Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Side 24

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2012 So here's a fun idea for an activity! Go check out the Zen Centre and get all zenned out!
Write us when you're done reaching enlightenment and tell us all about it!
Religion | But not really
In his shades and North Face
jacket, you probably wouldn't
recognise Jakusho Kwong-Ro-
shi as a highly influential spiri-
tual leader. But that's sort of the
point—Roshi teaches a layper-
son's version of Zen Buddhism,
which draws little distinction
between the spiritual and the
everyday. When he was first or-
dained as a priest, he planned
to always wear his ceremonial
robes. But when that sartorial
choice garnered more attention
than he wanted (not to mention
a few wardrobe malfunctions),
he switched to the garb of ev-
eryday life.
Though he spends most of
his time leading meditations and
intensive retreats at the Sonoma
Mountain Zen Centre in North-
ern California, he travels once
a year to Iceland and Poland to
visit the two Zen communities
that he helped established. We
talked to Jakusho during his re-
cent visit to Iceland, and learned
about the Icelandic Zen commu-
nity and his role in founding it.
Contemplating the Kreppa
After more than 25 years since his
first visit, Roshi has noticed a slow, but
steady, rate of change with regard to Zen
in Iceland. He once was met with scepti-
cism, even prejudice. “They would give
me a hard time when I'd come some-
times when they ask for your passport
[at the airport],” he recalls. But that has
changed, he says.
Roshi says he is more interested in
noting the differences he's noticed out-
side the context of Zen, in particular, the
financial collapse of 2008. Roshi sees the
collapse as an opportunity for increased
self-reflection for Icelanders: “When
things get bad, people start looking in,”
he says. He proposes Zen practice as a
sort of antidote to the consumerism
rampant both here and in other aff lu-
ent countries around the globe. When
you realise that you are and have every-
thing you need, you don't feel compelled
to participate in the culture of necessity
and consumption. This sort of investiga-
tion needs to happen on a personal scale,
regardless of, or even detached from,
any sort of contemplative tradition. “But
when you don't investigate,” Roshi tells
me, “the problems just go on throughout
history.”
From India to Iceland
But how did Buddha get to Iceland? The
Mahayana Buddhist traditions (of which
Zen is derivative) pay particular atten-
tion to the spatial, temporal transmis-
sions of teachings (called the Dharma),
from the historical Indian Buddha to
the present day teachers. According to
legend, a figure named Bodhidharma
brought Indian Buddhism to China
where it fused with Daoist philosophy
and tradition to give rise to Chan Bud-
dhism. Chan then crossed the sea to
Japan where it became adopted (and
transliterated) as Zen. Then, in the last
century, the Dharma travelled to the
West. Jakusho Kwong-Roshi, born and
raised in California, played his part in
this transmission by founding the So-
noma Mountain Zen Centre in 1973.
In 1986, an Icelandic student visited
Roshi at Sonoma Mountain and invited
him to bring the Dharma to Iceland. Ro-
shi obliged and came to find a tiny, but
excited group of students with whom
he established the group, which calls
itself Nátthagi (“Night Pasture”). But if
this story is lacking in the mythological
complexity that so many of the Dharma-
transmission tales have, Roshi offers me
a more fanciful, fateful version: “When
I was a baby, I used to try and reach as
high as I could on the map, and that was
Iceland.”
Nátthagi is by no means a large or-
ganisation, though it is growing at a con-
sistent (read: very slow) rate. According
to Statice.is, there are 98 people officially
registered with the group. But Mikhael
Aaron Óskarsson, Office Manager and
newly ordained Zen priest, tells me that
the number of practicing members is
even fewer. There's a core group of 15 to
25 people. Many of the others don't come
to events and meditation sits, but have
become official members to support the
organisation—the tax money that would
usually go to the National Church goes
to the Zen community instead.
“It's not really that much per person,
but it adds up,” Mikhael tells me. And
indeed, it has amounted to something:
Nátthagi was originally renting differ-
ent spaces around town—a cellar that
alternated between Zen meditation and
Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, for
instance. But in 1999, the community
applied for and gained status as a legal
religious organisation, allowing them
to receive this tax money. These funds
then enabled them to buy their two
room office at Grensásvegur 8—a clean
and peaceful space in an otherwise ugly,
nondescript office building. There's a
quiet, beautiful meditation hall where
the community holds daily sits, and an
impressive library of books from Eastern
teachers—certainly the largest collec-
tion of metaphysical books I've seen in
Iceland thus far.
Doing Nothing
I visited the office of Nátthagi on an
open house day. All of their daily medita-
tion sits are free and open to the public,
but on this day, members of the com-
munity would instruct anyone curious
and interested in trying zazen, Zen
meditation. The entrance to the office
is through a back door in an alley off of
Grensásvegur. I'm half-convinced I have
the wrong address as I enter. As soon as I
arrive on the fourth f loor, however, the
faint smell of incense makes it clear I'm
in the right place.
A Zen student from the community
sits at a table, eager to instruct newcom-
ers in zazen. I had had a little experi-
ence with Rinzai Zen meditation in
which practitioners sit on cushions fac-
ing the centre of the hall, working with
koanas, Zen riddles that can only be
solved through experience, not logic. A
well-known example goes: “What is the
sound of one hand clapping?” But Nát-
thagi, part of the Soto lineage, practices a
slightly different version of zazen called
Shikantaza, which translates to some-
thing like “doing nothing but sitting.”
And that's exactly what it looks like—
practitioners sit along the sides of the
meditation hall and face the wall, focus-
ing on nothing but breath. The idea is to
empty one's self of the normal contents
of consciousness, allowing a calm, non-
judgemental, non-objectifying empti-
ness to arise in the mind. “Because if it
is empty, it can contain everything,” the
Roshi explains.
Before I enter the meditation hall,
the student points to a bouquet of in-
cense and asks if I want to make an of-
fering of incense. I'm supposed to light
the incense with a candle in the medita-
tion hall, then place it in a pot of sand
to burn. The offering is not some sort of
mysterious sacrifice to a deity, but rather
an experiment in presence.
Like the traditional Zen tea ceremo-
nies, the rite itself is an end, not a means.
The goal is to infuse each motion with
intention and presence until the distinc-
tion between the self and the ceremony
falls away. When I enter the meditation
hall, however, I find the offering and za-
zen much harder than I expected. There
are a handful of students sitting still,
facing the immaculate walls.
My mind races as I light the incense
and it continues to distract me as I sit,
staring at the dizzying white wall. I try to
focus on breath alone, but it's difficult.
That's why they call it practice.
Dharma In The North-Atlantic Nothing but
sitting (for coffee) with the Roshi who brought
Zen to Iceland
Words
Eli Petzold
Photo
Eli Petzold
“
When you realise
that you are and have
everything you need,
you don't feel compelled
to participate in the
culture of necessity and
consumption.„