The Practice of One Continuous Mistake
by Robert Reese
I have spawned a series of unforced errors this month. At an alarming pace, blunders large and small, bidden and unbidden, known and unknown, have shown up like a succession of disquieting callers --- each arriving exactly when I least expected. Collectively, the miscalculations were accompanied by the semi-nauseous feeling one gets when missing a step. The world seems to drop out from under you. There’s a slight dis-orientation. Your throat opens; your heart rate increases slightly and you realize some incertitude in body, speech or mind. In other words, you are in the middle of a mistake. Of course, I looked to practice but found no special aphorism that wards-off errors.
The desire for a mistake-free life is something that is steady and remains only somewhat more durable than the wish not be caught in an error. (Both the wish not to make a mistake and corollary “not to be caught,” reveal interesting levels of self-clinging). In my mind, a mistake is sometimes followed by the phrase “if only.” Such as, “if only” it I wasn’t like this, or “if only” they weren’t like that. Similar to the “if only” presumption is the desire for a more attractive life, or more beautiful personality. And perhaps this quiet form of suffering though self-improvement is the first step in a quest to a deeper life, but we require the “if only” to begin to see that.
In some essential way, we are all moving in seeming forward direction and we can’t sustain the person we thought we were---the one who makes all those mistakes. The Zen approach is not about avoiding mistakes, but bringing our errors to the path. Making a mistake opens the tenderness in us and can be more helpful than not making one. The path can be through vulnerability, kindness, and joy—in other words all our humanity. Then, the mistakes are not mistakes. Rather, closer to “so-called mistakes.”
What are mistakes, and how can we practice with them? Depends on how we define practice. One possible definition of practice: what we consciously choose to do with body, speech, mind to decrease suffering and increase wisdom and compassion. So how do we practice with mistakes? How should we best relate to them, work with them? How do we correct or minimize our mistakes (or should we)? How do we avoid being overly stressed or fearful about making mistakes, and how to we avoid getting stuck in regret or self-recrimination once we’ve made mistakes?
Dogen Zenji used the phrase “Shoshaku jushaku” when referring to mistakes. The phrase can be translated a number of ways, but often Dogen refers to it as “to succeed wrong with wrong.” Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said about this in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:
“Dogen-zenji said, ‘Shoshaku jushaku.’ Shaku generally means ‘mistake’ or ‘wrong.’ Shoshaku jushaku means ‘to succeed wrong with wrong,’ or one continuous mistake. According to Dogen one continuous mistake can also be Zen. A Zen master’s life could be said to be so many years of shoshaku jushaku. This means so many years of one single-minded effort.”
In the book, Philosophies of Happiness: A Comparative Introduction to the Flourishing Life. (Columbia University Press), Diana Lobel explains the phrase as used by Dogen and other early teachers:
“The phrase shoshaku jushaku is a multivalent expression that appears in many passages of Dōgen. It seems that this is a case in which one phrase can both mean itself and its opposite, a beautiful expression of the dialectic of Zen. It appears to have two meanings. One is that when we make a mistake, in order to fix the mistake, we make another mistake, thereby adding error to error. On the other hand, when a skilled craftsperson makes a mistake, he or she takes advantage of the mistake, to make the work even better.”
Dogen’s approach is of not avoiding mistakes, but seeing them as the exactly the path. Mistakes unwrap the compassion in us, and can be more beneficial than not making one. This unsteady pathway can also be through openness, benevolence, and joyfulness. Lobel writes:
“How is it that holding a mistake and making another mistake allows one to transmit the true meaning of this subtle teaching?” Making mistakes is key to learning. The quiet student who sits in the back of the classroom nodding and is afraid to admit that she doesn’t understand is not going to learn; she will remain without understanding. In contrast, the student who is willing to raise her hand and make mistake after mistake will be corrected until she arrives at genuine understanding. It is by making one mistake after another that life can guide us on the path of true learning.”
In the Extensive Record, Buddha Underfoot, Dogen tells this amazing story, as recounted in Rev. Domyo Burk’s blog:
“Last night, this mountain monk [Dōgen] unintentionally stepped on a dried turd and it jumped up and covered heaven and earth. This mountain monk unintentionally stepped on it again, and it introduced itself, saying, “My name is Śākyamuni.” Then, this mountain monk unintentionally stepped on his chest, and immediately he went and sat on the vajra seat, saw the morning star, bit through the traps and snares of conditioned birth, and cast away his old nest from the past. Without waiting for anyone to peck at his shell from outside, he received the thirty-two characteristics common to all Buddhas and, together with this mountain monk, composed the following four-line verse:
Stumbling I stepped on his chest and his backbone snapped,
Mountains and rivers swirling around, the dawn wind blew.
Penetrating seven and accomplishing eight, bones piercing the heavens, His face attained a sheet of golden skin.”
Dogen didn’t just step on the dried turd unintentionally once, he did it again, and the waste introduced itself as Buddha. Imagine doing this… ? At that point Dogen makes yet a third mistake and steps on Shakyamuni even though the Buddha has introduced himself. However, in doing so, Dogen became an indirect cause of Shakyamuni’s complete and perfect enlightenment.
This is to misstep into a genuine life and to find more than he expected to find. The intention is that we will set off after some little goal and, during the journey, forget who we are and what, exactly, is a mistake. We’ll stumble onto a treasure that changes everything. The practice is to notice things as we stumble along. Feeling our way slowly, groping along in the dark is also practice.
In “Uji, Living Time,” (from Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom, Three Fascicles from the Shobogenzo with Commentaries) Kosho Uchiyma Roshi writes:
“All this is uji, (being time) living presence. Hence, we have the passage that aim and expression are both uji, and hitting the mark and falling short are both uji. As long as we are talking about uji, we’re talking about the very manifestation of the reality itself—regardless what form that might take. Therefore, the whole idea of something being a success or failure due to the finished appearance being either better or worse simply drops off.”
(Thanks to Rev. Domyo Burk, who initially recounted this story and it’s themes in her blog, “If You’re Not Making Mistakes, You’re Not Practicing”)