Our intrepid — and curious (in every sense of the word) — monk-correspondent Guy Rivoallan recently sent the following request to an assortment of sangha members:
In a few lines, and as freely as possible, describe what the following five words or expressions mean to you:
1. Death’s Door
2. Sans Demeure (French for “without abode” or “homeless”)
3. Disciple and Master
4. Love
5. Shiho (in Japanese Zen, the transmission from master to disciple which ensures the continuation of the lineage)
He also asked for a photo, drawing or other image that illustrated “sans demeure.”
Below are answers from Cristina Delneri, Jantje Hannover, and Guy Rivoallan. New replies will be added as they arrive.
The opinions expressed here are individual and personal, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Philippe Coupey, the Sangha Sans Demeure or any other Zen Buddhist community, school or association.
Cristina Delneri
Death’s Door: I don’t remember having passed that way, but I didn’t know that death was a door. Or a garden. (For someone trying to answer the first of the Five Killer Questions, Death’s Door is here and now.)
![[A sketch of a rust-red whirlwind]](/img/ustia.jpg "“Ustia”")
Sans Demeure: Fluid.
Disciple and Master: The zagu.
Love: Haaah! (Pronounced with an Italian accent. In any case, it’s giving without limits.)
The Shiho: A kind of obsession for Master Deshimaru’s sangha, to which we joyfully belong.
Jantje Hannover
Death’s Door: Letting go is like passing over the threshold of Death. You give up, forget yourself a little, then suddenly you want it back, you get furious, you want to have something. Until the willingness to go through the door of Death is there again. Relief, non-ego.
![[Photo of a blossoming indoor cactus with an apple, out of focus]](/img/flowering-cactus.jpg "An Easter cactus, flowering for the first time in 10 years")
Sans Demeure: The flowers I planted have wilted. The love I felt is gone. The meal is finished, the candle blown out, the door shut. The tomatoes on my windowsill have turned red.
Disciple and Master: I don’t find it very easy to establish an authentic master-disciple relationship in our sangha. The ones who seem to manage it do so by making an effort to be in Philippe’s proximity, by asking questions, by taking part in projects. Probably that’s quite right, one has to come to a decision, make an effort. But because of the size of the sangha, this means that for some the master-disciple relationship is weak and doesn’t radiate into their daily lives.
Love: Zazen opens the heart, creates a sense of connectedness and love with others and with the world. Whereas personal love often means, “I want you to love me.” And that brings mostly conflict. Unfortunately this state of mind is not much affected by regular practice.
The Shiho: Without doubt the shiho has created a lot of strife in the larger AZI sangha. The shiho is a formal distinction which has no necessary connection to the spiritual maturity of its recipient. Even a determined beginner could probably stick it through the Tokubetsu Sesshin. The shiho is more a symbol of the readiness to follow the rules of the Sotoshu and to bend to the Japanese Soto Zen transmission.
Guy Rivoallan
Death’s Door: The first time I saw a dead body, that of an old woman on her bed, in Brittany, I was 7 years old, and I said to myself, “What’s this rip-off?” Suddenly I realized that something wasn’t quite right, and that death really exists.
Death: it’s good to think about it from time to time, it gives you back your life! There’s really no time to lose with anything, it’s a teaching in every moment: the Way. I’ll see what happens when I go through the door. At any rate, death never killed anybody.
![[Géricault’s 1819 painting, now in the Louvre, of the shipwreck of the Méduse]](/img/gericault.jpg "Géricault’s “Raft of the Medusa”")
Sans Demeure: It’s a pleonasm, because nothing dwells or resides, even the mountains we call eternal. It’s impossible not to think of Kodo, the homeless monk, of Master Deshimaru, and of course of Philippe, the homeless dragon, and the sangha.
It’s harder to be homeless, in my opinion, because you have to fend for yourself. When you reside somewhere, a temple for example, things settle down quickly: a hierarchy, habits… we can see them even after a few days of a sesshin “sans demeure.” Above all, it’s a state of mind. The great mouth of the monk accepts everything.
Disciple and Master: For more than ten years I heard kusen that talked about this relationship; I didn’t understand and I didn’t try to understand, I just kept going. Then one day in the Paris Dojo, I heard a loud cry of pain from my godo, I thought he was going to die, he was yelling like a pig skinned alive, his face was contorted. I carried his zafu out because he couldn’t, because of the pain. I said to myself, unconsciously, “I shouldn’t waste time, if he died now… it would really be awful. I should help him and continue.” Now I don’t think about it much anymore.
Love: One day, Master Deshimaru sent a postcard to Roland Rech (and the whole sangha, obviously), saying, “Love is not loving.” It’s “not making distinctions and not having preferences.” (Easy to say.)
The Shiho: We have to follow the teaching. It’s not an end in itself, a piece of paper. Without our realizing it, the shiho is at every zazen and sesshin with others and with the godo. Like many things having to do with zazen, it’s invisible.
But it can be useful to be able to show a piece of paper: “I’m in the Sawaki, Deshimaru, Coupey lineage, and not in the Benedict XVI lineage.” I’ve read books by “monks” who don’t even cite their lineage. They claim to be masters, thanks to the others who educated them and to Buddha and all other sentient beings in the universal sangha.
1
death’s door: the last experience of whom i am afraid
sans demeure: living on an endless road
disciple and master: the true parents are everywhere
love: love is ki (chi). love is all.
shiho: not my business, boring discussion. what use for a shiho at death’s door (to close the circle).
23. January 2006 at 18:01 by jonas
2
In reply to Jantje’s comments on ‘love’, I would like to say that it is my experience that regular zazen practice does affect ‘the state of mind’ that is personal love. This state is constantly put into question when we sit and cross our legs, like everything else that pops up in our minds. And if we observe the flow of thoughts, just like we should do in zazen, we can see all the expectations and desires we project onto the other person… Does this activity of zazen create a distance from our thoughts and emotions?
Zazen certainly influences our daily lives, piercing the folds of personal ‘love’ or attachment to another, but what does it mean when we say ‘zazen’? It is the continual practice of observation, and concentrating here and now. Yes, we’ve all heard this before, and it is just this reptition that influences and changes us, unconsciously, naturally and automatically…
13. February 2006 at 13:44 by Simon de Waterford
3
In reply to my reply: this is a daily fight, battle, activity, situation?What do we call it? Not just personal love but everything we are involved in… What Jantje is addressing concerns us all and is the very flesh of our sitting in zazen…
13. February 2006 at 14:17 by Simon de Waterford
4
Isn’t Deaths Door the one we come through when we are born ?
22. November 2006 at 12:02 by Andy O'Regan
5
masters generaly reside in monastic enviroments dont they. Is it possible in the world today, to constantly live in the here and now.And talking about deaths door, is it the awakening of something within our selves,which gets more clear as one goes through the dark periods of life and in the end the dark fabricated life disapears. I would assume courage to keep knocking as in zazen is the answer or is it.
19. December 2006 at 0:21 by carl thackery
6
Soddisfare emozionante. Siete buoni a fotoricettore-progettate!
20. December 2006 at 12:50 by sesso
7
in regards to sans demeure surely our true teacher is life and within that is home. after all the great prince jumped out of the dark fabricated and touched the heart, did he do this with anything in mind or was he just being flexable like the tree he sat under. There is no doubt he touched the heart, Hello everyone and welcome home.
21. December 2006 at 4:39 by carl thackery
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