Yelling Mu With All Your Might by Shinzan Miyamae Roshi

 

Yelling Mu With All Your Might 

by Shinzan Miyamae Roshi

 

Shinzan Miyamae Roshi describes Nantembo Roshi as “a Zen master from an older generation with a unique way of working with mu: by repeatedly intoning it softly from deep down in the belly.” This was his way of getting students to concentrate fully on mu for extended periods of time. Different teachers used different methods for trying to open a student’s eye and this was Nantembo Roshi’s (which was unique at the time). Shinzan Roshi comments that a number of teachers used this method but that there probably aren’t so many nowadays as true Zen is dying out in Japan. Solitary mu sesshins typically aren’t used in a sodo (monks training hall).

Shinzan Roshi respects Nantembo’s unique style of teaching his students to work with mu. “Mu sesshins work well because they provide the circumstances for students to focus totally on mu alongside guidance from a Zen master (who checks in on them throughout the sesshin). It’s an excellent way to stop thinking because while one continues to intone mu softly the mind clears. A teacher can use this practice as a platform for his or her students to touch and recognize the state of non-self, non-thinking. By shutting oneself up in a room the practitioner is able to devote him or herself completely to realizing that state where the mind/brain stops working and thinking – this experience is of central importance in Zen. The duration of a mu sesshin depends on how long it takes a student to reach that non-self, non-thinking state and familiarize with it. Sometimes it takes a week, some people take 5 days, some 3, some less…there needs to be a quality of desperateness in which the student pours everything he or she has into it. As far as the practice is concerned, the student takes a deep in-breath and intones mu during a long steadily-paced out-breath. As this continues one enters into a samadhi state.”

A slightly different style of working with mu was used by Shinzan Roshi’s teacher (Itsugai Roshi) at Shogenji back last century in which his students would focus on yelling mu with all their might – this was their bread and butter at the sodo. Screaming mu with all one’s might provided a student with the opportunity of glimpsing the state of non-self, even if just for an instant. These glimpses form the foundation for making that enlightened understanding a normalized, actualized state in a student’s life. Typically one would go off by himself and shout mu on a mountain facing away from the village at night.

From zenways.org