Book Review

Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity
By Soko Morinaga, translated by Belenda Attaway Yamakawa
Publisher: Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2004.
ISBN 0-861-71-393-1

This autobiographical work describes the trials, struggles, and triumphs of Soko Morinaga Roshi (1948–1995), a renowned Zazen monk and teacher who lived in Japan but travelled the world to deliver talks of guidance to the lay community. He wrote many books and articles and was the head of Hanazono University that provides training for the Rinzai sect. He was affiliated with the Buddhist Society of London which he visited every year.

The book is an honest, funny, and profoundly insightful account of the difficulties of the spiritual path, delivered in a spirit of humility and of humour directed primarily at the author himself. There are three parts of the book: Part I, titled Novice, describes Soko Roshi’s relationship with his teachers and the humbling trials of his novitiate; Part II, titled Training, describes the spiritual practices and insights he gathered throughout the long years of his training; Part III, titled Master, describes the spiritual guidance he offered to his disciples and friends. The chapters are short, only two to four pages, with titles such as The Meaning of Courage, The Death of My Grandfather, and To Die While Alive.

The book is a hymn to life lived without expectations, in the present moment.

Its main message is that “there is a state of mind that surpasses cause and effect, a state other than the one in which we seek to gain ‘that’ by doing ‘this’.” It also contains a warning: “living a life solely based on the law of cause and effect – acting in anticipation of future or immediate results – a person will, without fail, come up against a barrier and feel despair.” Such a person will not be able to glide smoothly through the unique challenges posed by old age, illness, and death.

Soko Roshi illustrates the ideal and the falling away from this ideal with real-life examples from his own struggles and from the confusion and challenges faced by others. Particularly dramatic is the story of Miss Okamoto, a nun at his monastery who had served as attendant to his deceased predecessor. She was diagnosed with cancer in her old age. Miss Okamoto had a strong reaction to her impending death: “Not only was Miss Okamoto afraid of dying, she was also ashamed of that fear.”

In such a turbulent state of mind, she came for guidance to the much younger Soko Roshi who understood her problem as lack of balance. She had meticulously fulfilled the demands of day-to-day morality. She “had led a flawless, commendable life,” endeavouring always to do better, “but always with her teeth clenched fast.” What was lacking? Soko Roshi comments: “The kind of effort in which one bisects good and bad and then chooses one over the other with the intent to stack up causes for positive results does not in itself produce peace of mind.”

Soko Roshi uses Miss Okamoto to convey his teachings and insights about the balanced life that simultaneously fulfils the responsibilities of life to the highest standard and keeps death and demise in sight: “Without staring death in the eye, as the perpetual reverse side of life, we cannot live life fully and completely. Of this I am quite convinced.” He adds: “The person who has lived an exemplary life as a member of society will be especially frightened to witness the siphoning away of their own physical and mental power.” According to Soko Roshi, life is not what is between birth and disposal in a coffin. “True existence is birth and death, repeating itself, instant by instant.” The way to live is “always now – just now – come into being. Always now – just now – give yourself to death. Practising this is Zen practice.”

One can easily make the mistake of focusing more on the tangible aspects of the spiritual path and forget about the foundation – the practice of “emptiness.” In Buddhism this means not being empty but rather letting go of clinging and attachments through regular spiritual practice. Soko Roshi says that this spiritual practice is “inexhaustible dharma” – “dharma” meaning spiritual teachings, their practice, and the realities they reveal – which is indispensable for fulfilling the external duties of “exhaustible dharma.” He explains the two types of dharma:

All being is without fail exhausted. But the voidness or emptiness, which is the very foundation of all being, is inexhaustible. That the exhaustible and inexhaustible are not separate is expressed in the well-known line from the Heart Sutra: “Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form.”

Focusing just on the exhaustible, or form, robs us of tranquillity in the evening of our lives and makes it harder to transcend the barriers of old age, sickness, and death. On the other hand, focusing on the inexhaustible alone, misunderstanding it, one can fall into nihilism and pass one’s life in vain. “But there is another way: the middle way, falling into neither extreme. The middle way is called the dharma way of liberation, liberation from both the exhaustible and inexhaustible.” He means that the middle way is the realization that the exhaustible and the inexhaustible are not separate realms, are not opposed and mutually exclusive realities. Liberation is to realize the intricate interplay between the two – temporary form dissolves into eternal emptiness, and the eternal emptiness pours itself into temporary form. Thus life and death are tightly interlinked: “I understand the words birth and death as Great Life, dynamic and dancing lively.”

To fully realize this is doable, though one must “wring sweat of oil from one’s body.” It is a new, transformed way of looking at one’s life that anyone can achieve with practice, seeing even the most dire of situations – dying of cancer – as a play. Miss Okamoto’s last words were: “Looking back, I have led a pretty stuffy life all these years. So I think I’ll just take a ball and go out and play in the woods now.”

Under Soko Roshi’s guidance, during the last days of her life, Miss Okamoto attained what he calls “the samadhi of play,” “samadhi” meaning a state of inner concentration.

The samadhi of play is the state of mind in which one performs an activity without appraising its relative value, just as the child who plays in the sand would never dream of letting someone else take her place. It was with this mind that Miss Okamoto went out to the woods to play ball.

The samadhi of play is not a rejection of the strictures of form, of exhaustible dharma. It is rather a full and deep realization of the limitations of form – of our own body and the external aspects of the spiritual path. The samadhi of play is the discovery of the middle way that embraces the mysterious fluidity between form and emptiness. According to Soko Roshi this is the knowledge, the science, most worth attaining – realizing that form is just a game, a temporary, exhaustible play, and that behind it is an eternal, inexhaustible reality.

Soko Roshi emphasizes that it is in the human heart that form and emptiness intertwine, and so it is only within the human heart that this great knowledge can be attained:

Your heart is the life of the great universe. Our own hearts are the womb from which everything originates, and just as I am a manifestation of the Buddha, so are you a manifestation of Buddha. Therefore, the Zen school teaches that we should not set out to know “everything”; we should investigate that which is closest at hand, our own bodies and hearts. So it is that just by looking into your own tiny mind, you can … realize the truth of the entire boundless universe!

The author hopes that his simple narrative will inspire others to live “each and every instant with great care, aware that just this is the great, dynamic, lively dancing life.”