I’m delighted to share my interview with my old friend, David Dae An Rynick Roshi.
David Rōshi teaches with Boundless Way Zen. He received Dharma transmission in both the Korean Rinzai lineage through Zen Master George Bowman (who received transmission from Kwan Um founder Dae Soen Sa Nim) and in the Japanese Sōtō lineage through James Myoun Ford Rōshi. David is the author of Wandering Close to Home: A Year of Zen Reflections, Consolations, and Reveries and This Truth Never Fails: A Memoir in Four Seasons. He is also a life and leadership coach who works with spiritual leaders from many different traditions.
David and I have been having monthly talks for about fifteen years. At one point in about 2014, I told him about this wild idea that Tetsugan Sensei and I had been kicking around—doing Zen practice with an online group. David moved into his “coach mode” and strongly encouraged us to get it going. And soon afterward, the Vine of Obstacles Zen was born.
In the interview, I asked David about kōan work. Does it work and if so, what does it work for? He answered:
“It doesn’t work. But it can be useful. To come to kōans thinking that somehow you’re going to get something you don’t have, is a danger of koan systems, especially one as organized as ours […]. Just this morning I told the story of a conversation with [George Bowman] early on where I was very upset about something. He listened very kindly for a little while and then said, ‘You don’t expect your Zen practice to save you from your life, do you? And I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I was hoping.’”
David Rōshi goes on to say what kōans are good for, but I’ll leave that to the interview.
Also in the interview, David also gets down-right fiery, and in his wonderfully waggish way, says,
“I think Dogen was pretty shallow in his understanding. It's clear that he had not penetrated deeply enough into the great matter.”
I’ll leave it for you to hear the exculpating context in the interview.
Here’s the version of the old case we talk about:
舉
When Bǎizhàng went up to the hall, there was always an old man listening to the dharma. Then the old man would follow the crowd out as they left. One day, he did not go out. Bǎizhàng asked him, “Who is the person standing here?”
The old man said, “In the past, in the time of Kāśyapa Buddha, I lived on this mountain. A practitioner asked me, ‘Does a person of great practice still fall under karma or not?’
I answered them, saying, ‘They don’t fall under karma.’ With this, my body turned into a wild fox for five hundred lives. Now I ask you, Venerable, please say a turning word for me.”
Bǎizhàng said, “They don’t obscure karma.”
At these words, the old man greatly awakened.
For more on this kōan, see my work-through of it in brief:
Thanks go again to Sam Kigen for editing this and everything at Shake Out Your Sleeves to date.
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