Two long time readers at Takuin.com approached me at the beginning of the year and asked if they could interview me for my own website. Sounded interesting to me, so I said yes. The three of us have spent the last few weeks emailing back and forth, and these posts are the result of those emails.
In reading over this interview, I seem to be more personal than I expected, if that is the right way to say it. And I hope anything I say is not misinterpreted. But if any of you need clarity, please post in the comments below and I’ll do my best to clear it up.
The questions in this particular post, were asked by Jake.
Jake: Tell us about your path to becoming a spiritual teacher.
Takuin: There was no path, and as I see it, I was never a spiritual teacher. I understand that some people might say otherwise, and that is fine. But at no time have I ever thought of myself as a spiritual teacher.
My only real concern was to learn how to speak…so to speak. Not the physical means of speaking, but rather, the way I might make sense of an event that seemed to make no sense at all.
J: And what was that event?
TM: Some have called it awakening, liberation, or enlightenment, amongst other things. It took place on December 1st, 2006. I place no real importance on the event itself…
J: I have heard you say that before, but first I want to ask what about that event made no sense?
TM: Well, any kind of awakening, or whatever we call it, is a leap beyond logic. It is beyond what we know, in any meaningful way. It has been called many things but as it is a leap beyond, it can never be captured.
A major problem of the spiritual seeker is the desperate need to understand the realization; to understand something essentially beyond the powers of understanding. The only thing the seeker can do is make the awakening into something understandable, and therefore, allow themselves the potential opportunity to chase it down. But unfortunately, they can never actually chase awakening; they can only chase their ideas of awakening.
J: So the seeker is not actually seeking enlightenment, but their idea of what enlightenment is?
TM: That is it, right there.
J: After that ‘accident’ happened to you, you must have been curious, right? Did you seek out anyone for answers, or at least try to find some explanation of what happened to you?
TM: I did, but that probably lasted about a week. Even though I had no idea what this thing was that happened, I could clearly see the workings of this mind. And when I heard the explanations from others, telling me ‘your experience was this, your experience was that’, it was all meaningless.
“What was I to do? When they told me it was this or that, whether I accepted it, rejected it, or did nothing, I was still the same creature. It did not touch the life that was there.”
I suspected that if there were discoveries of any kind, they would be made alone, beyond the muddy paw prints of others.
That turned out to be fairly true.
J: Do you think it is a trap impossible to break out of? I mean, the wheel within wheel way the search seems to go on?
TM: Clearly it is not impossible to leave behind, but the cost is great. The seeker IS the search, and you cannot separate the two. If one hopes to escape the search (which is itself a search), one has to die to what they have known, and that effectively kills the need for enlightenment in the first place.
But ending the search can be a trick, too. For most people it is like holding a live hand grenade behind their backs and thinking, “As long as I don’t see it, it is ok to keep holding on to it.”
J: And when it blows up, they grab another grenade with their remaining good hand!
TM: Haha…yes…
Just drop it, already. 
J: You mentioned earlier that you place no real importance on your ‘accident’. Why do you think that is?
TM: What about it is important? We can look at it, and analyze it from a distance…
We can say, life changed, and you lived differently than you would have. Possibly yes, possibly no. We can say, you would have never written all of those words without that accident. Sure, I can see that. We can say, you would have never met the people you have met over the past 5 years. Probably true. And so on. But why is that so important? The specifics, I mean.
A million other things could have happened on that same day, and each one could have led to an interesting life. That doesn’t invalidate any of life’s particular circumstances, but life and living are not the analysis of life and living.
That kind of analysis is just another way for us to solidify a vague aspect into something solid so we might be able to deal with it better.
It is an act of war.
J: Why do you say that?
TM: Once a target becomes solid, you can build turrets and defences. You can also learn how to manipulate the thing for your own personal gain.
If we are speaking about enlightenment, it is necessary to make it into something in order to take it. And that is why so much time is spent with words, trying to understand it. You cannot take what you cannot understand.
“People want to know what it looks like, what are the symptoms, what are the smells, the sensations, the lightness or the heaviness, or whatever it is. Why do they so desperately want to know these things?”
In Your Lap
J: Maybe because if they have those sign posts, they’ll know when they are getting close to the destination?
TM: Yes!
And what does that mean? What are they actually getting close to?
J: An idea?
TM: An idea handed to them. I have heard it called second-hand living, and that is not far from the truth.
J: So could we also say, they are looking for something, searching for something they have already created? They create the idea of what enlightenment should be, then look for the idea they just came up with? Is that right?
TM: That’s it.
J: That is fucking cruel! Haha…
TM: It is.
But I don’t want to be cruel about it myself, because the spiritual seeker already has enough to deal with. It is the ultimate abusive relationship, with the ultimate asshole spouse.
The reality of it is cruel enough, so I don’t care to make it worse.
J: We’ve talked a number of times on Skype, and I’ve never found you to be cruel. Have you heard that you’re cruel from other people?
TM: Not really, no.
It is always difficult with the written word, you know…it is sometimes hard to hear the tone of the words. It is easy to misinterpret.
I have been told that I am unsympathetic, which I don’t entirely disagree with. I can understand that one. But I am largely supportive of the people I speak with. For me, even if spiritual seeking is an impossibility, I love hearing stories and love listening to others talk about their own searching and where it has taken them. And I really don’t think people come to me for answers, anyway. Sometimes they have, but that is an attitude I do not tolerate easily.
J: That has always been a problem for teachers I think (even though you say you don’t think of yourself as one); those students that want a pointer, versus the ones that want to have their hands held and be told how to do it.
TM: I don’t know how difficult it is for teachers. Many seem to be in the business of accumulation, anyway; to get more and more students to spread their light across the world or whatever it is.
It seems to me, if one is a spiritual teacher, their goal should be to lose their students, and not keep them.
J: How so?
TM: If I am a teacher, and the same people keep coming to me year after year, asking the same questions, then what the hell am I doing? Certainly some of that responsibility is on the student, but that would also be my failure as a teacher. If I can’t give a student the tools they need to learn on their own, to explore on their own, within a single year, that is my fault.
If that were the case, I should just give up and go fishing or something.
J: Haha! Nice!
You started Takuin.com in December of 2006, a few weeks after your accident. And by my calculations, you’ve written over 320 articles. But recently you’ve talked about stepping away from all of that. Why did you decide to give it up?
TM: It is not a matter of giving up anything, necessarily. The site for me was a vehicle of exploration, and it still is.
Originally, the whole point of making Takuin.com was to find a way to speak, or to make sense of the senseless, as I said earlier. But that quickly changed when I realized that could never happen.
“So somewhere along the line, it changed into an exploration of many things, but the underlying subject was always one of enlightenment, more or less.”
Looking back into older posts, I cannot really see a progression, or a change of any kind. But I do see how my writing has changed from chunky to sparse. And that seems to be the direction I am moving in now.
J: What direction is that?
TM: I am learning that verbosity is not necessary. At all. Fewer and fewer words are needed to fully express living, and that is where all of this is headed. I don’t know exactly what this means, and I don’t know exactly how this will express itself at Takuin.com, but it will happen soon.
Besides, I have never really been the kind of writer that plans what he is going to say, so I will not know where this is headed until it comes out. I’ll be just as surprised as you will, Jake.
J: Are you worried about losing the readers you’ve gained over the last 5 years?
TM: Not at all. If they stay, read, comment, and involve themselves in what I am doing, I’ll love them. And if they leave for greener pastures, I’ll still love them. I do suspect that many will leave, however.
Just from my own observation, I seem to have primarily two kinds of readers; those interested in exploration, and those wanting to be told what to do. I have no interest in doling out objectives and praising them as rules of living. It is horrifying and unfair, as it stifles and kills one’s ability to explore and truly live for themselves. I will no longer take part in any of that.
J: Have you done that?
TM: Not to that extent. At least I hope not! I have always avoided telling anyone how to do something…how to get this or that, and so on. I have always attempted to turn it back onto them, because everything they hope to see is there already.
J: Was there a specific moment that led to this decision? Or was it something that slowly happened over time?
TM: I think it was a gradual thing. But there may have been a final straw. I am still undecided about whether or not what I observed was the defining moment, but it certainly didn’t help, haha.
J: What was it?
TM: As you can probably imagine, Japan is a popular place for foreigners to visit for spiritual reasons. Perhaps not as popular as India, but still, there is a lot of that activity going on here. So it is not terribly difficult to find spiritual seminars and retreats and that sort of thing, if you know where to look.
I sometimes like to go to those places to watch people. I won’t pay to get in to a seminar, but I like to find a place out of view and just watch the people in attendance.
“I like to see that activity; the movement, the action, all taking place in a rather concentrated space.”
Early last year, I was sitting at just such an event. I saw a group of about 10 to 15 people sitting in some kind of meditation. One of them had a small child, maybe 5 or 6 years old. And children, being children, are not always so keen on sitting still and saying OM, or whatever. The father of the child kept trying to get the boy to sit still, and there was a bit of a struggle there.
Finally, the boy asked, “What are you doing?”
The father replied, “Trying to meditate.”
The boy asked, “Why?”
The father, a bit frustrated answered, “Because I want to be happy.”
Then the father said something that stunned me…
“And if you want to be happy, you’ll have to do the same thing.”
I. Was. Horrified.
I have told this story to a few people, and most of them don’t think of it as such a big deal. But to me this was horrific. I was nearly in tears.
How dare he. How dare he set up his child in a fruitless search, teaching him to believe that, on his own, he is inadequate. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Is that what we want for our children? For them to conform to a system? Do we want to teach them in order to be good, to be happy, they must perform actions in the same manner as everyone else? If the child fails to do this, what will they think of themselves?”
I sat with that event for some time. I am not saying it was the sole reason for my decision, but it did cause me to stop for a bit and explore.
And to be fair, there is no way to know if the child even heard what his father said. It could have been in one ear, and out the other…
…but I really doubt that.
J: At first glance I would’ve been tempted to say, “Big deal,” but I see where you are coming from.
As far as changing direction, did your family and friends support this change? Or is this even something you would have talked to them about?
TM: I mentioned this to one or two people, but it wasn’t anything I felt the need to really talk about with anyone. And to be honest, I do not think anyone in my family has ever read anything I have written. We have certainly never really talked about it, but not for any particular reason.
J: They’ve never read anything? Are you serious?
TM: I can’t know for sure, because as I said, we have not talked about it. But I am fairly certain of that.
I don’t feel bad about it at all. They don’t ask me for spiritual advice, and they don’t think I am any more strange than I always have been, so it is fine.
I think I prefer it this way. My friends and my family really know nothing of what I have written, and that is just fine. And if they ever ask what I have been doing, I just say I have been writing and growing my beard, and that is good enough for them.
***************
This interview continues in the next post.
{ 24 comments }
Nice, thanks. Look forward to more.
I laughed at the closing questions – I’ve had the same experience. A few friends read but most are not interested in the slightest.
Thanks, Davidya.
As far as my friends or family reading my writing, there is something in me that says, “You know what? You don’t need to see this.” Haha…
This interview is going to be quite long. I am not sure how many parts exactly, which is why I put the question mark in the title. It is essentially all done, but I will take my time in posting the rest. I enjoyed it a great deal, and I liked answering questions having nothing to do with spiritual things. Felt rather new and different.
(laughs) I recall when I first started writing about this (in my case a couple of months after the initial shift), my mother expressed interest in the writing. Oh God! I thought. But she lost interest quickly.
Dunno if this is in a following question, but I guess a related one would be:
Do your friends and family know of your “awakening”? Do they “see” you that way?
I don’t remember the question precisely, but something similar is in the interview somewhere…
PS – nice beard. Mine has become rather white so it rather ages me.
Mine is whiter than you might think, haha.
PS – nice beard. Mine has become rather white.
Must be distinctive in Japan.
I never thought about it, but i guess it is. The ladies seem to like it anyway
It was nice to see something new pop out again It always brings me great joy to come here and read .
The thing about the boy is sad indeed, i´ve seen it many times , it was done to me by my father as well, but i always understood that he lived in a mental state that didn´t allow him to think otherwise , he did this kinds of things since i was very little, telling me how i was going to be a loser and stuff, I really never bought any of it lol, but I didn´t pity him either, It was more like compassion and understanding that I felt for him and what was going inside him.
Compassion is very dangerous i think, a lot of women let themselves get beaten up and men too either emotionally of physically , but maybe that´s not compassion but pity and self pity . anyway
I remember I let myself get hit once by another boy when I was 10 or 12 cause he was so angry that I didnt want to hang around with him anymore, that he just followed me around all over the school for 2 or 3 days and eventually I told him, Dude just give me one punch and leave me alone forever, I used to train shotokan since I was 5 so I didnt mind him giving me a blow , so he hit me in the left cheek and we never spoke again.
I dont know if in the interview they asked you about what to do with “enligntment ” .
Im clearly attached to ideas and images still , which is yet another idea…, but in any case .
I myself would like to be enlightened , I have found great peace inside me in the last 2 years and I can see how people get angry and why and if I turn TV i see the fear in their eyes , there´s tons of people doing plastic surgeries and so on , on the face , all because they are afraid of losing their jobs or whatever what not , I myself left everything, quit my job and have done nothing for a year and a half but be at peace and “meditate”, i really dont care anymore , not that im careless ,but it was the loss of fear, I really didnt lose fear at all though , some times it appears but i don´t get hooked up in it, its more like a sensation, like when you put an ice-cube on your back ahahahhaa, and its so chill but it soon wears of, that sensation. But of course that I worry about how to pay my credit cards and stuff, and wha´t im going to do when I run out of money , but somehow I know that if I dont let thought make me get stressed peace is always there and in peace I will be provided for all my needs , Maybe its stupid we will see how that works this year heheheahe.
Anyway I would like to be enlightened , I understand that i don´t know what it means and that I will never understand it with anything I already know , but I sit here and meditate anyway and remember the fishes being killed and polluted, the people being tortured and murdered everywhere around the world ,
so I don´t let it stress me but I feel peace and try to send it all around the world , maybe if we was many people feeling at peace, not fanatically but you know, feeling just well and compassion and understanding of everything that is going on around us, using that type of intelligence which gets things sorted out by themselves , maybe if we was many enough , somehow the waves would spread throughout the world and start calming people down, little by little, which is something that is probably already taking place and that maybe has been taking place forever, anyway.
It would be nice if someone that was about to execute someone else with a gun or something , all of the sudden both feel the energy of peace and instantly dropped the gun and realized what they was doing , that every soldier everywhere dropped all of their guns on the floor and no one killed each other anymore and no one felt like hurting anyone anymore .
Not that the need to kill is not there anymore, some people have killer instincts, but also maybe one is somewhere where there´s no food around and has to kill a chicken to survive. What would be the right action to let oneself die out of starvation or to kill the chicken to eat it . Probably someone that lets him or herself die out of compassion has both feet already in heaven and is already in it anyway so to die wouldn´t mean anything at all. But then thought comes in to place and one starts thinking that maybe the chicken will die or be eaten by something anyway so it might as well be me ?
I wish, if enlightenment exists , that it made me into a more high power anthenna that could transmit wellness throughout the world .
But then again this ideas are probably more attachments that keep me from jumping ahahahahahahaha.
I´ve been working on letting them go too , maybe because I think about it all the time is the reason why it doesnt get done. I got me a press bench and a barbell anyway and will only focus on building some muscle.
I´m sorry about the long post but you guys always inspire me for some reason Ill probably keep getting tons of thoughts for the rest of the day
Thanks, ogt.
I think the main point to understand is, you can do that NOW. There is no need to wait.
One of the major stupidities of humanity is the inability or unwillingness to take action at the right time. We leave it to others; our favorite politicians, religious leaders, and so on. We feel that, if we rally behind someone, and at the same time, talk down to their opponents, we are doing something. But that is not action. All of this political talk, flag waving, sign waving, is an active form of laziness. If we really wanted to change the world, we’d get out there, do it ourselves, and not wait.
The real problem arises in inaction. In waiting, violence becomes inevitable. By the time we are ready to stand up, it is practically too late, and the closest vehicle for change is violent action.
This will be one of the main reasons for the fall of humanity…
It is not easy to act, when action is needed. It is easier to postpone, and hope someone else will take care of the problem. But we have to leap beyond this if we hope to survive as a species.
I dot it everyday! I sit on the roof and meditate and right now im washing carpets of the house with a water hose and then i sit under the sun and feel the most peace I can and try to transmit it to the world! I just have this damn pain in the throat very often and problems breathing, i guess ill do some breathing excercises or something im sick of the pain in the throat , i think its related to the tongue or something
Take care with your throat, ogt!
I witnessed a similar situation you did at the meditation event. Mine happened in a church in Cologne and made me sad. I guess this is how “religious education” is done.
Everything is already written and said and done and still: repeated. I unvoluntarily stopped writing – there was nothing left to say – and found that the time and energy is better put to use for myself and the universe. Still a little bit hard but liberating as well;-)
I’ve observed the parent-child dynamic has 2 aspects. There is the things the parents say, ofttimes passing on what they were told and ofttimes unconsciously. But there is also what lands, what the child takes to heart. That varies a lot, even within families.
For example, to “do well in school”, one kid might strive for excellence, another may doubt themselves and another refuse to cooperate.
Certainly, we want to see parents feeding kids ideas that will support them. But even the best of parenting won’t make the perfect child. We all have our stuff.
I agree, we all have our stuff. And we have the choice to pass on mindfully and consciously. So I have to be as clear as possible but finaly: communication is what matters.
Right. We could take it a step deeper. Who we are is what matters. That is what we’ll communicate.
PS – my response was partly to you and partly to the post. It was in no way a critique. You express very well.
Thanks, Davidya, so do you:-)
Thanks, tokumei.
It can be difficult, but the answers are there. It might be more of an unwillingness to see than an inability.
It is not always easy to do the right thing, but that is mostly because we tell ourselves something else is more important. But I am not sure how strongly we actually believe our own stories, in that case.
I’m liking the new way of peeking thru Takuin’s eyes.
And it’s refreshing that your beard seems to rate as important as your “accident”! I appreciate that – a year ago I would have been dismayed at such a lack of sacredness.
Thanks, vicki!
“Lack of sacredness” made me laugh.
Alright commented a bit site didnt respond dammit now its gone
Thanks for that, no matter how clear it is/was in the mind there is only this/life, nothing separate, not even the thought concept of ”you” and ”me”, was still trying to reproduce a final enlightenment experience including a total stopping of thoughts like the buddhas, ramanas, nithyianandas, nisargadattas and the like.
Great gurus for real but they never asked for the adoration only to take a look at reality like it actually is beyond words and thoughts.
Becoming happy through meditation? The kid couldnt even comprehend being born totally happy in the first place, like all of us (shelter, feeding, taken care of needed of course but no more needed.
Anyway a bit of a disapointment here no more staring into pictures, listening, reading, gathering vids, writing/tweeting to reach something lol.
Thanks, Machiel.
Perhaps adults cannot be happy because they can comprehend it…or at least comprehend an idea of happiness.
It is interesting that when we notice we are happy, that happiness seems to disappear…
Very interesting interview!
You know Takuin, I have always wondered why seekers flummox you so much… You say, “Why do they so desperately want to know these things?”
Imagine a ghetto where someone entered when they were still a child… The ghetto is mean, very little laughter there, mostly trying to wonder when it will all end – would you still wonder that such an inhabitant would fantasize about what it would be like to not be in a ghetto?
Btw, remember I told you about my puppy Honzo. I have had to give him away. Now i have a hole named Honzo in my heart.
Thanks, A.
When the child grows up, they can leave the ghetto if they really want. I suppose the seeker can do the same thing…whenever they grow up.
Always remember Honzo with love. What you both gave to each other will help you along in the future….
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