c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Les Kaye is the abbot of Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View, Calif., and author of”Zen at Work.”He is the founder of Meditation at Work, an awareness training program for businesses.)

UNDATED _ One morning, early in his monastic training and many years before becoming a renowned Zen master, the eighth-century Chinese monk Matsu was sitting alone in zazen, Zen meditation. His teacher, Nangaku, abbot of the monastery, noticed his disciple’s dedication. “What are you doing?”asked Nangaku.”I am sitting in zazen,”said Matsu. “Why are you doing that?””To become a Buddha,”answered Matsu.

Nangaku then silently picked up a brick and started to rub it with a stone. Matsu asked him,”What are you doing?” Nangaku answered,”I am polishing this brick.””Why?””To make it into a mirror.””How can you polish a brick into a mirror?”asked the puzzled Matsu.”How can you meditate yourself into a Buddha?”was the instructive reply.

His meaning: You cannot transform yourself into something you already are.

Human beings have always dreamed of transforming themselves, of becoming”pure,”of gaining freedom from the”impurities”of the human condition. For many people, this yearning can be a desire of great force, a hopeful vision of a pure state of being, existing separate and beyond everyday life. It rests on the anxious feeling that one is basically”impure,”as well as in the belief that there is a spiritual alchemy with the power to purify us into something other than who we are.

Nangaku’s pointed response to Matsu intended to bring down the walls of his misunderstanding, to help him become aware of his inherent pure nature.

In the past 40 years, meditation has come out of the monasteries and down from the mountains, increasingly finding its way into the lives of ordinary people with the responsibilities of jobs and families. Its meaning, however, is not yet entirely understood.

Much of the growing interest in this contemplative spiritual practice comes from the notion that meditation is a process of purifying oneself, a way of transforming the impure and troublesome aspects of our personality.”If I can transform myself and get rid of my impurities,”goes the logic,”I won’t have any more troubles; I won’t have to make any more effort to constantly fight them, and so I will be happy.” This wishful thinking, based on the mind’s stubborn tendency to fool itself, is not the true state of things. No matter how well we perfect our personality, difficulties and problems will always arise; too many of their causes and conditions are beyond our control. Life is not a matter of transforming ourself from impure to pure in order to eliminate troubles and avoid effort.

Instead, it is a matter of making a continuous effort _ with what we have and with who we are right now _ in the midst of the changing, confusing, often unfair situations life presents us.

A short time after starting Zen practice more than 30 years ago, I realized I was still troubled by aspects of myself I didn’t like and that I expected the practice would dissolve. I brought my concern to one of the Zen teachers who had come from Japan to help establish Zen in America.”My anger,”I told him,”it just doesn’t go away!” He smiled and seemed surprisingly nonchalant about my deep dismay.”Oh, its just some rough edges,”he told me.

His remark was a revelation and a relief. It said that my so-called”impurity”was not a major defect, just something that needed care.

Inherently, there was nothing wrong with me; fundamentally, I was not impure.

No matter how much we grind it, a brick can never be perfectly smooth.

Just like that brick, no matter how much we polish ourselves, there will always remain some surface roughness. However, as the ancient story tries to demonstrate, we are already inherently pure, even with our roughness.

Yet this doesn’t mean we need not pay attention and ignore trying to smooth our rough spots when we recognize how they create problems for ourself and others. Nangaku did not tell Matsu to stop polishing himself, only to understand the real meaning of his determined effort.

Through the self-discipline of continuous spiritual practice, we can loosen our troublesome habit patterns. This work of a lifetime is made easier through the confidence that comes from understanding that our inherent spiritual nature does not require transformation.

DEA END KAYE