbelievably good lecture.

The Director was another of the most senior monks, and Rev. Master Jiyu has realised that we learn from people in many different ways, including just being with them. She has realised the importance of hearing the Buddha’s teaching in daily life, from whatever source it comes, a lesson which the young foreigner is yet to learn.

Sources:
The diary excerpts are from The Wild White Goose; The Diary of a Female Zen Priest by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett, pp. 300-303:

Jiyu-Kennett, P.T.N.H. The Wild, White Goose. Mount Shasta: Shasta Abbey, 2002. Print. ISBN: 0-930066-23-5

It can be purchased from Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey’s bookshop:

https://throssel.org.uk/bookshop/the-wild-white-goose/

or from Lulu.com:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/rev-roshi-ptnh-jiyu-kennett/the-wild-white-goose/paperback/product-17e5mz74.html

And can also be downloaded as a pdf from the Shasta Abbey website:

https://shastaabbey.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Wild-White-Goose-Lulu.pdf