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우광 Wu Kwang
born as Richard Shrobe (1942-)
Zen Master Wu Kwang, (Richard Shrobe), is one of the first American students to receive transmission from Dae Soen Sa Nim and is the guiding teacher of the Chogye International Zen Center. He is authorized to perform all the formal teaching activities of Zen, including the traditional kong-an practice of private interchange between teacher and student. He has been practicing meditation since 1966 and received formal certification, or “ inka, ” from Dae Soen Sa Nim in 1984. He received dharma transmission on August 1, 1993. Soen Sa is a practicing psychotherapist with an M.S.W. and B.A. degree in music. His teaching emphasizes that “Zen is everyday life and everyday life is Zen.” His books include Don't-Know Mind: The Spirit of Korean Zen (Shambhala, 2004), Open Mouth Already a Mistake (Primary Point Press, 1997), and his latest, Elegant Failure: A Guide to Zen Koans (Rodmell Press, 2010).
https://web.archive.org/web/20120307091210/http://sweepingzen.com/2011/02/01/elegant-failure-a-conversation-on-koans-with-richard-shrobe/
http://www.chogyezencenter.org/
http://www.thethreetreasures.org/wukwang.htm
Wu Kwang Richard Shrobe Interview
Posted by: Sweeping Zen December 24, 2009
Completed on October 03, 2009
Wu Kwang (born Richard Shrobe) is a Korean Zen teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen, a dharma heir of the late Zen master Seung Sahn. He currently serves as Guiding teacher of the Chogye International Zen Center of New York and at Three Treasures Zen Center of Oneonta. Before coming to Zen practice, Shrobe studied with Swami Satchidananda and lived for four years at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York. He holds an MA in social work and studied Gestalt therapy for six years, including some time training with Laura Perls. He has taught psychiatry and Gestalt at the university level and also did undegraduate studies in music, studying piano some of that time under the legendary jazz pianist Barry Harris. To date he has authored three books: Open Mouth Already a Mistake (1997) and Don't Know Mind: The Spirit of Korean Zen (2004) and Elegant Failure: A Guide to Zen Koans (2010).
Transcript
SZ: How did you become involved with Zen practice?
ZMWK: Around 1966, I began practicing meditation under the guidance of a Guru in the Indian Yoga/Vedanta tradition, Swami Satchidananda. I was a fairly serious student and had some good experiences with this practice. However, by the early 1970's, I began to feel an affinity with the philosophy and practice of Buddhism through reading books like Zen Mind Beginner's Mind and Trungpa Rimpoche's, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, etc. During that period, my meditation practice became oriented toward simple open awareness without much technique. Then I met Zen Master Seung Sahn, and became his student. To be honest, at that time, I didn't feel that I was actively looking for a teacher. I was introduced to Seung Sahn by some friends of mine from my yoga period who had sat a few retreats with him. They took me to a weekend retreat at the Cambridge Zen Center where I had my first interview with Dae Soen SaNim. During the interview he told me that he had a Zen Center in New York City where I lived.
SZ: Zen master Seung Sahn is known the world over—a very strong and clear teacher who, while I never met him, had an impact on my own life. Could you please tell us a bit about your late teacher and give us a sense of what kind of person he was?
ZMWK: Zen Master Seung Sahn (Dae Soen SaNim) was a very warm and inviting human being. He was also quite open and not culture bound. I think that that was the reason why he could connect with Westerners easily. He had a strong center and focused determination which were clearly the functional expressions of his “Great Vow” to teach the Dharma and save all beings. His teaching style was quite clear and precise and he could use humor and story telling to connect with students and get his point across. At the same time, he demanded sincere involvement with formal practice and everyday life practice, i.e., his maxim, “Try, Try, Try for 10,000 years non-stop.” He had incredible energy and presence in spite of his having fairly serious health problems, diabetes and over the years many complications stemming from it.
SZ: You practice Gestalt therapy, which was founded by Fritz Perls, his wife Laura, and Paul Goodman-a form of therapy which shares some similarities with Zen. For one thing, there is a very strong emphasis on experiencing one's situation as it is this moment. Gestalt also emphasizes that we are not truly separate from our environment and, when we believe we are, it is a disruption in the cycle of contact. Tell us a bit about what drew you to this orientation and some of the ties between the two you may have observed.
ZMWK: I was drawn to Gestalt therapy, as you say, because of its many similarities with Eastern thought. I was first introduced to Gestalt therapy in the early 1970's, before I met Zen Master Seung Sahn and formally became a Zen student. At that time, I was working as a counselor in a drug rehabilitation center. I was intrigued by the way Gestalt therapy used heightening awareness and inviting the client to just “own” their experience rather than actively trying to change or get past their blocks or resistance. I could see that this was an application of meditation principles within an interpersonal context. Then when I began to read Gestalt literature, I found a process oriented philosophy that in many ways was similar to Vedanta and Buddhist ideas. Also, the idea that the client has all they need already to be whole and the practice of the therapist not being the “expert”, but encouraging the person to explore their own experience rather than being attached to their ideas and intellectual forms of reference seemed similar to Zen.
SZ: You studied music with one of the greats of jazz, pianist Barry Harris. Anyone who doesn't know of Barry should listen to Lee Morgan's Sidewinder to get a taste. Tell us about the role music has played in your life and also a bit about Barry.
ZMWK: Music was one of my first “gates” into spiritual practice. While playing the piano, I would occasionally have the experience of dropping the dualism of piano player and the instrument. At those times, there was just the music. The subtle divisions of music, instrument and musician were not there at those moments as well as a self conscious evaluative checking of “was I playing well enough”. That experience was freeing. I met Barry Harris before my involvement with Asian teachers of Yoga or Zen. Barry, like them, is very warm and inviting. He loves to share his knowledge and passion for music. He is also a very strong and determined individual who believes in what he is doing one hundred percent. He has been a great role model and encouraging presence in my life.
SZ: Just out of curiosity, do you still play jazz piano professionally at all?
ZMWK: I don't play professionally, but I do still get together with other musicians to play. In addition, there are two other teachers in the Kwan Um School of Zen who also were or still are professional musicians and on occasion we will play together at Sangha events.
SZ: You have authored two books to date—Open Mouth Already a Mistake and Don't Know Mind. One could almost look solely at these two titles and get a little taste of the Korean approach toward Zen. Taking an example from your tradition, don't know mind might be sky is blue or grass is green-everything complete just as it is, no need for commentary. Is knowing this, from the intellectual standpoint, at all sufficient?
ZMWK: Obviously knowing this from an intellectual standpoint is not enough, anymore than a picture of food will satisfy your hunger. One has to practice and begin to let go of attachment to dualistic frames of reference like subject versus object, etc. Then one begins to enter the experience of “moment mind”. In the realm of moment mind, everything just as it is, is enough, so you are also enough as you are moment to moment. Out of this springs forward warmth, compassion and clarity. To my mind, that is the direction of practice, manifesting clarity and compassion according to the needs of the situation.
SZ: You said, “One has to practice and begin to let go of attachment to dualistic frames of reference like subject versus object, etc. Then one begins to enter the experience of “moment mind”. Is that the realization of satori or is satori, as your late teacher might have said, “just a teaching word”?
ZMWK: Suzuki Roshi says in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind , ”If you want to live in the realm of Buddha Nature, then you must die as a small being moment by moment.” What is most important for me is not whether we call this satori or Kensho or any other term, but that we try sincerely to actualize this. My teacher said that one moment of clear mind is one moment of enlightenment. The rest of the time you may be thinking, just don't be bothered by your thinking. I think this is a saner approach than trying to attain some kind of “breakthrough” experience. But if that comes, great!
SZ: In the kong-an tradition of your school, I believe the first answer is always given by the student striking the floor-indicating primary point. What is primary point?
ZMWK: Most of the time, especially with newer students, the first answer in a kong-an interview is hitting the floor, as a demonstration of the mind before thinking, before words and speech, name and forms; before ideas, concepts and opinions. In the Zen tradition, the primary kong-an (the One Big Question), is sometimes referred to by the term Hwadu in Sino Korean or, I think Wato in Japanese. Hwadu literally means “word head”. So Hwadu is really not the words of the kong-an, but the mind point that the words give rise to. It is before speech and words and ideas. This is primary point. Hitting the floor is like pressing the clear button on a calculator. The screen is now empty and ready so if you press one plus two, you will get three. But hitting the floor should not be just a mechanical act. At that moment you “just hit the floor completely” letting go of everything. Then you can relate to the point of the particular kong-an directly and give a clear answer.
SZ: While it should not be a mechanical response, I can see that initially it could feel that way for the student. The same can be said for chanting, prostrating, zazen, kinhin —any form of ritual. Is there a kind of causal relationship between the mechanical and natural expressions of Zen practice?
ZMWK: I see the “mechanical” as attunement devices to what we already innately have or are. For example, if you were to practice something like stabilization (Shamata) and insight (Vipashanya) meditation, it is not that you are creating stability of attention and insight or clear seeing. As the Sixth Patriarch says in the Platform Sutra, “the nature of the original mind is already stable or quiescent and clear or aware.” He uses the term Samadhi and Prajna and says that these are not two and shouldn't be seen as sequential. So any ritual device just points us back toward ourself.
SZ: Zen master Wu Kwang, thank you for this opportunity. In closing, what book or books might you recommend to those interested in reading up on Zen Buddhism?
ZMWK: I would encourage reading two books by my teacher: Dropping Ashes on the Buddha and Only Don't Know. I also like Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Suzuki Roshi and Each Moment is the Universe by Katagiri Roshi. However, I wouldn't recommend the last one to new students.
