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是松慧海 Korematsu Ekai (1948-)
“We are not working on others, we're not trying to change others, to transform others. Our way is to transform ourselves.”
“Without delusion there is no enlightenment, they are bound together. Enlightenment is limitless, awakening is limitless, so delusion is limitless, practice has no end.”
Ekai Korematsu Osho
"Nem másokon dolgozunk, nem próbálunk másokat megváltoztatni, átalakítani. A mi utunk az, hogy saját magunkat alakítsuk át."
"Tévhit nélkül nincs megvilágosodás, ezek össze vannak kötve. A megvilágosodás határtalan, a felébredés határtalan, így a tévhit is határtalan, a gyakorlásnak nincs vége."
Ekai Korematsu-oshō (b. 1948, known to his students as Ekai-oshō) was trained at the San Francisco Zen Center and at one of the Sōtō head temples, Eihei-ji in Japan. He received Dharma transmission from his teacher, Ikkō Narasaki Rōshi, in 1980 and is currently Abbot of the Jikishō an Zen Buddhist Community in Melbourne.
直証庵 Jikishōan
‘Jiki’ means straightforward or direct; ‘shō’ means proof or satori; and ‘an’ means hut. The practice is the proof—there is no other proof separate from that. The proof, satori or awakening does not come after you have finished—it is direct, here and now.「洞光山 直証庵」 Tōkōzan Jikishōan
In December 2016 the Home Temple project commenced with a ground breaking ceremony. In May 2018, three Sotoshu officials travelled from Japan to present Ekai Korematsu Osho with a certificate and plaque. Tokozan Jikishoan is officially now a Soto Zen temple.
Dharma Lineage
[…]
峨山韶碩 Gasan Jōseki (1275-1366)
通幻寂靈 Tsūgen Jakurei (1322–1391)
石屋真梁 Sekioku Shinryō (1345–1423)
覺隱永本 Kakuin Eihon (1380-1453)
鼎庵宗梅 Teian Sōbai (?-1481)
竹翁宗松 Chiku Sōshō
東嵓善誉 Tōgan Zenyo
木中圭抱 Mokuchū Keihō (?-1569)
不盡善策 Fujin Zensaku
光山善智 Kōzan Zenchi
天庵善俶 Tenan Zenshuku
白翁長傳 Hakuo Chōden (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 開山)
呼鑑恩膺 Kokan Onyō (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 2世)
分外恩鈯 Bungai Ontotsu (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 3世)
要山智玄 Yōzan Chigen (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 4世)
月庭要傳 Gettei Yōden (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 5世)
不滅湛然 Fumetsu Tannen (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 6世)
呉雲實音 Goun Jitsuon
晦堂義賢 Maido Giken
大庵音中 Daian Onchū
大雲元洞 Daiun Gentō
喜山元慶 Kizan Genkei
大機慶道 Daiki Keidō
碧雲大洞 Hekiun Daitō
慈雲孝如 Jiun Kōnyo (1872-1945) [楢崎 Narasaki] (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 28世)
大玄一光 Daigen Ikkō (1918-1996) [楢崎 Narasaki] (Zuiōji 瑞應寺 29世)
直証慧海 Jikishō Ekai (1948-) [是松 Korematsu]
PDF: Sandōkai—Harmony of Difference and Equality by Master Sekitō Kisen
by Ekai Korematsu Roshi
Paper two in: Journal of Integral Buddhism, Vol. 1, 2023. pp. 37-46.
PDF: The View from the Cushion: Zen Challenges to Duality
by Leesa S. Davis
In: Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 10, No. 2, November 2009, pp. 260-272.
PDF: Soto Zen in Australia: tradition, challenges and innovations
by Leesa S Davis
https://www.academia.edu/7586098/Soto_Zen_in_Australia_tradition_challenges_and_innovations
PDF: Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism: Deconstructive Modes of Spiritual Inquiry
by Leesa S Davis
Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010
https://web.archive.org/web/20221113124014/https://vedicilluminations.com/downloads/Academic%20General/Davis_Leesa_S._-_Advaita_Vedanta_and_Zen_Buddhism__Deconstructive_Modes_of_Spiritual_Inquiry.pdf
Ekai Korematsu (b. 1948) : 'return to the spine'
pp. 107-109.During one of Zen master Ekai Korematsu’s teishō (formal dharma talks) on
Dōgen’s non-duality of practice and realization, a student commented that: ‘It’s
like a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg!’ To which Ekai-oshō
replied: ‘What about if they both come together?’ (Korematsu, 2001b).
Through a common witticism, the student throws into question the idea of
anything ‘coming first’. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, we can’t say,
although there is a fruitless search in the mental ‘flip’ between chicken, egg,
egg, chicken and so on that could be said to be experientially illustrative of
Buddhist ideas of the interdependence of all things (pratītyasamutpāda). Such
an unanswerable question is in itself a deconstructive move that throws causeand-
effect relationships into question. But Ekai Korematsu’s simple retort takes
common consequential ideas of causality one step further: ‘What about if they
both come together?’ The whole question of ‘what came first’ is suddenly turned
on its head and questions of ‘what came where’ are swept away with this dynamic
non-dualistic challenge to linear causality.‘Things coming together’ is a metaphor for the mutual dependence or
interdependence of all phenomena. As such, it is a common Zen deconstructive
foil for ideas of linear timebound progression in practice, as it shatters any
conceptualizations of zazen practice and realization being in a consequential
relationship. As soon as a seeker falls into dualistic oppositions of before and
after or ends and means, as in such projections like ‘first I will practice and then I
will be enlightened’, he or she is shown that there is no ‘first this then that’. With
this simple statement that denies any ‘first cause’ and affirms Dōgen’s undoing
of the thought-constructed dualism that poses practice as means and realization
as goal, Ekai Korematsu succinctly underlines the dynamic unity of practice
and attainment as a ceaselessly unfolding process that is fully integrated with
all aspects of temporality and concretely situates the practitioner ‘right now and
right here’.According to Ekai-oshō, there are two aspects to practice: the physical body
engagement [which] ‘is very concrete, and in Zen the concrete aspect is very
important’, and the mental aspect, ‘in which thoughts expand, wander and they
are brought back’. However, ‘it’s not just sitting and watching the scenery, there
is a deliberate effort’. In Ekai Korematsu’s practice instructions, intention, in the
form of ‘effort’, is important for the practitioner to keep the focus on the body.
‘Any thoughts that you attach to, move you away from the body – moving away is
not the required effort, the effort is to return – so how to return – not by thinking,
no, just by paying attention to the spine, coming back, returning.’ ‘Returning to
the spine’ is the most essential element of the whole process and, according to
Ekai-oshō, the ‘closest and most accurate explanation that [the teacher] can give
people is, “just sit with your back straight”’ (Korematsu, 2000).Ekai Korematsu’s emphasis on the posture of zazen and the importance of
formal practice highlights that, for practitioners, Dōgen’s three ‘thinking’
distinctions – thinking, not-thinking and non-thinking – cannot be removed
from his instructions for the physical position to be adopted in zazen. For Ekaioshō,
the ‘essential art of zazen’ is predicated on the ‘steady, immovable sitting
position’. In following Dōgen’s precise and detailed physical instructions, the
thought constructions of the conceptualizing mind are ‘naturally deconstructed’
by being allowed to fall back into non-thinking. In Ekai Korematsu’s teaching,
objectless, formal sitting practice (shikantaza) allows this ‘undoing’ of habitual
thought patterns to occur and enables the practitioner to extend the non-dual
body and mind engagement that begins with practice into all aspects of daily
activities.Speaking of the ‘undoing’ process of Zen practice, Ekai Korematsu comments
that:… in Zen practice, habitual patterns and conditioning are naturally undone.
Everyone without exception is made up of all kinds of habits or patterns, past
conditions, all the packaging – and putting oneself in the sitting naturally
unfolds this – unpacks these conditionings. But it doesn’t mean that these
conditionings go away, that is wrong, rather they become kind of free floating
instead of fixed and solid. The mind is dynamic and flexible. Flexible means
unfolding, unpacking but … it doesn’t mean rejecting or destroying patterns.
(Korematsu, 2000)According to Ekai-oshō, the practice of shikantaza is an ‘opening of the senses’,
not a concentrated ‘closing down’, and it is by ‘being totally open’ in practice
that the undoing or the ‘letting go’ of the hold of thought-based constructions
takes place:…shikantaza is openness, being totally open, all senses open. To concentrate
is to close off, to only focus on one thing. To let go is a crude way of putting
it, a crude level, because letting go implies trying, using the mind. You can’t
let go with the mind, you have to let go with the body and mind. Mind alone
can’t do it, it just becomes another construct. Body engagement is necessary.
(Korematsu, 1999a)A ‘dynamic and flexible’ mind can thus recognize and release thought-structured
conditionings without falling to rejection. But ‘mind alone can’t do it’, the
‘essential thing’ is to ‘return to the spine’: ‘Zen practice is about the essential
thing – simply erect your spine again and again and that which is beyond all conditioning
will be slowly clarified’ (Korematsu, 1999b).
