Power, Passion and Anger: A talk by Stephen K. Hayes: Question & Answer

March 26, 1992 at the Medical Sciences Building, University of Toronto
by J.Courtland Elliott

Note: this article originally appeared in the July 1995 issue of Ura & Omote

There's a lot we didn't discuss, but I've enjoyed sharing this with you. We do have a few more minutes, if you do have some specific questions.

QUESTION: (Paraphrased) Well, I'm not involved in the martial arts. But do you have to go through rigorous physical training to get the most out of this way of working with the mandalas?

STEPHEN HAYES: No, I don't think so, and that's the good news. I enjoyed being physical about it and so that's how I got introduced to it. I could kind of plot out my own life's progress based on a lot of this stuff, and how I accidentally found it. And a lot of us accidentally find this stuff in one way or another. It accidentally kind of occurs to us from somewhere within, or we accidentally meet somebody who is talking about this and get involved with it. That's kind of how it happened to me. So, no, I don't think so. You don't have to be physical at all. In fact, some of the people that I study with, the teachers are very unphysical by my standard. And they're real fine with me being in the physical world and so forth. I find application for my martial art - in my real life I do physical things - and I enjoy being able to experience that as a self development method as well.

QUESTION (Tex Konig): Could you elaborate a little bit more on the wind and earth aspects?

STEPHEN HAYES: This is what is called the 'jewel bestowing truth' form. And I translated it down for human relations as being the one that gives the rewards, that gives inspiration, that gives form to something. The ultimate leader. That's why I used our parents as a good example. Whether they were good leaders or not, as little kids we thought they were, right? I've heard some horror stories about stuff that kids go through. Old man's a drunk, beats him up. Mother abandoned him years ago. But in their mind they have this beautiful recollection of what their parents could have/should have/would have been. And I even hear stories from friends of mine who do social work. They'll rescue a child from this absolute hell that they're living in. "Good news, got you out of that thing before you were killed." The kid fights my friend because he or she wants to go back to that home, because that's where mommy and daddy are and they love them. So, it's such a compelling need in us to be around that which is boundary giving and rewarding and so forth, and even when we don't get it we're still going to associate with that need. That's why people serve leaders and rulers who have no right to be a ruler. That's how cults begin. Somebody who can kind of manipulate and so forth. See, so all of these are crossed influences in here. Down here (water) science and knowledge operates as a very beautiful thing. But when I get a little too far away from people here, it starts to serve myself. So, what I would do is have not quite developed knowledge, but have the knowledge of how to manipulate people. The weak negative version of this scientist, and you can think of this being slightly out of focus here, or whatever, would be some kind of a phony, a manipulator, a trickster, somebody that's going to come in and make you think that they're supplying what it is that you want. "Oh, we love you here in this community. Shave your head and join us. We love you here. Put this particular kind of clothing on. Sign over all your worldly property the blessed one who lives in the pantry with some of the females who come in here." We hear about these kinds of things and people sign up for those kinds of deals. Again, manipulative. Okay, so leadership. And then, every leader, in order to be effective, has got to have a vehicle or a means to promote his or her vision in the world, and that's the server, the one who serves the greater ideal. Every server needs to have an ideal, something that they can find to be of value, which is worth serving.

QUESTION: Would you characterize yourself as a warrior and priest, rather than warrior/priest, and secondly did you train at "Enryaku-Ji" temple in the Tendai sect in Kyoto? Is that where you got your training ? And finally, the warrior/priests of a thousand years ago had rather bad press, and I'm wondering if from within the monastery they have a different view of that tradition and whether it's still honoured as such?

STEPHEN HAYES: Well, I'm very nice when I'm in Kyoto. First question, yeah, warrior, priest, I'm also that jerk in the jeep sometimes, and I'm dad. So I really think of these as all a part of my personal make-up. If I were forced to use a word, if I had to use a word to answer the question "what am I?", I would tend to use the word explorer, inner and outer exploration - I really identify with that word, I'm the explorer. There are people who know more about warfare, "warriorness" than I do. They may, ironically, not be able to teach as much as I can about it because they may be so into operating as some kind of a warrior/soldier or mercenary or worse, that they can't identify with the ability to communicate it to others. And I think we've seen that in martial arts. Have any of you been around a martial artist who was technically excellent, but they just couldn't even begin to explain what they did? Sure, we've seen that. And there are people who are much better priests than I. I'm noisy and I'm running around here, and they're much better priests than I am, but again, it's that balance that I'm looking for, where I get to explore a lot of these realms at the same time.

Your historical question is a good one. It's intriguing to me. Again, it has to do with who writes the history. You know, the guy who wins the war is the guy who writes the history books, and so they're going to describe the ones that they fought against in the worst of terms. My suggestion would be to consult Dr. McMullin, because he's much more of an authority on the history of Hiei and how that whole phenomenon was seen through Japanese eyes, contemporarily and also through history. I know when to duck (laughter).

QUESTION: Do you think that there is more ? places in the world, more emphasis or importance on the priest, and would you prefer that they not try out other areas than, say, the warrior, where you're suppose to strive to be better and perhaps become the priest? How does Buddhism address that? I mean, it would seem that to become a priest is the ultimate power in present day society. ?

STEPHEN HAYES: Well, a lot of it is symbolic language, too. There's a famous four line quote from some of these original teachings of Buddhism that talk about this, that literally means we know enlightenment by the shine of the warrior's armour, and also by the depth of the priest's meditation. So, you can take it literally, but it's also a metaphor which says there's going to be outward reaching activity. And that's what we mean by warriorship. I myself have never put on a uniform and gone off to war to fight for a political side. And yet I still will look at anyone in the audience and say I am by my own definition a warrior. I've taken my physical risks in different kinds of uniforms. It's this outward reaching activity. What we do as warriors in that sense of these original Buddhist teachings, is that we go out into the world and we try stuff out. We take chances, we go out into the world and we look for opportunities to build up our momentum of accomplishment, which is a term I use. And of course the more success we have, the more that momentum builds up. And we discover truth in all the chaos. The opposite of it - and it's equally valid - it's like the head or tail of a coin; you can't have one without the other; you've got to have both sides - the opposite would be the priest, who retreats from all the chaos and crazyness and says "If I just cut out all of this kind of contact, where there's just me in here, (whatever me is), and go even into the centre of that, I'm going to discover the truth of what reality is." So, in that sense, we talk about priest and warrior. And it also could be interpreted literally.

QUESTION: I guess I'm being needlessly argumentative here, because it seems to me that one of the things that we're seeing in your own country is, as you mentioned, this poor choice among potential leaders, and it's maybe because we're asking more of them, asking them to be more well rounded. And that we're not happy with just one dimensionality. Take Bill Clinton as an example, and the criticism towards him because he didn't serve in the war, wasn't the warrior?

STEPHEN HAYES: Yeah, inside we have stereotypes of what we think we're going to find, and then realistically what we expect. And we're like children on this kind of stuff, I think. And I'm not going to apologize for it. I think, we really are like children in our life. I mean, we want a presidential candidate that's like George Washington. Well, nobody remembers Washington. The guy owned slaves. I mean, there are all kinds of things you can point out about George Washington. But we've got the stereotype. He's almost a deity now. Lincoln is almost a deity now. They've working hard to make Martin Luther King a deity and he will be in a few more generations in America. He'll be grander than human. So we've got these stereotypes and like children what we want is something that will satisfy this, and then the rougher the times get - and this is just my opinion - the more people tend to want to retreat back into centre. I mean, if we could, we'd want to retreat way back to where we were kids and said, "Dad, I'm scared", and dad came with a little glass of warm water in the middle of the night. And I think a lot of people in the voting public are responding in that way. Very scared. Gee, what's going on in the world? Our products aren't competitive, our services aren't there. I think the more scared people get, the more these very stereotype things emerge. We want to be in the presence of a king. No one's going to agree with me in America, but the truth is that a lot of Americans really want a king, they really want to have somebody that's that inspiring. Again, no American that I know of is going to agree with me. But I saw what they did to Ronald Reagan, and I know they want a king.

Ronald Reagan was this actor, not even a great actor, when he was in movies. Now, I'm not a politician, and I don't know anything about politics, I'm just this crazy guy running around in these mountains in Japan. But what I did notice about Ronald Reagan was that he looked like the kind of a person that we wanted to be our president. He was presidential looking. He was regal. His wife looked like what you would expect that kind of a person to look like. The voice, talk about the voice. The communicator, they called him. It's crucial for a leader. You've got to be a communicator. (Puts on high-pitched funny voice) If you talk to the people like this, it's hard to move them (laughter). Well, a person could speak with that voice and be very logical, but not touch people. Reagan looked a certain way, he spoke that way, he did move the people. He had a lot of gimmicks that he used. Now what he was really doing in the White House, oh, I mean, still no one knows (laughter). But, God, he was great on the surface. People really liked him; they wanted to put him on Mount Rushmore out there with Washington. It's funny, because the people want a king. So, I'm sort of envious of countries where there is an above-it-all royalty. You have the Queen, and I realize the British Monarchy is having some tough times in trying to be above it all and inspiring people. Japan is still hanging in there. I mean, when you see the Emperor and Empress, there's just an air about these people, where, oh, it just makes you feel so good. It's like being little and scared in the thunderstorm, and mom and dad walk in the room, and now everything's great, because there they are.

QUESTION: Where would somebody go to do the initiation ceremony of throwing the flower on the mandala?

STEPHEN HAYES: These are done on a mountain in Japan, Hiei Mountain, and they could also be done in some other temples. One of these Tendai sect temples, where there is a priest. And the energy has to be right. You wouldn't just walk in and toss a flower down. The energy has to be right, and I can't rationally explain how it works. But the energy is just right and there's a happenstance and so forth, and so you wouldn't do that in a parking lot. It has to be a very special place, a very special temple, and to where a person has at least made a commitment of alignment with the tradition. You wouldn't go in there and not believe, and say, "Well, let's see where this flower goes. I bet it's going to fall on the janitor up here, you know "(laughter). Have any of you fooled around with the I Ching, where you try to trick it? I'm not a superstitious individual, I don't claim to be one. There's enough of that earth in me, enough of that water scientist. But I can remember in Japan a bunch of us were playing the I Ching, and decided we would fake the numbers the second time. Well, it didn't work and the coin fell the wrong way, and it chewed us out (laughter).

QUESTION (Ace Osmer): I'd like to just bring this to a metaphysical edge, too, if I can here. In the first part of your talk, Stephen, with the Taizokai mandala, you seemed to imply that the human being is a collection of habits or conditions, basically, that there's really no-one home. If you took all that away, who is home? There seemed to be the implication that there's no individualized spiritual being present. But in the second Kongokai mandala you talk about the person finding their way to certain wisdoms, and then finding their way to the centre. My question is who is it who is finding their way? Is it just a collection of habits finding their way or is there an actual individual spiritual being evolving to that place? Who is the 'I', in other words?

STEPHEN HAYES: (He looks at the clock. Laughter) Want to do a series in Dimensions? (laughter) Oh, killer question. Anything I say isn't going to answer it, so let me say this from my experience, from my studies. And there are a lot of knowledgable teachers of Buddhism who could talk about this. In fact you don't even have to be a Buddhist to address this question. What I would probably toss out briefly would be that there is indeed a collection of conditions - and this is demoralizing for some people - but there's a collection of conditions that is the human being that we are. And stop and think about all of the things that you want to boil it down to. Well, what am I? Who am I really? Well, here I am. I know I'm me because I'm here. This body, this is me. So, okay, if that body wasn't exactly like that, then it wouldn't be you, right? You got your leg shot off in the war. Well, it would be you, but not quite fully you. But if you had an artificial leg on for long enough, it would be you after a while. In fact, to see you without that artificial leg on, you know, if you had the flesh and blood one down there, they'd know it wasn't you, right, because you've got an artificial leg. Well, so, it can't be the body. Yet, it is the body, but it can't only be the body.

It's my personality, maybe my upbringing. Well, based on all the experiences you've had in life, any one of those might have gotten replaced. What if you were born with different parents who didn't partially potty train you, or some such thing? Well, you'd be a different person again. So we keep kind of fishing around for it. Ultimately, and now I'm going to give you my view on this one - this is my view only; this is not Tendai, not even Buddhism per se - but my view on this is is that what we're discussing in terms of this spirit or soul or this one entity that's doing all this, is so beyond the comprehension or the ability of the human being to comprehend, that the original Gautama Shakyamuni Buddha wouldn't even discuss it. There were several stories of how these metaphysical debaters would want to engage in debate on this, and his constant reply was well, I've expressed no opinion on that. After a while the guy got so annoyed with this, that he left. Well, the way I interpret that was that there's no point in discussing that. On the one hand it's like me discussing what life is going to be like on Venus. I could come up with an idea, but it would be ridiculous to have an idea because I've never been there. So I think there's a part it where this isn't addressed in the teachings.

The other possibility, and this is going to be real foggy, but take it for its brief value here, is that both of these mandalas have this character in the middle that's called "Dainichi Nyorai", and there are different poses. The hand positions have a particular meaning, and I didn't go into any of that tonight. It's the same character but as seen from different views. So, if I'm in my living room and the person looks in from the front door, I look a certain way, and to the one who looks from the kitchen, I look different again. This character represents the totality of all consciousness, bodyness, personalityness, experience, communication, everything that could/would in the future or in the past ever exist. And that collection is called the universe as we know it. And the way we might explain the individual experience, is that a little bit of that universe becomes aware of itself.

So, if I've got this jacket which is the plane of the universe, and somehow a little bit of that experiences itself (he bunches a small area in his hand) and now it looks around and it thinks it's it. But it sort of forgets - this is a weird analogy - (laughter) it sort of forgets that it's a part of the whole thing here. So for a while there really is this kind of a button hole thing here. It really does exist. But later on, when we're out having a tea or something and we're talking, somebody's going to come over and they're going to go, "Oh, it's gone!" (laughter) It was there, but now it's all of this. So, again, it sounds facetious, but it's a very deep and demanding topic, and maybe those two examples will almost, sort of touch on addressing this awesome question.

QUESTION: Unintelligable.

STEPHEN HAYES: In its proper form, and this is my opinion, there is no such thing as a bad characteristic. It's like I was saying, this one's (earth) apologizing for being a stick in the mud, but actually that's a good quality compared to this one (wind) who is running around spinning its wheels all the time. There is no bad characteristic. It's just the way it shows up in the weave of things and the way we interpret it. If we apologize for it and it gets in our way and it's not balanced, then we call it bad. So that to embody any one of these characters, there's not a so-called bad characteristic at all. We may call it bad, because we're ashamed of it, or it's gotten us into trouble, or we've been told we ought to be ashamed of it. There's a lot of that going on, too. We get culturally told that we should act certain ways and shouldn't be other ways. Other cultures have an alternative view of the same kind of thing. So there's all that going on. What we're trying to do is pick a particular image of potential that rises completely above all that stuff, above culture.

Now, I've been having a lot of fun, we've been talking about everyday life, and I haven't even talked about the so-called cosmic plane on which these operate. And that's on purpose because we really didn't have enough time, and so I've left a lot of this unsaid. But any potential within us to be developed, if it is this gateway into wisdom, it's all positive, because it's a part of the make-up of all, and we take our place in that particular form or way, temporarily. See, the key to freedom, the key to being totally free-and that's one of the reasons why I got into the martial arts in the first place, and certainly why I'm involved in the practice of Tendai - freedom, the key to freedom is multiples of choice. The more I can choose from, the freer I am. So, if we're in this room and the door is locked, I can't get out. But I want freedom. I can run around talking about freedom all I want, but that's not going to get me freedom. What I have to do for a little while is be the opposite of freedom. What I'm going to have to do is narrow myself way down, my whole consciousness narrowed down to a space in the room that's this tall and this wide, the key hole. And then I need a key to freedom that I can put just in that space at the right time with the right motion. But for a little while it'll be the total opposite of freedom, absolute limitation. I don't even exist, because I don't matter. It's the key, put the key in there, turn it, hear a noise, door swings open, we look out, freedom. We don't need the key anymore. So I think a lot of it in the martial art practice is a model of that key.

For a little while, for me to attain what I know my potential is, this ultimate freedom of vision, freedom to be, I'm going to limit myself down to a certain mode that my body takes, a certain way that I hold my hand, or use my voice. Sometimes I don't even use my voice in English. I make just certain sounds, sound a certain way. We do the same thing; we call it music. Certain kinds of music make you feel melancholy and certain kinds of music make you want to move around and so forth. So I sound a sound a certain way and I hold a vision in my mind that allows for only that. I no longer am that jerk in the jeep. I no longer am dad. I no longer am lover or son or whatever. I'm absolutely what I'm concentrating on and what I'm putting all my energy to being for a moment, for a moment. And when something goes right and the key turns and clicks and the door swings open, oh, then we've found the way home.

Well, not a real practical lecture here tonight. How do you go home and do this? (laughter) It's sort of weird. It wasn't a how-to thing. I do some seminars, travel around and do seminars where people can try to touch some of this stuff. But tonight's objective, based on what I have been invited to speak on, was to give some of my experience, a bit of my background, by no means exhaustive or complete, and definitely biased, definitely my experience, of this as it touched me, moved me, encouraged me to see life in a lot better way so that I feel like I'm a more developed person, closer to being the free person that I want to be. Closer to being a strong person. I go back to those early days in the dojo, and things don't hurt as much anymore. If I get my windpipe collapsed or somebody sneaking up and putting one of these finger daggers in my back, it doesn't hurt as much anymore, because I know what life is and I know what forward momentum is, and I know what my potential is, and I see all the other people out in the world working their way through the same journey, the same path, trying to find that single space and time and place where they're going to get their key in there. And every one of our keys looks different, doesn't it, to our house? Your key won't work in my house, and mine won't work in your house. So, they're all specific, but the concept of getting it in there and attaining our freedom, that's what we're all working for. If nothing else, maybe it just urges you, "Don't let them talk you out of it. You've got a lot of potential, you've got a lot of things you're supposed to discover this lifetime. And when you discover them, you will become the inspiration for other people and you will have what it is that you need to serve. You will have your science that you need to perfect and your expression of it will be your art, and you'll end up home in the middle."

Well I've enjoyed speaking. Thank you so much, and I look forward to meeting you here some time again.

(applause)

The transcript of this talk was submitted by J. Courtland Elliott. J. Courtland Elliott is one of those folks who have been around forever and still haven't figured it out. He started training with Stephen K. Hayes at the 1st Ninja Matsuri in 1981, and hasn't stopped evangelizing since. Currently holding back at Sandan (from SKH, Dr. Hatsumi, and having been offered it by Doron Navon), he is also well versed in other martial arts, most notably Jujutsu (Nidan from Harold Howard of UFC fame).