It's much like a sport, but it's harder than a sport because your project shifts from being yourself to being Life itself.
Charlotte Joko Beck, from Nothing Special, an interview by Claudia Willke.
Charlotte Joko Beck was a Zen Buddhist teacher at Zen Center San Diego, USA.
This documentary gives a picture of Joko’s daily life and teaching.
Interview by Claudia Willke.
Publication date: 2001
You can't tell somebody what the clue is.
The clue is to be more free of that psychological self that's running you.
And you can't tell somebody to be free, you know.
It doesn't make any sense until you begin to sense it within yourself.
I had a degree in music and the work I did was always with scientists so I've always had an interest in science but I think it's when I met Zen monk, who later became my teacher, Maezumi Roshi, later, that I sensed something I'd never sensed before.
I was about 48 then and began practicing, sort of, I thought I was anyway.
And... What means sort of?
Well, a lot of people think they're practicing, you know, but they're not.
I'm sure I was one of those.
Our lives consist of making lots of choices all the time. We can't avoid making choices.
But the question is, on what basis do we make the choice?
And practice is a lot about looking into that.
We tend to feel that practice is about knowing everything, knowing absolutely how to make the best choice in any situation, that we should be able to do things perfectly and we're very angry with ourselves when we can't be perfect.
Well, the sessions are really controlled suffering. Nobody admits that, but that's really what they are.
In other words, human life gets off track because of our stubborn insistence that life be pleasant in the way I want it to.
In session, you get a chance to face not monumental suffering, but suffering.
Therapy tends to give relief and sitting gives freedom.
When I went to ZCLA I don't think Roshi really wanted to make me a teacher.
I was too radical.
But there were usually lines of people lined up outside my apartment trying to get in.
So he couldn't fight the, you know, the state of things. He made me a teacher mostly because it was happening.
And that's, I think, the way teachers really get made.
You had your 80th birthday this year and you have still a full-time job and even more than a full-time job.
Yeah, well, I think for one thing I have a mind that doesn't give me any great amount of trouble.
Most people are worn out by their own minds and if your own mind doesn't do that it's a big plus.
In the traditional way of teaching Zen called Shikantaza, which is simply to sit. That's what it means, just sitting. There's not the emphasis on relating the physical experience to the mental monkey shines.
It's when they come together, Let the personality and the person begin to integrate.
So we have to go, we have to really go through ourselves to study Zen, to study yourself, you know. Dogen Senshi.
To study the self is, in time, to forget the self. And to forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
Real enlightenment is just a basic change in the way you are.
And just to have an experience for a second where things come together in a certain way. Click, you see something.
Until that can pervade your life, it's not that valuable.
It's just not.
That's just lots of things that you're learning.
Intellectually, kinesthetically.
It's much like a sport, but it's harder than a sport because your whole central project shifts from being yourself to being Life itself.
And no sport is quite as extreme in that respect.
Athletes fall into what they call the zone once in a while, like Sampras was obviously in it today.
And he knows what that is, but I don't think he could just be that, you see what I mean?
That's for some reason when everything is clicking and he forgets himself.
Then he plays beautifully, which is what life should be.
The real thing is just being aware of what's going on.
Because that teaches everything.
A good quote, but of course it would be even nicer if I got it right and I don't know it.
Something like... Something like, stop thinking, stop dreaming, and there's nothing you will not know.
See, that's a simple statement.
Stop thinking.
That means self-centered thinking, of course.
Stop thinking, stop dreaming, and there's nothing you will not know.
