My Crazy Monk Intro to Zen

First a little background to set the scene and my mindset. In the mid 70’s I was into yoga and had met several gurus through my yoga teacher who worked in Orientalia, one of the Fourth Avenue bookstores on the then Book Row. (At its peak, nearly fifty bookstores occupied the six or seven blocks on 4th Avenue between Union Square and Astor Place. The Strand is the only one left.) The atmosphere in New York City then was ripe with a growing interest in eastern spirituality and several yoga gurus had already established centers including Integral Yoga and Sivananda.

 Thus, I wasn’t exactly green behind the ears when I saw an ad in The Village Voice for a talk by a Korean Zen monk named Seung Sahn at an apartment on East 7th Street. Not having met any Zen people, I decided to go and get a taste of what this Zen was like.

 Arriving at the four or five story residential building on the evening of the talk, I noticed it was above the famous McSorley’s Tavern, which at that time banned women. I snarled a minute and then climbed up several flights and knocked at the door. I was invited in and shown to a seat on a cushion facing the teacher who I could tell was a big energy guy. I was the only one there other than the person who had shown me in and possibly, but I don’t remember for sure, one other person who was also somehow connected to the apartment or the teacher.  I would much rather have been sitting deep within an audience. Anyway, I told myself I’m used to engaging with spiritual teachers from the East. How different can this be?

Then the show began. First, we stood up and started full prostrations. Up and down, up and down, up and down, endlessly it seemed. I had my eye on the door but there was no way the only audience member could leave. Finally, we stopped bowing and I was instructed to again sit on the cushion and the chanting began. It was all in Korean but that was no problem since I was used to Sanskrit chanting. Then up we went again and there was more bowing during the chanting. “How long is this going to go on for?” I thought. “How can I get out of here?”  The monk’s voice was very strong and resonated with the pounding moktak. I sat about four or five feet directly in front of him. Finally, the chanting stopped and the talk began.

 The big-energy monk looked straight at me and shouted loudly with a very thick Korean accent, “What is Buddha?”

My jaw dropped, my heart pounded and I looked stupidly at him.

When I didn’t answer, he held up his stick and shouted, “Dry shit on a stick.”

Everyone laughed and I thought, “How can I get out of here before he asks me something else?” My mind was spinning and I didn’t register anything he said after that. Then it was all over and I was out of there.

The next day I called my brother Michael and told him,” You won’t believe the crazy Buddhist monk I met who gave an insane talk about dry shit on a stick!”

A few years later he called me and said, “Remember that crazy monk you told me about? He has a group on 17th Street.” “Let’s go,” I said, “You have to see this to believe it.” We went but he wasn’t there and we practiced serenely with the group but didn’t go back. Then a year or so later Michael called again and said, “Now they’re on 31st Street, let’s go.” We went and again he wasn’t there so we didn’t go back. Once more he called and said that he found the group again—this time on 14th Street. We went and met Richard, Jan, Ken, Ruth and Paul (sans honorifics) and several other now old-timers. Something clicked and we stayed. And that is how we both came to Zen practice --like two flies circling dry shit on a stick.

Many years later when visiting Hwa Gye Sa Temple in Seoul, Zen Master Seung Sahn’s Korean home base, I remembered that night in the East Village apartment when I was the only new person at that meeting on 7th Street. It didn’t matter one or a thousand attendees--he still gave his all. I was filled with profound gratitude and shed a tear or two.