Hardcore Zen_ Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality - Brad Warner [65]
SOMETIME DURING MY TRIP I decided to accept Dharma Transmission from Nishijima and to get on with doing what needed to be done. Hell, as long as there were going to be Authority Figures in the world, I might as well be one of them. When I got back home I got in touch with Nishijima and asked him what arrangements needed to be made. He set a date, and that was that.
The precepts ceremony was fairly unremarkable, and not as bad as I had feared. Yuka decided to take the precepts too, as did a friend of ours named Eric who was stationed in Japan serving, the U.S. Navy. Nishijima got dressed up in some silly-looking official-type precept-giving robes. An altar was set up and there was some incense-lighting, some bowing, a bit of chanting, and at the end of it, all three of us got rakusus with our new Buddhist names written on the back.6 Mine, as I mentioned earlier, was Odo, which means “The Way of Answers.” And like my Krishna buddy Terry, it was chosen partly because it sounds a little like “Warner”—that is, if you’re an eighty-two-year-old Japanese Zen master it does. By the way, Nishijima’s Dharma name, Gudo, means “The Way of Stupidity.” Really.
Next up was the biggie, the Dharma Transmission ceremony (imagine monster truck racing–cavernous echo here). For this, I had to get myself a kesa, the traditional robe worn by Buddhist monks since Gautama Buddha’s time. Zen monks in Japan normally wear two main garments. One is a big black robe and over the top of this is a thing that looks kind of like a sash. It’s usually mustard-colored or brown, though I’ve seen purple too. The sash thingy is the kesa. In India, where its considerably hotter than Japan, the kesa was the monk’s only garment.
Traditionally you’re supposed to sew your own kesa, and your supposed to do it from discarded scraps of cloth from burial shrouds as well as diapers and sanitary napkins. Some people still sew them themselves, but I don’t think even they go so far as to use shrouds, diapers, and sanitary napkins. When I asked Nishijima for his recommendation he said, “You can sew it if you want to. I bought mine in a store.” I’ve never even sewn a button on a shirt, so I found a shop and bought a kesa (the cotton was new, by the way).
The other thing I needed was a certificate of transmission for Nishijima to sign and stamp with his seal. This I had to make for myself.
I was to take a big piece of silk and write down the names of all the people who ever received the transmission in Nishijima’s lineage starting from Gautama Buddha all the way through Nishijima’s teacher and Nishijima himself and then adding my own name—or rather the new phony Buddhist name I’d received at the previous ceremony—at the end. Though he told me I could write the names in roman letters, I elected to write them in Chinese characters. I liked the challenge of it and besides, he showed me a photocopy of one of his other foreign student’s transmission certificate and it looked dorky written in roman letters. I ruined two pieces of silk, and finally, after messing up the names of two of my Dharma ancestors, I asked Nishijima if I could use Wite-Out® to correct the mistakes rather than toss away another piece of silk. “Sure,” he said without hesitation.
The details of the ceremony itself are supposed to be secret. I guess they’re worried that if they get out, unlicensed people might start transmitting each other willynilly and then who knows what kind of hell would break loose. So, in fairness to everyone who’s been keeping mum about it for the past dozen centuries, I won’t go into the details here. But you’re not missing much.