Mon Ko Dojo Zen, Ciudad de México

| Mon Ko Dojo Zen, Mexico City, photo by G. Enns |

6:45 a.m. outside Mon Ko Dojo, the central practice space of Zen México. I have neither robe nor zafu, but it is not a problem. Rolando, the head monk, lets me in and loans me both.

The dojo is a brick room on the rooftop of a two-storey building in a quiet Mexico City suburb. A small, well-used han hangs just outside the entrance. The inside is whitewashed, with a homemade wooden rack for zafus, a framed photo of Taisen Deshimaru on the front wall, a small altar, and open windows to let in the bird songs and morning light.

Mon Ko Dojo is part of the Kosen lineage, one of many threads (including mine, Robert Livingston’s) radiating out from Taisen Deshimaru to the world. Running through the center of our shared path is zazen, which is the singular practice of sitting still, dropping off body and mind, and accepting the here and now. In intuitive reflection, we stop chasing or being dragged around by our thoughts, emotions, or worries. We turn ourselves inside out, joining with the rest of the world around us so there’s no more separation.

It’s just the two of us this morning. Over nine-million people in Mexico City, and nobody else shows up. Probably not surprising to other Zen practitioners. It’s early on a weekday, over an hour commitment, and for what? “What’s zazen good for?” Kodo Sawaki asks, then answers, “Absolutely nothing! This ‘good for nothing’ has got to sink into your flesh and bones until you actually practice what is truly good for nothing.” When you face the precipice of this good-for-nothing, Zen can initially seem stark, or worse yet, downright bleak. The vast stillness suddenly reveals, in stark contrast, all your terrifying demons and ghosts. This is me?! You’ve cornered the ego, and there’s no escape for it or for you, unless of course you jump up, run down the spiral staircase, and get back to “normal.” Why would anybody choose to take precious time out of their day to practice this?

The small showing, though not surprising, feels significant, like seeing, at the pound, something special in the emaciated kitten nobody else wants. You are the one who chooses it, you take it up in your arms, and suddenly your life changes, your path forks off into unknown territories, the kitten in your arms becomes a lion—your lion. Here, at Mon Ko Dojo, we two have chosen something that nine million other ciudedanos have not, and this moment shines.

The bell rings, I make my bows, cross my legs, and sit facing the bricks. This wall reminds me of the one at the old Camp Street Temple in New Orleans. There, too, I would sit and face an old set of painted bricks, the morning light shining gently through the blinds, the bells of St. Patrick’s marking the hours. 

The practice is the practice, whether in New Orleans or Mexico City. Once you’re seated, nothing’s different, only paradoxically everything’s different, always fresh and new, flowing, which is a kind of sameness, isn’t it? Mujo, change, is the one constant. 

After the gong strikes, the quiet settles in. Incense smoke wafts through the air. Strange, just fifteen minutes earlier I moved with a great mass of people surging like blood through underground arteries, all in a fevered rush to get to a million different places—office complexes, schools, restaurants, obligations, business, hustle and bustle. 

A half hour in, the bell rings again. I rise for kinhin, shortened breath from the 7,000 foot altitude kicking in. I must be tense, holding my shoulders. Rolando comes over, studies me a moment, and pushes my right forearm up to align with my left. Then he shakes my shoulders to relax me. Suddenly, a familiar bit of ego springs forth. “What must he think of me, of my line of the Deshimaru lineage? That we’re a poor shadow? That we’re lax?” These kinds of delusions, however, can’t stand for long when wholeheartedly practicing. I smile, let them go, and get back to my slow steps, only now with relaxed shoulders, straight arms, and more humility. 

The bell. More zazen. The Kesa Sutra.

Over three thousand kilometers from home, yet here I am, taking the familiar steps of kinhin, striking the familiar posture of zazen, inhabiting the familiar space of a dojo with a fellow monk who, despite our differences in tongue, speaks the same wordless language of Zen practice as me.