Guttersnipe Zen

Just a short interlude from reading Shobogenzo Bussho to look at Guttersnipe Zen.

Zen, due to various cultural and social factors, has become associated in the west with a certain societal milieu, with an alternative philosophy scene, and post-60s new age ideas, and yoga, and ideas around 'oriental' transcendentalism, therapy, self-help and all that. It's quite middle class, tame and dreadfully mannerly, what what...

Consider though the case of Kodo Sawaki Roshi. He was born into a wealthy family but his parents died, so he ended up living with an abusive relative who ran a gambling den in the seedy part of town where sex workers and pimps plied their trades. He lived off his wits and his fists, was a street kid, a guttersnipe, before he found his way into the Zen monastic life. It's said he had his first deep experience of impermanence when, aged 9, he witnessed the corpse of a neighbour who had died while shagging a young sex worker.

Even after wearing the robe he was hot-headed and angry as hell due to the life he'd been doled out, but he persevered and became one of the most regarded Zen teachers in 20th century Japan.

The point is that, in traditional Buddhist terms, when you take up the practice of sincerely 'dropping off body and mind' even a Guttersnipe instantly soars above the level of princes, presidents, popes, Zen gatekeepers, gurus and purveyors of stuffy middle class self-loathing morality.

The damaged little lives we bring to practice are more than enough grist for the mill of zazen.

Then a guttersnipe can jump completely clear beyond even Zen ancestors and buddhas. A true person free of rank.

Guttersnipe Zen is the Way to go.