No Fear
How to develop a fighting spirit and the ability to stay calm in the midst of chaos
As an ordained priest at Chozen-ji, the Zen temple where I live, my main charge is not to conduct weddings, funerals, house blessings, or other ceremonies—but to give fearlessness. "Se Mu I" is the phrase in Japanese, which is sometimes found inscribed in Japanese Buddhist shrines honoring Kannon, the Buddha of Compassion.
Of course, as a priest living at a temple, I also have day-to-day pastoral duties. These come with anchoring our Japanese monastery-style training. People need to learn how to do zazen (seated meditation), for example, and how to help maintain the place. I also help teach classes in ceramics and Chado, The Way of Tea. I assist Zen students when they encounter obstacles in their training, correcting their posture and answering their questions. I pull weeds and cook food.
But the most important responsibility I have is to give fearlessness and take away fear. It is also the most challenging and enigmatic of my priestly duties to figure out how to do.
How does one give fearlessness? One has to start by ridding herself of fear, which is no small task. Fear of failure, fear of missing out or having regrets, fear of losing those we love, fear of not being able to take care of our families…. These are the all too common fears we all confront and ruminate over inside our heads.
Zen training—for me and countless others who have gone through it before me—has an amazing ability to transform and resolve many fears, as well as uproot the propensity to be fearful. And as I have seen my own fear subside through training in zazen and the martial and fine arts, I have been able to look outward more, rather than having my gaze locked up and facing inward. More free to lift my gaze and pay attention to the people and places around me, I'm getting better at noticing whether my presence is adding to others' anxieties or taking those anxieties away. I slow my breathing and drop the tension in my voice, knowing not only that I feel better afterwards, but that the tone of the room can also change. Noticing and resisting my self-centered behaviors—blaming, resenting, and taking care of myself before others—becomes easier and more natural. All of it is enough to know that no matter how hard this training may be, I must keep going.
Like a map to buried treasure, the ultimate value of Zen training isn't in talking about it or just appreciating its existence—though that, too, has some value if it eventually leads to others actually going after the gold that the map promises. As someone who wants to find that treasure, though, I must follow the trail the map lays out, putting my body through the paces and sword swings, sitting the zazen, doing the intensive week-long training called sesshin twice a year, always endeavoring to help others before myself, and making the same bowl on the pottery wheel, over and over again.
On a traditional treasure map, X marks the spot to find a city of gold, the source of eternal life, or some other riches to be found outside of yourself. On the map of Zen, X marks the person you may become after going through the rigors of deep spiritual training, the treasure embodied, and the Buddha you already were all along (but just didn't know it yet). That treasure-person is the one who effortlessly gives fearlessness, taking away the doubts and suffering of everyone around.
Sesshin is coming up again in a few weeks. I, along with a few dozen other committed Chozen-ji members, will be sitting in zazen 8-10 hours a day, doing martial arts, and conforming our bodies to the forms of training, by which I am referring to the prescribed ways to carry out every action of the day down to the smallest detail, even how to hold one's chopsticks at dinner. Wake up is at 4AM and lights out at midnight.
The fears to let go of in that context include my fears of being scolded, of lapsing in my attention to others, and of getting the forms wrong. And yet, at the same time, I must try my best to adhere to the forms completely. What this requires is both caring and not caring, expecting and not expecting. All of which is much more easily said than done.
This map to the true treasure of Zen is a helluva trail to follow. Those of us who are committed to lives of training know we must keep traveling it, to fulfill our charges to give fearlessness and realize our True Selves.