By Brad Warner
In Tokyo
For part of my visit to Tokyo to straighten things out with Nakano Productions I arranged to stay at Nishijima Sensei’s itty-bitty apartment in a gigantic government-subsidized apartment complex called Takashimadaira. That’s way too long a word to pronounce, so I’ll use the name as infrequently as possible.
It’s one of the largest housing projects in the world, with endless identical buildings stretching on as far as the eye can see. The project has three train stations pretty much to itself, plus its own supermarkets, restaurants, retail shops, and bars.
These places aren’t particularly spiffy, but they’re not bad. In fact, the project itself is a fairly pleasant place, except for the fact that all the buildings look exactly alike. It’s nicely kept up, there’s very little litter and almost no graffiti, and the playgrounds between the buildings are actually safe for kids to play in.
Nishijima and Zen
When I first met Nishijima he was living in a reconverted company dorm belonging to the cosmetics company he worked for. The president of the company was a big fan of Zen and required all employees to attend Nishijima’s three-day zazen retreats at least once every two years.
He had lent Nishijima the building to use as a Zen dojo some years before. Until his wife’s death Nishijima spent three days a week at his home in a Tokyo suburb and the rest at his dojo. After his wife died he moved into the Zen center full-time.
Nishijima’s family viewed his fascination with Zen as something of an eccentricity, one they tolerated but did not much care for. He tried not to burden his wife and daughter with his Zen-related work too much. But he was not about to stop it either.
When the president of the cosmetics company died, his heirs decided they were wasting too much money on useless extravagances like Zen dojos and Zen retreats, and Nishijima found himself abruptly cast out of his longtime home.
He took the move in stride, though, and never complained, seeing it as a natural progression in his life and work. From now on, he said, he would devote himself to teaching Buddhism to the whole world “through the method of blog.”
One of his students had set one up for him, and he was amazed at his new ability to communicate instantly to the entire planet just by typing on his computer keyboard. For someone born in 1919, it must have seemed unimaginable.
A Goal In Business
While I was at Nishijima’s place, I told him about what had been going on with Nakano Productions. I said that they had absolutely no goal for their international business.
“In Zen it’s important to have no goal,” he said. “But in business a goal is absolutely necessary.”
When I tell this story people often have difficulty accepting its apparent dichotomy. How can a Zen teacher, dedicated to a goalless practice, function in the business world where goals are essential? But this is only a problem if you’re too caught up in words and images and too insistent on maintaining the fiction that all aspects of life must be consistent.
Of course it’s important not to be a hypocrite. But there’s nothing hypocritical about practicing goallessness in Zen and making specific, goal-oriented plans when you’re in a business meeting.
Here’s how it works. In terms of the Zen view of the true nature of time, the idea of having a goal breaks down into absurdity. There is only the eternal now, so when would you realize your goal?
But human business affairs take place in a different realm. This realm is essentially an artificial construct of the human mind. As human beings we need to interact with other humans. We provide ourselves with means of support from the wider human community by engaging in such useful fictions together.
Even though, in Buddhist terms, there is no real future, I still have a retirement fund. When I go out for public appearances I plan ahead — not very well, mind you — but I do. I need to know where I’m going, how long it will take to get there, how long I’m supposed to speak, and what Thai restaurants in the area will be open when I’m done.
You can’t function in society if you don’t involve yourself in the fictions society accepts about time. But you do so with the understanding that you’re playing a game.
A lot of people imagine it’d be wonderful to escape from their everyday lives and run off to some kind of spiritual world where everything is okeydokey and they never have to worry about jobs and all the attendant hassles. This is how cults work, by promising a life free from trouble in exchange for believing stupid stuff and blindly obeying the master.
But the truth is that there’s no cult, no church, no monastery in the world that is any less susceptible to politics and basic human bull crap than any company or other organization. The dreams we all have of there being some ideal place where we could escape from all such troubles are all just empty fantasies.
I dreamed this dream myself for a very long time and still find myself lapsing into it. But it ain’t gonna happen. Not to me. Not to you. Not to anyone anywhere in the world at any time….
Brad Warner is the author of Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, Sit Down & Shut Up, & Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality. A Zen priest, filmmaker, and blogger, he lives in Los Angeles.
Excerpted with permission from Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate © 2009 by Brad Warner. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. http://www.newworldlibrary.com or 800-972-6657 ext. 52.