Ordinary Mind Zen (OMZ) dates back to 1983, when Joko Beck left the Zen Center of Los Angeles to establish the Zen Center of San Diego. She had received dharma transmission in Soto Zen from Taizan Maezumi Roshi, but had become disillusioned with aspects of how it was practiced. She wanted to cultivate a practice that did not over-idealize Zen and could recognize that meditation doesn’t eliminate our human psychological issues. She was especially interested in developing a Zen that emphasized ordinary life, one that could flourish apart from traditional Japanese temples and hierarchies while still fostering a rigorous practice and deep realization. She developed practice principles which are often recited by OMZ sanghas. In keeping with OMZ’s acceptance of diversity in expression, within a shared foundation, many sanghas have tweaked the principles slightly.
One widespread version of the Practice Principles goes:
Caught in a self-centered dream – only suffering.
Holding to self-centered thoughts – exactly the dream.
Each moment, life as it is – the only teacher.
Being just this moment – compassion’s way.
These four principles were formed to echo the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: recognizing the existence of suffering (dukkha, “unease”), identifying its cause (samudaya, “craving”), affirming it’s possible to find release from suffering (nirodha, “cessation”), and the path leading to release (marka, the Noble Eightfold Path). At OMZ Sacramento, we honor these principles. Our current working version goes:
Caught in a self-centered dream – only suffering.
Clinging, rejecting – exactly the dream.
Here this time, now this place – all gates of liberation.
Being a river for the world – compassion’s way.
The first line reminds us of that our unease and dissatisfaction comes from a basic delusion: that “I” exist, separate from the world. A central teaching of the Buddha is anatman, often translated as “no self.” This can be easily misinterpreted. It doesn’t mean there is no me, no you, no world: it means neither you, nor I, nor the world, are things that can be grasped. There is nothing that has a permanent, unchanging, core essence. All beings exist only in relationship to, and depend on, a vast net that is continuously morphing through myriad forms. The Buddha steered clear of both essentialism (things exist, with a core identity} and nihilism (that nothing exists). We are not who we think we are, and we are not even who we think we are not. The same holds true for all we encounter. If we think our lives are only about us, as if we’re somehow separate from the world in which we’re inextricably embedded, we’ll feel miserable.
The second line of the practice principles invokes the cause of suffering. When we hold on to self-centered thoughts we live in a world limited by our habitual ways of perceiving and reacting. However, it’s not just self-centered thoughts that create self-fulfilling cycles of dissatisfaction. If we don’t examine our reactive emotions, our rote behaviors, our sensations and perceptions, we’ll be stuck with a very limited set of options. When we hold on to our unexamined ways of being, they have a hold on us: we take them as “the truth” of a situation. It seems obvious that if only I had what I wanted or could avoid having what I don’t want, I’ll be happy. So we reach for what we don’t have, try to hold on to the things we like, and push away the things we don’t like. We mistake ourselves for our wishes and our worries. Caught by aversion and attachment we’re less able to deal with whatever is right in front of us. Clinging and rejecting come from a dream of being able to control everything to be just as we wish. But, as Dogen notes in the Genjo Koan: “in attachment, flowers wither, and in aversion, weeds spread.”
The first two principles point to suffering and its origins. In the Four Noble Truth, we reached a pivot point: when we ease off grabbing at and rebuffing whatever comes to us, there is a way of turning ourselves toward liberation, together with all. being. “Each moment, life as it is – the only teacher” invokes this possibility. But don’t be misled. Moments are not brief snatches of time. The Diamond Sutra notes that the past is gone, the future is not here yet, and the present cannot be grasped. There is no time to exist “in.” If you try to exist “in” the moment, you’ll separate yourself from the moment. Moments are meetings – this and that, here and now continuously intersecting, flowing through and with each other. “Life as it is” is a shorthand for this, but the language can be deceptive. “Life as it is” must include “death as it is,” while simultaneously being free of both and liberated through both. In traditional Buddhism, this is called Suchness, tathata, “just this,” the Matrix of the Thus-Come-One. It’s difficult to condense this into a phrase: “Here the time, now the place – all gates of liberation” is our current attempt.
How do we realize this gate of liberation? “Being just this moment – compassion’s way” has an intuitive appeal, but it has the same language limitations as the previous line. It’s fine to say “being” so long as we recognize in our bones this also includes “not-being,” each and both and neither. It’s fine to say “this moment” so long as we realize each moment is forever. When we open ourselves to the spaciousness of the inconceivable and unnameable in the presence of every unique tangible experience, compassion arises. This Way is not a path, but a powerful coursing (“coursing” is one scholar’s translation of Tao.). The Way is not an unmoving, fixed route. we lay our path by walking. “Being a river for the world” is our way of evoking this. It reminds us that a traditional term for people who undertake Buddhist practice is “stream-enterers.” We are all mostly water — with little bits of dust and energy at play.