From the Chiasmus Archive: April 10th 2019 "THE ZEN REBELS: OBSCURE HERMITS AND EXISTENTIAL REFORMERS (PART 18) MOTOKO IKEBA"

(Image from http://www.bengerstein.com/motoko-ikebe.html)

Zen, as it has been transmitted throughout the centuries, from China as Ch'an to Japan.  It held within its significant linage of what was known to be the iconoclastic, the rebels, reformist and hermits. I have only taken fragments out of that linage to study, although important, who represent the necessity of reformation within a religious structure.  Despite Buddhism, in its pure form, is a rejection and acceptance of the human condition, the rejection of delusion and the acceptance knowing that one is part of everything.  The non duality.  It is perfect in its simple sentiment as an expressed totality via the masters and monks who have seeked deeply to try and understand reality.  A reality, as we have seen, can be fraught and problematic, as they too have both suffered and endured.  Yet, in a broad simplicity of understanding and developing the Buddha Mind, cultivating the self comes from suffering. But, the questions remains.  Do we really attain enlightenment or does enlightenment attain us? Do we need to seek?

Japan in a unique way despite its isolation throughout history, has absorbed many aspects of not just Chinese culture, but the West too. When Zen was introduced to Japan in the 10th and 11th centuries, it developed quickly into two schools of Zen Buddhism, the Sōtō and Rinzai, different but the same. All focusing on the importance of ridding the mind of delusional aspects of reality and focusing on the practice of meditation. More so the Sōtō school of Buddhism, founded by Dogen, rather than sudden enlightenment approach via Zen's ebb and flows within the turmoil of Japanese culture and political unrest was still  able to maintain as a stalwart representation - a uniquely cultivated state of mind, known as Kensho (perceiving the true nature) Buddhism.  Again, what is fascinating in relation to Japanese culture, which is important to keep in context, particularly when Zen gained prominence in the West during the 1960s and 1970s, more so in America.  Was an aspect of history that may have been somewhat overlooked, that is the scholars and professors of the famous Kyoto University during the 1920s and 1930s, who tried to fuse Western philosophy which they studied into the uniqueness of Japanese Zen. This was known as the 'Kyoto school' as philosophical groups founded in 1913, who heavily drew from early Greek philosophy and later European philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Søren Aabye Kierkegaard.  I feel, without overly analyzing the origins and controversy of the Kyoto school, it is to point out how many aspects of defining meaning.  Is a universal question for all humanity.  With Japan modernizing from the 1800s before Word War Two, like the fine balance of emotions of both weakness and strength within the human mind. The corruptibility of academia and its swing towards where politically it feels the most aligned.  There is shadows of Nationalism and even Marxism, that begins to polarize beliefs like Zen Buddhism.  And like the past, when feudal Japan's corruption was systemic within its society, used as a rule of law over the individual, collectively setting a precedence of control.  Utilizing fear, through its discourse. Then we see the rebel, the iconoclastic and Zen hermit.  Embrace the most powerful of mediums, yet applied in the truest individualistic way.  To reject. This can be viewed by the paintings of the first patriarch of Zen, Bodhidharma.  Under Buddhist persecution in 5th Century China, the lone indian monk turning his back.  Alone, in a cave facing its wall, meditating.

Motoko Ikeba, born 1900. A disciple of the enigmatic Sōtō Priest Kosho Uchiyama, with the many Westerners that traveled to Japan in the 1960s, inspired by Alan Watts and  Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki – probably learned an early and hard lesson. That Zen, despite its attempt at fusing Western philosophy in the 1920s via the Kyoto School, it was after World War Two, that Zen's decline becomes more prolific. Grasping onto as a unique Japanese foundation of Buddhism. The discipline of Zazen, under the Sōtō teaching, is to sit for hours meditating.  For many, this would have been a challenge to say the least.  That and some of the institutionalized structures of Zen, remained only as a visual formality of selling an idealism. To which many enthusiastic Westerners may have been turned off from. But, Motoko, in a true and simple representation of Zen.  Lived a simple life with her husband in a small village within the Hyogo Prefecture, but she was powerful. Motoko, in a lot ways embraced the symbolical power of the feminine, that is both inscribed with the masculine as the  Buddha nature. Used as an insight, to understand the nature of life.  Like the oracle of Delphi and the female shamans of thousands of years ago – in both Europe and Asia. An instinctive knowledge of knowing life and death simultaneously allowed them to hold a wisdom of the now. Motoko embellished these traits and after her husband passed away, offered to give talks to small groups, even publishing a book in 1967.

"...The mission of humans is to cease producing the waves that have occurred up until now as a result of egotism. When that is done, a human being is born for the first time; that is the definition of a human being. Without that experience, no matter how renowned or eminent one is, not matter how great one’s achievement in history is, one is after all a scoundrel, no different than the criminal on the gallows. Without that experience, no matter how respectable one may appear to be, everyone (excuse me for saying this), even the emperor, is a villain on the gallows…. So we have to do zazen. It’s the most important thing in the life of the human being. Other animals are doing zazen naturally, so they don’t have to make a special effort. Even insects, bugs, and worms are all doing zazen.  Dogs and cats discriminate. They have true discrimination. Humans have deluded discrimination. Dogs, cats, and insects are hot when it is hot, cold when it is cold, but they don’t discriminate in delusion as humans do. Humans, too, if they practice zazen, will naturally attain this state..."

(Motoko Ikeba 1900 - 1989)

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(A.Glass 2019)