Zen Road [Publications | “Ryokan: Forgotten by the World” | A new book about Ryokan, by Dominique Blain]
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zen, zazen
and the people
who practice it
– a web resource by friends of Zen monk Philippe Coupey

publications

living in the small things

a new book about Ryokan, by Dominique Blain

Four years ago, Zen monk Dominique Blain stepped into the shoes of Ryokan, the famous Japanese hermit, Zen monk and poet of the later Edo era. The result — Ryokan: Forgotten by the World — has been published in November 2007 by Deux Océans.

Zen Road spoke to the author about his book and his practice.

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Zen Road : Why Ryokan?

Dominique Blain : For me, he’s someone who represents the finest human intelligence. He was a simple monk, a hermit, a beggar, free from everything. He didn’t use the worn-out words of ancient texts to teach. His teaching was alive. He played with children, and his life was always moving toward the essential. He made no compromises, he stripped himself bare, he had a non-dualistic mind, a child’s mind. I find that quite beautiful.

ZR : How did you structure the tale of this man’s life?

DB : I let the character speak. I present him, he speaks and his writings are included. The goal was to totally put myself in Ryokan’s skin. It’s very hard. You have to read a tremendous amount, soak up the man. That’s what interests me in writing: putting myself in other people’s shoes. By reading books, little by little I steeped myself in him, and I made him talk. I went into it trying not to betray him too much, and, like him, to strip myself bare, in order to experience the character through the writing.

ZR : What did you hope to express as Ryokan? What do you have to say about him?

DB : There are already quite a few books about Ryokan; but I was somewhat frustrated, because every time I read one, I thought it showed one facet of the man, but not his whole personality. The only book that exists about the “whole” Ryokan is a purely historical one — it has dates and the things Ryokan did, but I didn’t find any of the charm or poetry of the person in it. There are no books that retrace Ryokan’s entire life with his essential writings. So I wanted my work to be poetic, because he was a poet; I wanted to include those of his texts that seemed essential to me; and I wanted to recount his life in a way that was pleasant to read.

ZR : Did your zazen practice play a role in this project?

DB : The practice is essential: doing zazen and hearing. All of Philippe [Coupey]’s teaching is in there. When we hear a kusen [oral teaching given during zazen], it’s not like reading a book. It’s a teaching which is conveyed, not only through a state of mind, but also through the voice, the sound, the bones, the flesh, the blood: in other words, through a presence. The master conveys all of that, not just something intellectual. It comes into us during zazen whether we want it to or not, and afterwards it comes out in writing.

There’s also my whole life, the “karma” that I’ve been lugging around with me since I was young, good or bad. It’s concrete. You necessarily put what you are and what you feel into what you say or write.

ZR : Did you discover anything when writing this book? Were there any surprises, either about Ryokan, or about yourself?

DB : The big surprise was that, having put myself in Ryokan’s shoes, I fell in love with Taishin! I totally fantasized about her. When Ryokan was 70, he fell in love with Taishin, who was about 40, and he had a passionate love affair with this woman. We don’t know if he consummated it — that’s not the point. But it seems they had a passionate relationship right to the end, right up to the last day. They wrote magnificent poems to each other, which appear in the book.

Otherwise, the thing that most impressed me with Ryokan is that in fact he was a man who didn’t teach anything. His life did the teaching. He exuded Zen, he exuded the Way.

What interests me is “life,” as Deshimaru would say, not what’s written down on paper. An intellectual teaching holds no interest for me. What interests me is people’s flesh, people’s minds, people’s suffering, people’s joy — not the objective of going beyond the self. What interests me is what people live every day, and that’s Ryokan: everyday life, playing with children, meeting people on the doorstep and talking about this and that.

ZR : Do you think that kind of life is still possible?

DB : Oh yes. For me, Zen is a way of living in the small things. You could say, “Hey, I’m going to save the world” or “I’m going to go help people in Africa” — that’s fine, I’m not criticizing that at all. But in the small things of everyday life, we constantly have the opportunity to put Philippe’s teaching — Zen teaching — into practice. Take a really simple example: going into a store and saying hello. Or, if somebody’s in a hurry: letting them go ahead. It seems insignificant, but this is totally what it’s about. In every instant, we should be careful to respect other people and ourselves. So every minute of our lives, we can pay attention to what we are and how to try to live in harmony with others. For me, that’s what Zen is, that’s what’s essential.

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Excerpts from Ryokan: Forgotten by the World,
by Dominique Blain

 

Although they would be used very little, six names would be given to him. “That’s a lot for one life,” he would later say.

To name people is to merely glimpse them. To really meet means to look without words, with the mind of someone who knows nothing, who has everything to discover about the other. It means exposing yourself and risking yourself in the simplicity of being.

The first name is given by his mother: Eizo, “Refuge of Prosperity.”

The father acquiesces and withdraws. The second, by religious custom, at the end of adolescence (fifteen years for boys, thirteen for girls): Bunko or Fumikata.

The third by his master: Ryokan, “Good, Kind, Vast and Generous.” The fourth, for fun: Taigu, “Big Fool.”

The fifth by the villagers: Temari-shonin, “Reverend of the Ball.” The sixth: “Crow” (because of his complexion, similar to the black color of his garments).

Other names are associated with him, less often used: “The Just,” “Never Disdainful,” used when he lived in community or during his peregrinations; or, much more rarely, “Eternally Scorned” (by haughty intellectuals).

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The drama of Ryokan (if we may be so bold) is that he clings to nothing. Without ever expecting to touch bottom, every moment of the day is like the void of an abyss. At his birth, he must have slid on a rock wet with dew at the edge of a ravine, without having the reflex to stop himself…

He is aware of being an idiot and announces it openly. No doubt they are words so true that no sensible person would venture to pronounce them for himself, without feeling immediately concerned. This is Ryokan’s intelligence. He awakens to the singular joy of living. He no longer worries about himself. By abstaining, Ryokan becomes miniscule and hidden, which is his grandeur. He does not know it.

He can burrow for hours at a time in the tall grass, and welcome all the morning dew, the purest, the most delicate, reading, drawing under the leaves, sheltered from the sun, without really noticing the time passing. Small things become big, when you watch them simply grow on their own, outside of time. Seeing, touching, intervening would be an act of indecency against nature, like coming between a child and his dream. Ryokan’s life is like that of a child who has escaped his parents’ supervision for the day, and has taken refuge in a cave in order to see the light better from the inside. When you are nearly in the dark, after a while the light appears progressively, when you don’t expect it, and ends up taking up all the space. Slow as he is, his day is gone like lightning, which he only sees in the moment, a moment of grace. If you asked him what he does in life, or what he does with his life, he would reply: I let things pass. This is not doing nothing, far from it. It is the immense work of the moment. Every minute, every second counts, I testify to it. He has nothing to account for to anyone, except perhaps to himself…

He is a monk forgotten by the world…

What he knows, he does not say. What he does not know, he observes, without defining anything. He does not live his life to be heard, but to let life be heard. Words are like a thorn on the rosebush of the heart. Like the rose, Ryokan’s only usefulness is his silent presence. His scent is there to accompany us all along the path, not to be kept… There are people who are full of themselves and those who are empty, they are the same, why the differences ?… Suffering spares no one, those who are pure and those who are not. Perhaps purity is simply the joy of existing.

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A cold evening in my empty cell,
Time escapes like incense smoke.
Outside, thousands of bamboo,
Above my bed, how many books ?…

The moon comes to whiten half of my window.
On all sides, only the song of insects can be heard.
In all of this, there is an emotion with no limits…
But as soon as you glimpse it, words disappear.

A thousand peaks are frozen by the icy snow.
On ten thousand paths, no trace of man.
Day after day, I do nothing but sit facing the wall.

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Ryokan, L’oublié du monde (Ryokan: Forgotten by the World), by Dominique Blain (Paris: Les Deux Océans, November 2007). Available (in French) from all the usual virtual and flesh-and-blood booksellers, as well as through Zen Road.