INSIGHT AND INTEGRITY
by Sensei Robert Joshin Althouse (c) 2006

"The purpose of Zen is the perfection of character."

Koun Yamada Roshi

"Within light there is darkness, but do not try to understand that darkness;
Within darkness there is light, but do not look for that light."

Identity of Relative and Absolute

Zen excels in helping us realize our true nature, to penetrate the absolute and to shed the illusion of a separate self. This is realized right here, right now and takes no time because it is timeless. What is not so obvious or well-understood is that Zen is also character work that takes years of hard, sustained practice. Without integrity, Zen is a hobby and sometimes the cause of much suffering.

Both insight and integrity are aspects of a balanced Zen practice. We can not have one without the other. One is eternal, non-dualistic and timeless; the other concerns itself with the particulars of life, with problems and complexities, with the personal, relational aspect of life, and with our ability to shudder and grieve. Both have their light. Both have their shadows.

The insight of spirit takes no time or effort, yet it requires great rigor and discipline. It is fond of testing. So this clarity is hard-won, and we are likely to think it the end of our practice, once we have arrived here. For a time it even seems to settle the uncertainties and difficulties of our life. But spirit wants to skip over character work. It takes itself too seriously, too literally, expecting this perfection to be enough. It imagines that it can subdue all of life to its own laws.

So we are disappointed when we realize that we betray the purity of spirit because we can not meet its high demands. We fall out of this practice because we have to. It's archetypal and no one is to blame for this.

It seems for a time that we have fallen out of practice, and if we are not careful, we may leave practice at this point. Even though we take up this character work through studying the precepts, we may not fully enter this door of practice until much later when life delivers an unwelcome surprise on our doorstep. We are face to face with some traumatic suffering and insolvable difficulty. It's unbearable to realize that some losses are irretrievable as we slide into further confusion and uncertainty.

What is critical at this point in practice, is to stay on the cushion. Just keep going. The Buddha-Dharma is subtle. You are learning to honor and even celebrate the full range of your passions, emotions and the honesty of your desires. But you are also learning to discern the difference between keeping your agreements and being ruled by your opinions, judgments and feelings. You may not want to get up in the morning to sit zazen because you don't feel like it, but to stay in integrity with your agreement to follow the way, you will find yourself on the cushion, whether you like it or not. You may not want to come to the sesshin and be in a service position because you are so depressed, but you will honor your prior agreement to do so, without making excuses for yourself.

So at this point, practice is to endure. Practice is enlightenment. You get this when you keep your word, even when it is inconvenient for you to do so. You get this when you actively choose to give value to yourself and to those around you. You get this when you actively contribute to the well being of others. You get this by living your life as a vow, not as a feeling, an opinion or a judgment.

It's sad to realize how little integrity we have in our lives. It takes real courage to acknowledge this. It takes heroic honesty to admit our pretense, that we have been disloyal in most of our relationships, silently celebrating the failures of others. We atone for this, not through guilt or shame or excuses. We atone for this through actively expressing and acknowledging our love and loyalty. We do this, not because we should do it or because it's the right thing to do. We do it unconditionally because it's the way it is. The universe is relational and interdependent. We were born awake and we were born loyal.