Rev. Danny Fisher

I was sad to hear the news that John Daido Loori Roshi passed away this morning from lung cancer.  Roshi was, of course, the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism.  His important work transcended his own Zen community and contributed greatly to the continued development of Buddhism in America.  We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

I was fortunate to meet Roshi once at Tricycle’s 2001 ”Buddhism in America” conference at the World Trade Center in New York City.  I will remember the patience and gentleness in his eyes as we spoke.

Bernie Glassman, Wisdom Publications and our friend James Ishmael Ford have offered reflections on Roshi.  Others are sure to come.

We held a special memorial observance for Roshi here at UWest today.  We sat silently for a few moments after I read a snippet from one of his teachings:

An ancient master once said: “Thirty years ago, before studying Zen, I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. When I had more intimate knowledge, I came to see mountains not as mountains and rivers not as rivers. But now that I have attained the substance, I again see mountains just as mountains, and rivers just as rivers.”

The zazen of a beginner is innocent. It’s free, open, and receptive. But after a while, it becomes rote. It’s one thing to really practice this incredible Way with the whole body and mind, and quite another to simply look like a Zen practitioner. Much of our practice involves maintaining this freshness, this receptivity.

This teaching is not saying that mountains are mountains; it says that mountains are mountains.

This is the mountain of the nature of all dharmas, the ten thousand things, the whole phenomenal universe. It pervades all time and space, from the beginningless beginning to the endless end. In other words, it’s the body and mind of the ten thousand things—and, it’s just a mountain.

Thus, we should thoroughly study these mountains. When we thoroughly study the mountains, this is the mountain training. Then these mountains and rivers themselves spontaneously become wise ones and sages.

When Dogen says, “thoroughly study the mountains,” he means for us to take these mountains and rivers as the koan of our lives. Whether we look at these mountains and rivers with the eyes of a biologist, a geologist, a hydrologist, a sage, a deer, as the mountain, as the river, the fact is that they are constantly proclaiming the dharma. The river sings the eighty-four thousand verses. Do we hear them? The mountain reveals the form of the true dharma, the virtue of harmony. Can we see it?

When we go deep into ourselves, when we engage Zen practice fully, that practice becomes the practice of all buddhas past, present, and future. It is the verification and actualization of the enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha and all of the subsequent buddhas. It is also the practice and verification of these mountains and rivers, and of your life and my life, the life of wise ones, sages, and ordinary beings.

[Image by Rachael Romero.]