Gregory Shepherd

A Straight Road with 99 Curves (eBook, ePUB)

Coming of Age on the Path of Zen

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

From fascination to disillusionment and back, a memoir of one man's quest for Zen and spirituality in America and Japan.



In 1971, when Greg Shepherd was in his early twenties, he left New Jersey and joined the Koko An Zendo community in Hawaii. What began as a quest for enlightenment became Greg's confrontation with his own inner demons: his need for approval, his distrust of authority, and his ego-driven fixation on achieving the profound spiritual breakthrough of kensho ("the Big K"). Later, in Japan, he struggled with prejudice and cultural rigidity and found his deeper meditations leading to actual panic attacks over fear of losing himself. Ultimately, he broke with Zen and his teachers to pursue a career in music.

This frank memoir traces Greg Shepherd's meandering path from seeker to disillusionment, and, over a decade later, his way back to Zen and inner peace. We experience Zen practice in Japan and Hawaii and meet Zen masters Yamada Koun Roshi and Robert Aitken, the "dean of American Buddhism" (who had once pegged Greg as his successor). And we understand why Zen was so appealing to the American counterculture and how its profound lessons of focus and detachment remain insightful and important.

Gregory Shepherd has studied Zen since the early 1970s in Hawaii and Japan. He is associate professor of music at Kauai Community College.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stone Bridge Press
• Seitenzahl: 176
• Erscheinungstermin: 19. April 2013
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781611725483
• Artikelnr.: 38412352

Autorenporträt

Gregory Shepherd has studied Zen Buddhism for his entire adult life. He practiced with Yamada Koun Roshi at San Un Zendo in Kamakura and also with Robert Aitken Roshi in Honolulu, where he was groomed to be Aitken's first successor. Shepherd later received a fellowship from Japanese Ministry of Education to research contemporary Japanese music. He is currently Associate Professor of music at Kauai Community College.



Ruben L.F. Habito was born in the Philippines and is a former Jesuit priest turned Zen master practicing in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen. In his early youth he was sent to Japan on missionary work where he began Zen practice under Yamada Koun Roshi. In 1988, Ruben received Dharma transmission from Yamada Koun. Ruben left the Jesuit order in 1989, and in 1991 founded the lay organization Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, Texas. He has taught at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University since 1989 where he continues to be a faculty member.

Inhaltsangabe

A Straight Road with Ninety Nine Curves: Coming of Age on the Path of Zen"
By Gregory Shepherd
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
I return to Kamakura, Japan in 2002 for a short visit. I had left Yamada
Koun Roshi’s San Un Zendo 18 years earlier after a falling out. Now, all
these years later, I stand outside the temple gate, wondering what went
wrong and why. I resolve to recall and write down the events of those days
in order to try and make sense of them. I remember…
CHAPTER TWO
I remember my childhood in New Jersey where I was raised in a strict
Catholic environment that I rebelled against. Rebellion becomes a salient
part of my character both now and later in my Zen practice. The reader also
meets my brother, Paul, a fellow traveler on the path of Zen. Together we
begin to read all manner of esoteric literature and begin our fledgling
practice.
CHAPTER THREE
Paul and I arrive in Hawaii where we promptly become residents of Koko An,
the residential center for the Diamond Sangha which had been started by
Robert Aitken in 1959. In addition to my zazen practice, I read everything
about Zen that I can get my hands on. One of these books, “The Three
Pillars of Zen”, has a section devoted to the personal enlightenment
accounts of several people, including a man identified simply as “Mr. K.Y.”
who has an experience of incredible magnitude.
CHAPTER FOUR
While at Koko An, I have an experience which I am convinced is a true
kensho, or Enlightenment. I will find out for sure soon enough: “Mr. K.Y.”
or “The Three Pillars of Zen” is coming to Koko An to lead a weeklong
sesshin, or retreat.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sesshin begins. I go to dokusan, the one-on-one interviews between
students and the teacher, and to discover to my great chagrin that Yamada
Roshi does not think I’ve had kensho at all. I am crushed, but soon
redouble my efforts at Enlightenment.
CHAPTER SIX
I spend a training period at Maui Zendo in preparation for another sesshin
with Yamada Roshi who will return to Hawaii in several months. At the end
of this sesshin, I ask Yamada if I might be able to come to Japan and study
with him. He gives his permission.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I arrive in Japan and feel immediately disillusioned at the noise and
pollution which stands in stark contrast to my idealized version of a land
of refinement and sensitivity with shakuhachi flutes trilling over still
waters. I go to a sesshin led by Yamada Roshi. He confirms my kensho
experience…but I feel unchanged. Is there something wrong with me? Why
haven't the heavens opened up in jubilation?
CHAPTER EIGHT
I begin my actual life in Japan, learning the language and customs, and
teaching English to support myself. My disillusionment with the country
increases, especially when I am continually gawked at in the streets and
called names along the lines of "fucking foreigner".
CHAPTER NINE
I get to know Yamada Roshi better. One of most striking things I learn
about him is that, despite his cataclysmic enlightenment experience, he has
a volcanic temper on occasion. I find this both bewildering and liberating.
I have a temper of my own and now don't feel so bad about it. On the other
hand, I had thought that enlightenment as deep as his would have elevated
him to a higher plane of existence where he remained eternally unperturbed
by the trials of life. What's going on here?
CHAPTER TEN
I find deep in the mountains an old, abandoned hut near Engaku-ji, one of
the most famous Buddhist temples in Japan. I immediately co-opt it on
weekends for mountain zazen. It is peaceful and serene---until a group of
schoolchildren stumble upon it and me inside sitting in the lotus position.
They are dumbstruck until one of them shouts "Gaijin!" at the top of his
voice and they all go running away as if they have had a face-to-face
encounter with Godzilla. Later on, Yamada Roshi's wife broaches the topic
of my future, implying that I will one day be a "wonderful roshi". This
somehow does not jibe with my feelings about myself---especially since I
have recently been experiencing bizarre panic attacks. How could I possibly
lead others in their spiritual practice if I myself am so imperfect? I fly
back to Hawaii, relieved to be out of Japan.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bob Aitken is now Aitken Roshi, having been "ordained" by Yamada Roshi. He
is now a teacher in his own right, and he makes it clear that he wants me
to be his successor. I still feel wholly unsuited for any such role,
particularly since I am only 23 years old and continuing to have the
baffling panic attacks. The cognitive dissonance between being groomed to
be a Zen master and having unpredictable panic attacks is too much for me.
I resolve to leave Zen life and do what I really want to do: pursue music.
Aitken Roshi is crushed. Neither of us is a good communicator, however, and
we part ways without discussion. A long estrangement begins.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I major in music at the University of Hawaii and begin a Master's degree in
ethnomusicology with a concentration on Japanese music. Despite my earlier
disillusionment with the culture, I still feel a strong pull back to the
country. I apply for and win a long-term Graduate Fellowship from the
Japanese Ministry of Education. I will be studying at Tokyo University of
Fine Arts and Music, and I will be living again in Kamakura. I begin
attending San Un Zendo again, but my relationship with Yamada Roshi and the
senior leaders at the temple deteriorate as I bridle against the
authoritarianism implicit in Japanese Zen, something I feel is an
unnecessary cultural accretion rather than anything intrinsically arising
out of Buddhism. After my fellowship ends, I return to Hawaii without
attempting a rapprochement with Yamada Roshi.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Back in Hawaii, I am unable to find employment in academia. I begin working
as a lowly busboy at a TGI Friday's. I feel that I have wasted my life
because of Zen. I had given up a full scholarship to an Ivy League
university, traipsed to Hawaii and Japan to study Zen---and all I had to
show for it was dead-end jobs. I sink to a very low point.
A year or so later I am offered a teaching position at Kauai Community
College. My economic salvation has come. But I am still deeply unsettled by
the essential dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) of life. A series of events leads
me back to zazen.
Eventually, I return to the Diamond Sangha, but there is still a great deal
of tension between me and Aitken Roshi over my leaving the sangha years
earlier. However, he is now retired, and his successor, Michael Kieran, is
someone I have known for years. We re-establish an easy rapport and I
resume my koan study. In time, I have several Zen experiences that clarify
my existential doubts. For the first time in my life, I feel whole.
EPILOGUE
I return to Kamakura to revisit San Un Zendo. Closure at last.