My Zen Experiences.

When I recited the Maka Hannya Haramita Shingyo or the Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom, Heart Sutra in Japanese before a group of Japanese housewives who were waiting to pick up their children from the Yo Chien or kindergarten where my children too was attending, they flipped! One or two almost fell backwards with their eyes popping out. Soh Ka! The ladies out of curiosity were wondering if I could understand Japanese and so I decided to chant the heart Sutra to them and this was Zen! This was zen expressing itself to turn the universe upside down or at least a group of Japanese ladies who henceforth had a healthy respect for this Malaysian gaijin who could recite a sutra in Japanese that they could comprehend but could not do it themselves.

One evening after finishing the last set of white China bowls that were used for the soup at Green Gulch Zen Center, I was stumped by the sight of a white lotus of a thousand petals floating just above the green tray that they arranged in for the washing in the steam washer. I had washed all the dishes that had been used by some two hundred odd guests for the weekend at Green Gulch and I did it all by myself while wearing my black and white robes like a typical Zen monk, it was my moment of being in the now with no thoughts or ideas present except to carry out the task of washing dishes and the result at the end of the task was the white lotus that floats from the circular wash rack. As i stood looking at the surrealistic manifestation I noticed a figure standing on the other side of the table from also watching and as I looked at my teacher, Paul Disco, he bowed to me with his hands in Gassho and I did the same back and he said."Sometimes it happens, don't it?" I nodded and when I returned my gaze back to the flower I was staring at a rack of cleaned white heavy China bowls and Paul was drifting away out the door. I never told anyone of this incident but it freaked me out for a while in a very pleasant manner. This too was part of Zen Practice that is not to explainable as to why or how the mind works, but how it can be made to work.

One evening after almost five hours of nonstop weeding of rows of spinach along with my Japanese friend Tsuyoshi Miyoshi I ended up laying flat on my back in between two beds of the weeded spinach. My neck was laid across the handle of the Japanese weeder and my head hung tilted upwards and backwards looking at the sky and low hills behind me. The clouds were pure white and moving across from one corner to the other of the hill and all was silent. I turned my head slowly to look at the spinach bed and I saw baby plants growing out of the ground twisting and turning like in a time lapse documentary movie," You can never fully remove your thoughts, like weeds they will keep on growing and like white clouds in the sky you will have to let them go." I was rudely awakened from this reverie by my friend's fierst yell. "Buta!!" as he leaned upon his weeding hoe looking down at me with his big toothy bespectacled Japanese grin. This shout also known as 'Kia' was a practice between us to see who had stronger ki or chi and the word Buta simply means pig. Immediately after this episode both my Japanese brother and I marched into the Zendo or meditation hall and sat side by side in deep Zazen. We or at least, I never mentioned this to anyone till now. 

At the end of a seven day sesshin held at Green Gulch there was held a gathering of poets from all over the west coast of the United States and it was in honor of Allen Ginsberg, the well known American poet and activist of the Hippie era. They came from all over the country filled up the Zendo that could hold over three hundred people if closely seated. I did not vacate my zafu even though the sesshin was officially over, I just sat there and listened to what was going on. At one end of the Zendo a panel of three people sat with Allen Ginsberg in the middle and if I remember it was Steven Levine and someone else I cannot remember. As the gathering was going on with people reciting their poems and so forth I sat and listened until at one point all sound disappeared and i was looking at a sea of faces. I felt my stomach acting up like i was going to let out a big fart and i almost panicked trying to hold it down for fear making a fool of myself.

Then I felt like a gurgling sensation of water or air rising from my lower abdomen and towards my throat and i fought myself trying not to throw up.  Then as it rose to my mouth my I felt it forming words and escaping into the Zendo loud and clear. I was reciting the Surah Al Fatihah, the first surah of the Quran. A part of me was telling me I had done it, I was going insane reciting the Quran in the Zendo in front of over two hundred Americans but another part of me was the little boy that I was as I was being taught the Quran along with my childhood friends in my village back home in Malaysia; I was not scared, I was happy. The lines came out of me loud and clear and when it was over there was total silence, the gathered crowd was quiet. I looked up and my eyes was held by those of Allen Ginsberg who shouted at me from the end of the room where he was sitting, "You have to do it didn't you?!" 

The whole meeting was over after that and as i was walking out of the Zendo along with the rest of the crowd I felt my arm being held and I thought to myself, this is it! I was in trouble. A young man whispered in my ear as he held my arm, the shortest verse in the Quran, the surah Ikhlas and when he was done he shook my hand and said hello, I am Gabriel, I am from Hungary. Then he was gone with the crowd and i was left stumped by this extraordinary incident. As i stepped out of the Zendo another gentleman grabbed my arm and this time i knew who it was. it was Bill Serling or Sterling a big guy of a lawyer who lived close by to the Gulch and came to the center every now and then. Bill and I became friends and it had nothing to do with Zen although his wife was at one time the abbot of Zen Center. Bill whispered to me, "Whatever it was you read in there, it was the showstopper, I greatly enjoyed it, thank you." 
I was never ever chastised for my off the wall actions while i was at Green Gulch, not that I remember except a few dirty looks from those who never liked me being there in the first place. I was free to explore my deepest thoughts and feelings as I sat in Zazen and allow for myself to express these feelings as they arose and this was how i enjoyed living in a Zen Buddhist community for almost two years of my life. From the first day I entered the Monastery as a very sick man, physically, mentally and spiritually, till the day I was asked to leave I buried myself into a very in depth Buddhist practice, reading all i could lay my hands on about all the schools and sects of Buddhism and performing the rituals and ceremonies while sitting Zazen.