 Thank you for tuning in to Planet of the Courageous. It is said in the Tibetan view that we pick this planet to learn how to be courageous, which means having the heart to face our fears and our pain. Now, for many of us, the fear we need to face is the one cultivated, created, and rehearsed in our minds. As one friend said, we need the courage to listen to all the screaming in our heads. The classic way to face this fear of mine is to sit down and make friends with the noise. We need mindfulness meditation, being present with what is, and it's quite a courageous act. Today I have a gentleman who leads people in the act of making friends with their mind. He is a Zen teacher at Diamond Sangha, a jewel of Sanity in Palo Alto Valley here in Honolulu. This center was started by pioneers of the ancient Zen practices of Japan, Robert Akin Roshi and his wife Anne. Akin Roshi was a graduate of University of Hawaii in 1947 and contributed to the establishment of Buddhism in the West. Akin Roshi died in 2010 and Michael Kearn is now the senior teacher at the Diamond Sangha Retreat Center. Thank you for joining us, Michael. Glad to be here, Dean. I'm so excited about this conversation. He said it could go on for hours, and he chatted on the way down. But there is something I wanted to share with you. I didn't know if you knew this. Did you know that I am the fastest draw in the West? Bang! This is where you say, no, Dean, I didn't know that. Can I show you? Please. Okay, it's going to take me a moment because it's kind of a Zen moment. Okay. Right here. It just takes me a little preparation here. Okay. That was it. Do you want to see it again? Okay. I'm with you. I had to do it. Let's start with Tonbi, the French historian, who has said to have said that the coming up Buddhism to the West will be one of the major historical factors in the 20th century. A lot has happened in the last century. We have wars. We have the Internet. But what do you think of that coming all together and how you've seen Buddhism help and you could say infiltrate and benefit our culture? Wonderful question. I think it's too soon to tell. China was in, I'm sorry, Buddhism was in China for 300, 400 years before really indigenous forms started to appear. But from this vantage point, obviously mindfulness is widespread. You've talked about that in your introduction. That word. Yeah. Yeah. The word, which means many things in different contexts, that people are starting to pay attention to what they're thinking when they're thinking and actually recognize that they're thinking and that they're feeling something when they're feeling has to be a good thing. And much better than just acting out with no awareness. No awareness. I mean, that their thoughts are happening somewhere else than just in their head. That gets us all into a lot of trouble. So as people can become more aware of that, it's a good thing. In terms of the tradition I come from, Zen Buddhism, it doesn't go nearly far enough. But by that you mean the mindfulness technique. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's a tool in Buddhism. It isn't the end of Buddhism. At least that's how my understanding of it is. It's a profound and wonderful tool of Buddhism to start to get you reflecting on how you're creating your own world or, in fact, how you're kind of getting led around just not sure who's in charge of what if you start to really look at your mind, like how much prattle are you listening to? And just that sense of self-reflection that you're talking about is amazing. But that's what you're also saying. It isn't really the beyond end all of what Buddha spoke about. Indeed. Yeah. So as far as it goes, it's good. And it can be used in lots of contexts, which may or may not be good. Well, what wouldn't be good there? What's your hesitation? A classic example for Zen Buddhists is the way soldiers were trained in Japan to just kill. Not feel that thing. Yeah. And execute the order. Maybe our soldiers are trained much the same way. But in fact, it is a part of the army's basic training now, mindfulness. So I've been in discussion with pretty high-up officers wondering, one person called it the Trojan Horse meaning it could change the military itself. So they're looking at it not just in terms of presence, but also in terms of opening it up in a wakefulness. Our soldiers are now being asked to be ambassadors in all honesty. So that's a whole different subject. Let me go back to something that I'd like to talk about. Not that anything's off the table. Right. But each of these could go on and on. Wherever Buddhism has, you could say, I'm trying to find another word, infiltrated or influenced or come into another culture, it has both influenced that culture and been influenced by that culture. Buddhism started in India, actually in Nepal now, goes to China and it meets Confucianism and Taoism. It gets changed. It gets mixed up. Everything comes out of it. Dogen goes to Japan, first Patriot, not first Patriot. Dogen goes from Japan to China. China. It comes back. Right. It comes back. And then Japan meets Shintoism and the local deities and the local culture there and influences it. Now Buddhism comes to the West and I think we're back to Tony again. What influences do you see happening in America right now? And I granted... Yeah. We granted it early. We granted it early. We're not into a three to four. And on the other hand, we both are sitting, that's kind of a pun. We're both sitting on 40 years of looking at this thing. So how do you think it's going to be influenced by Christianity, by American values? And consequently, each one will leave its mark. I think two of the most significant ways that Buddhism is being changed in the West is what might be called the Laosization of Buddhism, that it's becoming... The Buddhism that comes to us was a male monastic tradition and it's not to say there weren't enlightened laypeople and women. There are many and they were wonderful teachers. But the primary tradition that comes down to us and has been recorded is that of men that were practicing together. Because this tradition has entered our culture, it's become a practice of laypeople. And in my particular tradition, it's being taught by laypeople, rather than ordained priests, professionals as it were. And I think that's a really important change. Huge. Huge change. Yeah. Along with that comes a concern for the world. What happens in our world, what happens to the planet, what happens to education, what happens to women, how are women treated? All of those questions become part of the purview of our practice and not somehow outside of it. Right. Right. And it really can't be emphasized almost how new of an experiment it is to have a lay tradition. Fundamentally, Buddhism has been a monastic tradition. And I know what Trimper Rinpoche talked about that. He said, householder yogi, he says, you know, you've got to... You're going to be the first people, culture, that try to make this work. And one of the things that you mentioned, I think, is for sure going to mark Buddhism, which is feminism. Just that we're waking up to the beauty of the feminine and that it just isn't appropriate anymore to have a patriarchal gig going on. Yeah. We miss too much. We miss too much. You know? And so there's one thing that you say would mark it. And I would... We've talked about this, you and I, on occasion. Psychology is both going to leave a mark and be marked by Buddhism. I had a friend that says, you can't turn around without a course on mindfulness and psychology. Yes. So speak about that, too, about the psychological influence, because it's certainly a religion of our time. It is indeed. And from the earliest days with Diti Suzuki, these things have been meshed together in ways that I think have certainly benefited psychology. It's given a language for Western people to talk about part of Zen training or Buddhist training and what happens. Of course, Buddhism has its own very rich vocabulary for psychology. But I think maybe to the detriment of other qualities, I'll give you an example. One of the well-known teachings of our way is to take one's attention and turn it around on itself. When many of the current translators have translated that into English, they say, turn the light within. But it doesn't say that. It just says turn it back on itself. In other words, you're looking at the mind that is thinking. You're looking at what thinks. Yes. You're looking at the mind or the awareness that thought is contained in. Yes. Yes. Which is a whole different thing than turn the light within. Right. So part of what I find happening with a lot of the people that I meet that are coming to our practice, they think that this practice is one of observing. Right. Right. Right. Right. So they sit and watch their thoughts or watch their feelings. I know. For years. You can do that for decades. Yes. Right. And it's what the old Zen teachers used to call nothing happens Zen. Yes. Of course, nothing happens anyway, but in the best of ways. In the best of ways, in the freshest of ways. Yes. Nothing happens. Yes. But we don't get to that point by just observing. And furthermore, it continues and perpetuates a kind of divided life. Yes. There's still a duality going on there, re-watching something. Yes. I know that whole watcher thing of the mindfulness movement is just quite frankly a bit disturbing to think that that's where it's going to get arrested, this inquiry into the actual nature of mind, you could say. So it's interesting to see if that movement can make the next step. Obviously, as I said before, it's much better than acting out to be aware that you're angry is a lot better than... Maybe you wouldn't tweet quite as fast back to or use quite as many cruise missiles. Maybe. Maybe you'd actually have a moment of contemplation or do I have to follow that thought? Is that thought really worth following? You know, again, in the Zen tradition, you've got blessed by the beats, picking up the beats, you could say. Of course, Periwax's famous book, Dharma Bombs. But Gary Snyder, going back to the things of what our culture is going to bring to Buddhism, is, I think Gary Snyder had a quote where social activism, the carrying of other people that's so beautifully stated and moved on in Christianity, is something that the Buddhism is now just kind of waking up to called engaged Buddhism. So I'm going to ask you about that because that seems to be something that is a real upside to lay Buddhism now. Indeed. Yeah. So go ahead. Talk about social activism. Yeah. Some people say it's an oxymoron. Oh, yeah. Engaged Buddhism. That Buddhism, by its nature, is engaged. And again, this is, as we move away from the turning within, from the idea that my mind is inside of me, to the realization that this table is mined, that you are mined, I am mined. It's not something within. The bombs are falling, our mind, the gas in Syria and all of that. So that too merits our attention. That too is our life and is what we need to attend to. Obviously it can be overwhelming. And particularly if the way you take it in is through the TV or some screen or some news media, the point is not to put your head in the sand, but somehow to open up and include in your practice, in your quest for liberation, everything that's around you. My name is Calvin Griffin, host of Military in Hawaii, which airs here on Think Tech Hawaii every Friday at 11 a.m. Please join us. We'll be talking about issues concerning our military, veterans community, and other related issues that concern all of us. Aloha. This is your host Beatrice Contelmo. Come and join us every Friday at four o'clock on Perspectives of Global Justice. Hi. I'm Stephen Philip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in Hawaii. And I do a show called Shrink Rap Hawaii, where shrinks and sometimes other people come on and talk about the art and science of psychology, talking to people, relationships. So if you are curious about shrinks and want to be shrunk and don't know where to go, tune in to Shrink Rap Hawaii. All right? All right. I want to go back to a certain point, which is the stress reduction, which is really how mindfulness, you could say, has been sold. And I don't mean to be callous about it. Again, we're both in agreement. Man, have some self-reflection, have some space between thought and reaction. We're good to go with this in terms of Buddhism entering the mainstream culture. Start to know your mind. Start to be brave enough to actually look at those thoughts. Good to go. Stress reduction, though. They say the loss of productivity in our country, leave it to us to figure this out. Right. This would be the terms that we think about. We can understand $300 billion loss in stress, and you and I could go on forever about this, especially if we start talking about iPhones and distraction and how people really just don't know how to be present at all, much of, at all, just like it's been robbed from them. They're so, they're always ahead of themselves. But stress reduction now is in 200 hospitals. We have two schools here doing empathy and compassion. It's in every level of schooling now, from grade school, preschool, high school. Pete Carroll Seahawks, mindfulness. Of course, Philip, the coach of the Chicago Bulls, Philip Jackson, famous for practicing Zen. So let's talk about the upside again of the stress reduction part of how Buddhism is helping our culture. That was to you. It's to you now. It's to you, Michael. Well, I think you've named a lot of ways in which it's doing that. To what end, we might ask. And your introduction in terms of loss of productivity, I think, is revealing of part of the motivation for doing it, at least by various corporations and things that are interested in those things and must be and need to be. I like to think that there's something important to recognize in the fact that so many people are stressed out and anxious, that basically our situation, our way of living, is becoming more and more untenable. Damn right I'm anxious. I'm hanging by a thread. Is that something to just kind of quiet down and look away from, or is it something that could be a source? Right, right, right. Are you putting a band-aid on with this one, or are you actually going to look at the problem? Yeah. The reason you're feeling crazy is because we're living crazy. I mean. Yeah. So I think mindfulness can help us look at that and take stock of that as well. And that's important. And again, it needs to go farther than just coping. Beautifully said, farther than coping. Although. Nothing wrong with coping. Nothing wrong with coping. But don't stop there. Nothing wrong with having a few moments of self-reflection so that there's a space of, Steve Covey said, the millisecond that changes the world, world because it's the difference between reaction. You have a second to actually say how you're going to act versus just react. Yes. That's a pretty profound second. Indeed. To do, yeah, really. One of the things I want to tee you up for is that we talk about, is Buddhism a religion? Well, Buddhism is many things. Make me one with everything. That one? That's a good one. The pizza joke. It's a bit like, you know, my brother and I have the same mother, but we're not the same people. And all the many forms of Buddhism have the same origin, but they've branched out in very different ways. Some are more religious in orientation. Some are less so. And I think one of the hallmarks of religion, as it's generally thought of in practice, is belief. Belief in a creed, belief in a certain history. A lot of Buddhism doesn't have that, and Zen certainly is not, that's not an important part of it. The thing that's at the core of it is this right now, who is hearing these words. That's what we need to investigate. And in order to do that, we have to get our beliefs out of the way. And all the concepts and ideas that we've filled ourselves with and misidentified with over years and thousands of years, really, as a people. So that's a different kind of inquiry. And I would say that that still is fundamentally religious. We could disagree about whether that word applies or not. But I think where it does apply is in that we're talking about the unknown, and we're moving into the unknown. So in some religious teachings, they want to take that unknown and put beliefs in there for you, something for us to hold onto and believe in so that we can move forward in life and have positive values and believe that that's going to work out. Zen takes that away pretty much and says, but still you need enough belief, enough trust in the teaching and in the practice itself to try it. To do the practice. Yeah. Yeah. There has to be, like, you believe that your teeth are going to be better off by cleaning them. You do have to believe that your minds are going to be better off if you sit by yourself and actually get to know your own head space. I mean, you have to have that trust. To get started. Yeah. And then he says, by the way, this happens, and then that happens. You get excited. You get turned down. You go, well, they might be something to actually learning how to sit in silence. Yeah. Sit in presence. So let's go to yet another kind of exciting direction that it's gone with. Einstein said, if there's any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism. And your own teacher, Aiken Roshi, has a famous quote, the practice isn't to clear up the mystery, but to make the mystery clear. Yes. What is this almost a darling quality of Buddhism for quantum physics people? I think it's because it's empirical. It's empirical. Yeah. Because it's based on experience. It's a based on experience. Beautifully said. Yeah. Right. You don't have to believe anything, but you have to have that willingness to do it. But then the experience is... And let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. Right. Let's check it out, clushly. Yeah. Where it differs, I think, is in a couple of areas. One of the things that we don't do in Buddhist practice is form a hypothesis. At least in Zen, that's not going to help you. And then test the hypothesis. You have to remain open to what shows itself. And that becomes quite a challenge for us. In science, in scientific method, you have a hypothesis and then you test that. But I think we come to understand in Buddhism that just having a hypothesis already influences your experience. And it's really part of the discipline of science to try to not let that happen, to try to be open one way or another, but you've still created a kind of framework of does support the hypothesis or does not. And things beyond that framework are hard to take in as significant. Because you've limited the framework. Yes. Yeah. So, because of checks and balances, there are one of your ways of seeing. We've got a hypothesis. And some ways your hypothesis or one of the tools that you've used in Zen practice is koin. The koin practice is a hypothesis in some ways. Figure this piece out. And particularly, you just finished your spring seshi. Yes. So, again, take us now inside that moment where a koin is being presented, this kind of paradoxical question of which I'd love if you would share one. And then there's this dokusan, I believe it's called. It's a very intense interview, a lot more formal than this. There's lots of bells going off and lots of bowing, right? Take us inside that a little bit. Because the koin seems to be part of the proof or part of the hypothesis that the science of Buddhism speaks about. The experience. Interesting. We're talking about experience now. Yes. Yes. The koins are really matters of the fundamental nature of our life laid open for us to see clearly. The Chinese means simply public case. It's completely open. There it is. It's a misnomer that these are devices to tie up our intellectual mind. The truth is that we can't see them intellectually. We have to see them directly. And it's not that there isn't some intellect involved, but experience has to be primary. Deceptical understanding can come out of that. But the matter opened up in the koin needs to be experienced directly. So... A vividness. A vividness of a wake. Yeah. We could... Call it a... Yeah. I'm going to try not to describe it, but to leave it at that. Many koins in Zen begin with the question, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? Bodhidharma was the purported and semi-legendary founder of the Zen tradition. And we find out that tea came from him and kung fu and all these various things. But anyway, the question means that Buddhism had been in China for 300 or 400 years already. The practices of Buddhism, the teachings, the sutras. But what about the Buddhist realization? What about that? What happened when the Buddha looked up and saw the morning star? That's the question at the heart of why Bodhidharma came from the West. To bring that. Beautiful. It has that spot. Thank you. So, a monk once asked the master Jiao-Jiao about that. And he said the oak tree, or really the cypress tree, in the courtyard. End of story. End of story. Yeah. It's up to each of us to understand, realize the truth of that. Right now. Right here. Yeah. Right now. If we turn it into a principle, well, everything then is the reason. No, that's not it. No. It's not everything. It's not the intellectual idea. Everything is an idea. Yeah. Beautifully said. There's so much to talk about. I want to talk about aesthetics and wabasabi and so much, but I'm afraid that we've, at least for this go around, we've run out of time. But I think we've thrown out a few interesting concepts, and I want to thank you so much again. My sign-off is always the same. It's be kind, be courageous, do some good, and have some fun. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I look forward to seeing you again. Aloha.