Tim Burkett - Nothing Holy about It: The Zen of Being Just Who You Are

Amidst Tim Burketts insights into Buddhism and life, there emerges a wonderful, intimate picture of Shunryu Suzuki. I learned a lot from this book.

David Chadwick, author of Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki

Fresh and personal and full of great stories culled from a life devoted to the cultivation of wisdom and compassion. A wonderful testament.

Red Pine, author of Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits

I have long been aware of Tim Burketts deep respect and appreciation for his teacher, Suzuki Roshi. Now I know why. Heres a touching account of how great an impact one life can have upon another.

Steve Hagen, author of Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs

ABOUT THE BOOK

According to legend, when the founder of Zen Buddhism was asked about the main principle of his holy teaching, he replied that there was nothing holy about it! Now, a millennium and a half later, Tim Burkett reveals how and why the wisdom of nonholiness is the key to a joyful heart. You dont need to go looking for something sacredthe happiness you seek is right where you are. In this book, a concise summary of Zen teachings unfolds within the ordinary comedies and tragedies of everyday life, beginning with the delightful nonholiness Burkett experienced in the presence of his original teacher, Shunyru Suzuki.

TIM BURKETT, PhD, is Guiding Teacher of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also a licensed psychologist and former director of a large mental health agency. He was a student of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and later of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, in whose lineage he is a dharma heir.

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Nothing Holy about It

THE ZEN OF BEING JUST WHO YOU ARE

Tim Burkett

EDITED BY WANDA ISLE

SHAMBHALA Boston & London 2015

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2015 by Tim Burkett and Wanda Isle

Cover art: Thinkstock

Cover design by Gopa & Ted2, Inc.

The section constitutes a continuation of this copyright page.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Burkett, Tim, author.

Nothing holy about it: the Zen of being just who you are / Tim Burkett; edited by Wanda Isle.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-0030-4

ISBN 978-1-61180-194-1 (paperback: alk. paper)

1. Zen Buddhism. 2. Burkett, Tim. I. Title.

BQ9265.4.B87 2015

294.3444dc23

2014028100

Contents

IN 1970 THE SIXTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Japanese Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, the first Japanese Zen teacher to establish a center in the West, saw the publication of a compilation of his talks given to American students. That book, Zen Mind, Beginners Mindthe first and only book by Suzuki to appear in his lifetimebecame the best-selling and best-loved Zen book ever written. Still in print, and still yearly outselling most other Zen books, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind is quoted extensively by Zen and non-Zen people alike, the phrase beginners mind itself having become a contemporary cultural term. The books straightforward, honest, and deceptively simple words somehow speak eloquently to our current condition.

Now, almost forty-five years later, Tim Burkett, abbot of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, and one of Suzukis earliest American disciples, is publishing his first book on Zen. Like Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, Nothing Holy about It is also the fruit of a lifetime of practice with others. Like Suzuki Roshi, Tim isnt a writer. Both these Zen men spent their lives working with students, doing what they could to help make the practice clearsteadily, locally, quietly, day by day. Neither had interest in nor time for writing, traveling, or public speaking. But in both cases, devoted students, appreciating the beneficial power of their words and wanting to share those words more widely, spent years of painstaking work transcribing, honing, distilling, until finally they produced texts worthy of the sincere and heartfelt teachings of their teachers. So, many years ago Trudy Dixon, and today Wanda Isle, have birthed lovely and helpful textsso that you can now hold in your hands a text that is more than another book on Zenit is a life.

Another similarity between Zen Mind, Beginners Mind and this book is that they both manage, somehow, to speak simultaneously to beginners and to experienced Zen studentsa trick not easy to accomplish. When I first read Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, the year it came out, I learned many useful things for my then brand-new practice, but at the same time, I could feel depths I was only dimly aware of. Rereading it over the years, I have been amazed by how many Buddhist teachings and philosophies Suzuki Roshi was referencing, in the simplest of ways, easily and gracefullyand with no sacrifice of depth. This is also true of Nothing Holy about It. The reader new to Zen will appreciate Tims effortless ability to explain things about Zen practice that are usually left unexplained or poorly explainedespecially psychological teachings that every contemporary student needs to knowand to do this with grandfatherly generosity and understanding (possibly because Tim, as he often mentions in the book, actually is a grandfather). The experienced Zen student will enjoy and learn from Tims many teaching innovations that are sometimes entirely original and sometimes surprising reformulations of traditional teachings. I myself, in reading the text, was often startled by his useful descriptions of various stages of practice and listings of practice factors that I had never seen beforeTims unique down-to-earth teachings.

You can tell a teacher by his or her students and by the environment for practice the teacher has fostered. A visit to the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, tells you a lot about who Tim Burkett is. The place is modest and simple (just an old, though very well kept-up, Midwestern house); the students earnest, hardworking, serious. An atmosphere of friendliness and care pervades.

Tim himself is like this, steady, dedicated, ordinaryand full of fun. He loves to tell stories (as you will soon see), and when he does he smiles broadly, his sparkling blue eyes all but disappearing into his head behind bushy eyebrows. And he laughs a lot. My visits to his house have featured long evenings of quiet storytelling, with laughter and a sweet feeling of friendshipevenings that could have gone on forever.

Not that Tims life has been entirely easygoing. Having had a stormy youth, and two siblings with mental illness, Tim has spent a full career in the mental-health field, work hes done simultaneously with his Zen practice and as an expression of it. For some years he has been CEO of People Incorporated, one of the largest and most successful mental-health nonprofit organizations in Minnesota.

As you read Nothing Holy about It, youll notice three distinct themes. First, Tims heart and teachings. Second Tims life, beginning with his Stanford daysa life whose shape, influenced by many years of Zen practice, is now clear. And third, a portrait of Tims teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who was, during the time Tim knew him, not the legendary Zen master he is today but an ordinary Japanese Zen priest, Rev. Suzuki. As a member myself of Suzuki Roshis lineage, I have heard many stories about our old teacher, but I have never heard these wonderful, simple, and very personal anecdotes of the very earliest days.