The Trials of Growth in Zen Essay

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Soko Morinaga’s Struggle to Change

In the essay entitled “My Struggle to Become a Zen Monk” by Soko Morinaga, the author describes his journey from being a student in school to going to the doorstep of Goto Zuigan Roshi, master of Daishuin temple in Kyoto, to finally becoming a Zen monk at Daitokuji monastery. The journey that Soko experiences is one that demands patience, humility and perseverance—but above all it is one that demands conformity to tradition and submission to something higher than himself. It is this submission that helps Soko to overcome the feelings he has towards death and attain peace of mind. This paper will explain why Soko felt the need for a significant change in his life, the steps he took to effect that change, and how that change impacted him and helped him to achieve his goals.

Soko grew up during WWII and was a liberal arts student at the time. He was called to enter into military service at a time right when his parents died. He was forced out of one world that he knew well (academia and family life) and into a world he did not know or like very much—a world where Western powers were exploiting countries in the East and hanging and butchering enemies in Europe. His experiences in the War and immediately after when hyper-inflation hit Japan and his inheritance (family land) was taken away by the government only served to cause him to lose faith in everything. He no longer hand any sense of peace, no will to go on and study more, no desire to be part of the world really at all. He held no sense of anything other than that people are false and manipulative; his main problem, however, was that this sense would not help him to survive: he needed more. He admits that he could have become a criminal and joined a gang—but there was clearly some goodness in him because he chose instead to seek assistance from the Zen monks (even though he doubted their authenticity and wisdom). At least, he hoped they would give him some refuge. In this manner, Soko expressed his need for a significant change in his life. He gradually confessed to having no discipline, to needing experience, to needing a master—someone to follow.

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Of course, even he himself did not entirely know what this change was that he was seeking, for he entered into Daishuin on false pretenses—lying to Roshi about his trust for him. But eventually he did develop that trust—and more than that: he also developed love for Roshi and refused to ever quit his side, even when Roshi tried to expel him. At that point, Soko had transformed from a vagrant wanderer to a true disciple—and Roshi knew it: master and disciple at that moment wept together out of awareness of the bond that had been effected.

How had it been effected? Through experience. Soko did not trust the old Roshi at first but simply could not tolerate the thought of leaving the monastery so soon after arriving—which is why he lied about the extent to which he trusted the old monk. However, Roshi’s lessons quickly impressed upon Soko’s mind the importance and value of paying attention to one’s surroundings, of seeing goodness in all things. Soko states that the biggest lesson Roshi taught him immediately after Soko swept the floor was that, “Originally, there is no rubbish in either men or things” (Morinaga 17). This teaching is a stark contrast to what Soko had been believing since the War. He had learned to appreciate nothing, to be skeptical of everything, to view the world as a menace that was out to get one. He had no faith, no will, no peace of mind, and no way to make peace with the fact that he would one day die. Roshi began to change all of that, step by step—and the first step was to point out to Soko that men and things were not bad and corrupt by design, that there was some good in all things and that all things could be made whole again with just a little care and attention and discipline. The way that Roshi sifted through the….....

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