Zen, Dzogchen, & Nondual Awareness with Kokyo Henkel
In Episode 29 of Redesigning The Dharma by Sahaja Soma, Adrian Baker interviews Zen priest and Dzogchen practitioner Kokyo Henkel on his decades of Sōtō Zen training, ordination and dharma transmission, study with Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and current retreat life at Bright Window Hermitage. In this conversation, Henkel recounts discovering Zen at Brown University, joining practice groups, and moving to Tassajara and Green Gulch, where short-term residency became nearly two decades of monastic-style life. They discuss differences between monastic and householder practice, Japanese versus Chinese/Korean monasticism, and how Japan shifted to bodhisattva-only precepts and married priesthood. Henkel describes being drawn to Dzogchen for its clear articulation of non-dual awareness and explains Ngöndro’s structure, purpose, and benefits when undertaken after gaining Dzogchen “pointing out.”
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Kokyo Henkel
01:35 Discovering Zen at Brown
06:54 Monastic Life vs Householder Practice
09:59 Japan Zen History
13:24 Finding Dzogchen and Tsoknyi Rinpoche
19:32 Zen vs Dzogchen Teaching Styles
25:39 What is Ngondro and What Are The Benefits?
32:37 Conclusion and Intro to Part Two
Guest Bio:
Kokyo Henkel has dedicated his life to Buddhist practice since 1990. He spent nearly two decades in monastic training, living at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Green Gulch Farm, and No Abode Hermitage in the Sōtō Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He also spent a full year studying in Japan at Bukokuji Monastery under Tangen Harada Roshi. Tenshin Reb Anderson Roshi ordained Henkel as a Zen priest in nineteen ninety-four and gave him Dharma transmission in twenty ten, making him the ninety-second generation lineage holder. From 2010 - 2020, Henkel served as the guiding teacher at the Santa Cruz Zen Center.
Beyond his roots in Zen, Henkel integrates Tibetan Vajrayana and Dzogchen traditions into his path. He has studied with masters like Tsoknyi Rinpoche since two thousand and three and completed his foundational Ngöndro practices in twenty twenty. Today, Henkel focuses on applying ancient teachings from India, China, and Japan to modern life. He lives with his wife at Bright Window Hermitage, a retreat space in California's Santa Lucia Mountains for practitioners of all traditions.
Full Transcript:
Adrian: Welcome to Redesigning the Dharma, and I'm your host, Adrian Baker. Today, I'm speaking with Kokyo Henkel. Kokyo has dedicated his life to Buddhist practice since 1990. He spent nearly two decades in monastic training in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi, living at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Green Gulch Farm, and No Abode Hermitage. He also spent a full year studying in Japan under Tangan Harada Roshi. Tenshin Reb Anderson Roshi ordained Henkel as a Zen priest in 1994 and gave him Dharma transmission. Beyond his roots in Zen, Henkel integrates Tibetan Vajrayana and Dzogchen traditions into his path. He has studied with masters like Tsoknyi since 2003 and undertaken the foundational Ngöndro practices.
Today, Henkel focuses on applying ancient teachings from India, China, Japan to modern life. [00:01:00] He lives with his wife at Bright Window Hermitage, a retreat space in California's Santa Lucia Mountains practitioners of all traditions. I hope you enjoy this conversation, and as always, please if you have any questions, comments, feedback, things you'd like to see more of, please follow up and reach out either in the comment section on YouTube or Instagram, as well as just reaching out directly through email sahajasoma@pm.me.
Kokyo, thanks so much for coming on Redesigning the Dharma. It's wonderful to have you on and appreciate you making the time, and I was really excited to have you on as a guest because we've got some big things in common. we share a common teacher in Tsoknyi Rinpoche and a common affinity for both dzogchen and Zen.
You've got, I'm sure, a lot more experience in both, especially Zen. but I really love this intersection and wanna talk about the sort of natural, I feel, essence between Zen and ... on the one hand, and then dzogchen and mahamudra on the other. It's like they're the most similar, compared to anything else I've come [00:02:00] across.
And then, of course, if you're looking at tantra versus Zen, they're, like, totally opposite in other respects. So I wanna get into exploring that paradox, but I was really excited to have you on for that reason. And also, I saw you're receptive to integrating plant medicine in a conscious way within the Dharma path, so we have a lot to talk about.
Kokyo: Yes. Good to meet you, and looking forward to the conversation
Adrian: Wonderful. Well, I will have read your bio for the audience, but, perhaps just for starting out, if you wanna talk a little bit about, what drew you to Zen in the early years of your practice, and I'd love to do that as a sort of setup before then we talk about what drew you to Vajrayana, Then we'll get into comparing those
Kokyo: Sure. yes, as we just, discussing, um, we both went to Brown University. So that was the place, where I, first discovered Buddhism through the lens of Zen. I guess we could say by coincidence, because I, took some classes with, Professor Hal Roth, who, taught Zen and also, was a Zen practitioner himself.
At that time, I don't think there were any teachings about Tibetan [00:03:00] Buddhism, going on. There just weren't professors, at that school offering that. So that's partly my conditions were. so I loved hearing about Zen, studying Zen in this academic way. We were going to root texts of the ancient ancestors mostly.
And then, Providence Zen Center, in the Korean Zen lineage was nearby, and some practitioners there would come to the university once a week and offer a, meditation group, read a little bit from Huanbo, one of the ancestors, as I recall, who I'm a real fan of still. And, uh, we'd sit some, and, I remember other people, kind of checking out that group, coming and going, for a few weeks, and then would drop out.
But I think it was maybe a year or so, I just kept going week after week. I really took to it, and, especially in the middle of a busy, academic life, it was very grounding to practice.
And also , the understanding of reality as presented through Zen in a very direct way really rang true for me.
Adrian: Nice. And what [00:04:00] path were you on? Were you studying to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer? And then at what point were you like, "No, I'm like so going for this, I'm gonna actually be a monk"?
Kokyo: yeah, I was an, art major, uh, in school. Part of the reason I went to Brown is because Rhode Island School of Design was next door. I could take classes there. But I didn't really know what I would do afterwards. I just liked doing art, studio art. And, um, and I also was taking classes in psychology and, other topics.
I didn't really know what I would do after school, but as I got more into Zen practice while I was in school, when I graduated, I felt like before I, go about the rest of my life, um, I've heard that there are these Zen centers where you can go and live and practice. and, uh, I'd like to try that out for a little while and find my, stable presence in a more, um, reliable way before I jumped into the rest of my life.
So I, uh, had heard about, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, which is just down [00:05:00] the road from where I live now, south of San Francisco in the mountains. and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center is connected through San Francisco Zen Center, the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. And, uh, I think we m- I think we actually read "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," Suzuki Roshi's book in the Zen class with Hal Roth, one of our
Adrian: you not? It's the classic.
Kokyo: in the classes.
So all that combined, uh, and, um, and it was winter when I graduated on the East Coast. I'm going to California and,
Adrian: Mm.
Kokyo: try out living at these Zen centers. So, um, I did that and, one week turned into a month, turned into a year, turned into 20 years without, um, really, like, consciously deciding this is what I'm gonna do.
But as the more I stayed, the more I felt like, this is a great life and, um, the less I was interested in doing anything else, especially since I didn't really know what else I, I would do. so yeah, I ended up just staying, for almost a couple decades at, uh, the residential communities of Tassajara, [00:06:00] the, the mountain monastery, and, Green Gulch Farm as sort of a semi-monastic Zen community north of San Francisco
Adrian: I thought it was monastic. Is it not really monastic? You say semi-monastic
Kokyo: Well, I mean, it's also a farm. It's a working farm. they have farm apprentice program. in some ways it's just as monastic style as, Tassajara, but, Tassajara has really traditional three-month training periods where they close the gate, nobody comes and goes for those winter months.
And, uh, Green Gulch is a little bit more porous. They do have two-month training periods, but there's still guests coming and going and, um, so it's a little less, tight a container,
Adrian: Sequestered,
Kokyo: similar. Yeah.
Adrian: I see. I see. You know, it's just coming up for me, you know, as you're talking about it because, um, what I'm hearing in your story, it's like you wanted to practice and becoming a monk was the way to really practice a lot, you know, if you wanted to give yourself to it. And of course, in some senses, like traditionally, you [00:07:00] could say that's always been the case, but I'm thinking of how if you were in other cultures, certainly somewhere like Tibet, you really could be a householder and still be steeped in the Dharma and still be practicing. Whereas in the West, if you really wanna practice a lot, I mean, unless you've won the lottery or something, you know, it's like being a monk kind of financially is the way,
Kokyo: Yeah.
Adrian: you kinda have to do that
Kokyo: It's, you know, living with, um, like-minded people in community. So you have this supportive, sangha that's there around all day long, and then the daily schedule, and then retreats and these, training practice periods where you kind of stop a lot of the work just to, um, be more immersed in a lot of meditation.
Those are advantages. But, um, in some ways, you know, after doing it for many years and, and then after leaving and being a little bit more, outside of those residential communities, I can see that, there's many people finding their way outside of those containers. And in fact, I'm thinking of [00:08:00] Green Gulch Farm in particular.
If you're on staff there, I think they want everybody to sit like two week-long retreats a year. but they offer maybe six or so. maybe you do half of them. But the other half you have to support the community of be cooking in the kitchen or the other work to take care of the temple.
And, uh, one time there was a, a friend of mine who, uh, lived outside Green Gulch, but he would come to every sesshin. And he was, I think, a lawyer, so he had his own hours, but he could make his time, and he could afford to do these sesshins. And, I thought, "Wow, you're really into this. Why don't you come live at Green Gulch?"
And he said, " Well, if I lived there, I couldn't do so many sesshins." Which is true. Which is true, you know. So it's all relative. of course, it's very supportive to, uh, to have a community around doing the same thing all the time. But, um, yeah, people really put formal practice at the center of their lives without living in these communities too. Yeah, you're, you're right that, in ancient and modern Tibetan culture, there's the ngakpa tradition that's, um, as [00:09:00] opposed to monastics, they're like, let's say tantric lay priests with families and children, and they're like a, kind of like a village shaman. But they do a lot of practice and retreat as well.
and Japanese Zen path is somewhat like that as well because, um, it's the one, Buddhist country that for the past, couple of centuries, the priests have been mostly married and with kids and families. So they do their time in the monastery like they often do in Tibet, but then you can have a kind of, we might think of a lay life, but also you know, they're priests with their fam- was living in temples, during the practice also.
So in that way, Japanese Zen has some correlations to this Tibetan Ngakpa tradition in the sense that it's kind of householder friendly. You, you don't have to be a celibate monastic
Adrian: point. That struck me always about Zen, that people were married and kids and,
Kokyo: Japanese Zen, you know, Ch- Chinese and Korean Zen is, is not that way. They have a celibate monastic tradition.
Adrian: [00:10:00] Oh, interesting. I read that, um, 'cause you said a couple hundred years ago, this may be wrong, but it was just one source saying that they, like, instituted that during the Meiji Restoration as a way to try to weaken the authority of Buddhism. That was one interpretation at least. Is, is that true or is it...?
Yeah
Kokyo: yeah, that is, that is partially true that, um, the Meiji period, this is like in the 1800s, the government was trying to kind of promote, Shintoism as the national native religion, and Buddhism was this foreign thing even though it was permeating the whole culture for many, many centuries.
so it's, yeah, partly to weaken Buddhism, that's part of it. And also I think it was just like a, um, a kind of secularization of the culture. A little bit like Protestant Christianity where at some point the priests started marrying and it was kind-- I think partly influenced by Protestant Christianity.
the government, more like allowed. Sometimes it's said they forced the priests to get married. No, it wasn't ever quite like that. It was more like they just allowed it and most of the priests wanted to.
Adrian: [00:11:00] I imagine,
Kokyo: which it was, it was strange, I think, that celibacy rule was enforced by government in Japan, which seems very strange.
Like why isn't it just within the, the religious institution? but since that's how it was, they lifted that ban and, the religious institutions couldn't really maintain, the way that it was. And also another reason Japan is unique is that from much further back, like the 9th century or 8th or 9th century, actually maybe earlier, maybe 7th, um, a monk named Saicho, the, founder of the Tendai school in, Japan, wanted to kind of revolutionize the practice.
And at that time, they had the so-called Hinayana precepts, the Vinaya monastic precepts, from India, from the Buddha's time, as well as the bodhisattva precepts. And still, China and Korea are like that, the monastics have the, ancient monastic precepts that really define the lifestyle, very different from lay life.
And then they have bodhisattva precepts that are more about the spirit of benefiting all beings. [00:12:00] So, uh, in the, I think the 7th century, Saicho bringing, the Tendai school to Japan from China. He said, " Well, we have these two kinds of precepts, but since our meditation is already completely Mahayana bodhisattva style and our understanding is Mahayana bodhisattva style, let's make our precepts also just bodhisattva precepts.
We don't need those, old Indian monastic so-called Hinayana or, self-liberation precepts." So just after his lifetime they dropped those in Japan. and ordinations were only through bodhisattva precepts. So that's the only Asian Buddhist country that's like that. The others all have bodhisattva precepts, but they also have this, monastic vinaya.
But Japan dropped that way back. So that also allowed for this change of like, where, there were, of course, ordained people, but for example, the celibacy precept was not so emphasized as like, this is a make or break thing. It's more of this like not misusing sexuality and harming others in that way. So [00:13:00] eventually, by the time the 1800s came along, the whole country could kind of shift into this new way of looking at ordained priests as, as kind of like family people
Adrian: Interesting. Thank you for sharing that. That's fascinating
Kokyo: yeah. What is that history
Adrian: So were you practicing Zen basically in the monastery for about 20 years until you got into Vajrayana? Is that timeline about correct?
Kokyo: it was maybe 10 years into that I started hearing about vajrayana, especially dzogchen. And, as you say, dzogchen and mahamudra to some extent. I think dzogchen even more so is so similar to Zen. And, uh, and some scholars say there's, you know, ongoing research about this, but maybe had some of the same roots and evolved at the kind of the same time, from India to China and then into Tibet.
And, uh, so very simple non-dual awareness, just being kind of practice is the, the highest practice, almost like [00:14:00] non-meditation. So when I started hearing, mostly reading these dzogchen texts, I thought, "This is the, this is the best zazen instruction I've ever heard." It's so clear and, sounds just like what the old Zen ancestors were teaching, but it's more straightforward and more detailed.
And, one of those books that I read, early on in the dzogchen realm was Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Um, I think he only had his first book,
Adrian: Fearless simplicity
Kokyo: think it was before that was, um, " Carefree Dignity."
Adrian: dignity.
Kokyo: "Carefree Dignity," I think was the only one that had just come out, I think. And then turned out he, regularly came to California, at that time. So I first saw him I think around 2003
Adrian: Nice.
Kokyo: uh, and I was-- that first retreat with him, I really immediately, connected and felt like, "Oh, I wanna spend more time with this teacher."
Adrian: And what did you feel in that? Like, I mean, part of a-- with a teacher, it can be personal. I certainly felt that with Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and you can talk about that. And I'm also curious to hear, like, you had so much [00:15:00] experience in non-dual awareness practice. what did dzogchen, bring? How did it further refine?
You know, what was intriguing you about going into dzogchen after having so much experience in non-dual awareness practice through Zen at that point?
Kokyo: Well, to be honest, the, San Francisco Zen Center Suzuki Roshi lineage, non-dual awareness, at least framing it in those terms, was not the main topic, I would say. We, did hear a lot of, emptiness teachings and, Yogachara mind-only kind of teachings. my Zen teacher was really into that, in a very detailed, thorough way.
but Buddha nature and awareness itself being non-dual with, the world of experience, it's of course there in Zen, but I think it wasn't the main emphasis. which is interesting to me because as soon as I started looking at these dzogchen teachings, I saw it all over Zen, especially the early Chan ancestors.
I would even say Buddha nature as non-dual awareness was maybe even the main emphasis in a [00:16:00] lot of the early Chan teachers. But, it may be that, when we heard Tibetan teachings at San Francisco Zen Center, they were often through the Gelugpa lens. And I think that's because, a lot of the philosophy, in those early years...
Well, I came in the early '90s, 1990, but, the books that were around in the, 80s, were at least the, high quality, Tibetan scholarship was all Gelugpa, like Jeffrey Hopkins and, brilliant, uh, Robert Thurman, exactly. And there was-- I don't know about Jeffrey Hopkins, but Robert Thurman would come to Zen Center from maybe even in the '70s, come regularly and talk, so it was presented through that lens and, um, other Tibetan teachers also came too, but mostly Gelugpa, ' cause I think there were more Gelugpa monks around actually too. And they were just known anyway. That for whatever reasons, that was Tibetan Buddhist connection, mostly to San Francisco's Zen Center.
And, so, that kind of Buddha nature lens wasn't so prominent. so that was one of the reasons when I, heard the [00:17:00] dzogchen teachings, especially Tsoknyi Rinpoche because he's so into dzogchen. For, you know, a lot of vajrayana teachers teach dzogchen as sort of one piece on the side of what they're teaching.
But, uh, vajrayana, like, deity yoga, visualization mantra practice is maybe more prominent for most vajrayana teachers. dzogchen can sometimes even be a little bit secret, almost for the most advanced students. But Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and as you know, his whole family is these dzogchen masters, his father and his brothers.
And so they really emphasize dzogchen meditation as a possibility for everyone. we can practice this and, really benefit from it. So that was very refreshing when, meeting Tsoknyi And I think particularly his clarity about, subtle nuances in meditation That we get some of that in Zen, but Zen is traditionally not really emphasizing so much these subtle nuances.
It's more like, a kind of direct, pointing often in a [00:18:00] poetic sort of way. So it's sort of sometimes hidden in the poetry, and it's not that clear necessarily what exactly the meditation is. I mean, you can read something like Dogen Zenji, his thousands of pages of writings on Zen.
But when you look for the really exact, what is exactly he teaching us as the meditation, there's maybe just a couple pages, and even they're not, so clear. It's, it...
Adrian: wanna make it clear. That's
Kokyo: He doesn't want to.
Adrian: the style,
Kokyo: It's the style. That's right. It's right. It's the style of Zen is to keep us from getting caught in conceptual grasping and so on.
and originally when that style emerged in China, most of the people who were entering into it were already steeped in methods of meditation from the Tiantai school and others. So they knew how to meditate, and then they were getting this new, kind of koanified and poetified, version of the teachings that was very new and refreshing and creative.
But I think in modern America, we need, specifics. people coming to [00:19:00] Zen as their first thing is very different than when the tradition arose, and mostly monastics who were already steeped in other traditions and practices. so Tsoknyi Rinpoche and the dzogchen tradition offered, I felt like some of this really clear, clarification of what is and isn't non-dual awareness
Adrian: Yeah. one way that I think about it, I'd be curious to hear your take on this, is so I think about it through a pedagogical lens. I was trained as a K12 teacher and, I kind of think about teaching s- anything through that lens. And there's one school that's basically learning is a process of discovery, So you're really not guiding the student too much. It's really about you're steeping in it, and it's about them stumbling upon that insight. There's another school that says you have to scaffold something much more heavily and you're guiding the student towards a particular outcome.
And so when I think about Zen versus dzogchen, it feels like Zen's more the former and dzogchen or Mahamudra is more the latter. and it seems to me, I'm curious to hear your perspective, that [00:20:00] part of the thing with Zen, you know, it developed in a context in which that direct mind-to-mind transmission was meant to happen in a monastic context.
I mean, certainly for Dogen, that's a big part of it. And so you're constantly, like, steeping in this cauldron of awakening. and there's all these profound pointing outs non-verbally that you're getting through being in that environment. But if you're a modern householder, and you're not in that environment and you're trying to learn meditation, just on your free time, even if you have time to go on retreat, to me it makes sense that there's a lot of advantage to scaffolding the process more heavily to directly point people
Kokyo: yeah, well put. So Zen is, traditionally known as a sudden school, right? Sudden awakening happens in an instant. And, though they don't really use that language so much in, dzogchen, you could say it also has that flavor of, immediate, and, cut through everything. But it has a little more scaffolding built in.
I mean, it [00:21:00] depends, I think, somewhat too on the teacher and lineage, and there's I don't know if you've seen this, book by Sam van Schaik on Jigme Lingpa called "Approaching the Great Perfection."
Adrian: No
Kokyo: He's also one of those scholars who, um, does a lot of work with comparing Chan Zen, and dzogchen.
He's got, he's got a book called "Tibetan Zen" as
Adrian: Oh, that author. Yes, I, I have, I've got that book. Yes
Kokyo: So "Approaching the Great Perfection," I think the subtitle is something like, gradual and imminent in the dzogchen teaching. So he's looking at, these kind of immediate teachings where you don't need anything and you go this is it, and then also showing how it also has preliminary practices and so on.
And maybe one could say the same about Zen. There are, of course, in a monastery, lots of other practices besides just sitting, that are training the mind in a more, conventional way. but I think, the point you make about, in the monastic context, you're steeping in it all the time.
I think that can also work with householders coming to Zen retreats. You can immerse in the form of a retreat. I was [00:22:00] just recently offering a sesshin retreat at, Greengould's Farm, and it strikes me when I'm in there, like we really create a little mini monastery for a week for everybody who comes and do all the, the forms and practices of a monastery.
So people are, are getting that while they're there, and then there's an opportunity for that kind of direct pointing and receiving. and as you mentioned, dzogchen and mahamudra. So, um, sometimes I've heard that mahamudra is-- could be described as a little more scaffolded than dzogchen, There's a little more inquiry practices, investigations, other sort of preliminary step-by-step and different
Adrian: More emphasis on shamatha
Kokyo: Yeah, exactly. More emphasis on shamatha, right? I think, Mingyur Rinpoche, you might have heard this teaching where he, compares dzogchen and mahamudra by saying dzogchen, we start with the view, which is like the direct pointing, and then from that, the meditation emerges.
In mahamudra, we start with the meditation, which would be like shamatha, calm abiding, and eventually reach the view through the meditation. I think that's a [00:23:00] beautiful way to distinguish them,
Adrian: Me too
Kokyo: the view and the meditation you could say are really not different. But that, order or scaffolding, we might say, is a little bit more emphasized in mahamudra tradition.
And so modern Zen, I think we do have more of the scaffolding, and there's a lot of talk about, study and teaching about precepts and conduct and the paramitas, and this kind of thing is maybe taught more prominently at San Francisco Zen Center environment I was in than even meditation.
So we kind of, I think, natural response to it being in a new culture and people not having the background in all these teachings. Whereas, yeah, I think the classic monasteries from the golden age of Zen in China, they maybe they had all that already, so they maybe didn't get much teaching on those things.
Adrian: Now, if you're just doing dzogchen practice, I mean, what can distinguish it from Zen is, of course, you're still doing, deity yoga, for example. That would be one thing that's different. And maybe you're doing tonglen and some other practices. Vajrayana in general has more [00:24:00] practices. But, you know, a dzogchen practice could be pretty pared down if you wanted it to be.
Kokyo: And I've heard different teachers talk about that differently. Some are like, it only is the apex and the culmination of all the development stage, vajrayana practice beforehand. And some say, no, it never had to be linked with that. It's its own thing. It's not even really vajrayana.
Those are a little bit maybe more radical dzogchen teachers, but, there is that style of presenting it that way.
Adrian: That's what's interesting. Um, one of my teachers pointed that out to me that sort of like the etymology and also mythologically, right? Dzogchen has its own kind of mythology that it's outside of tantra. Like Mahamudra is within tantra, Six Yogas of Naropa, but Dzogchen is actually sort of outside tantra in its own way.
You think mythologically, right? It starts from Samantabhadra and Kherab Gorje. It's, and then some people s- did it start with Bon. So that is
Kokyo: Yeah. Right, right, right.
Adrian: about Dzogchen for sure.
Kokyo: And even Mahamudra is-- I understand there's like Sutra and Tantra [00:25:00] Mahamudra. So I think it can be the Sutra style that doesn't have all the Vajrayana elements.
Adrian: Right. and it can be taught differently, right? You know, Tulku Urgyen seemed to from what I could tell, really just kind of offer nature of mind and emphasize that a lot to people.
Kokyo: But also, I've also taught a lot of the vajrayana teachings also. But yeah, he was unique in that, really would offer to anybody the direct pointing nature of mind teachings.
Adrian: Yeah, I think it's probably a matter of emphasis, you know, how much your emphasis versus one or the other. But, you decided to do the Ngöndro, and I'm curious, for people who don't know, you can describe it a bit, but it's just so the opposite end of, Zen with all these very elaborate practices.
And, um, maybe after you briefly describe it, if you could, I'm curious to hear what inspired you to undertake those practices and what benefit you found from doing those practices after having a very simple zazen practice for so long?
Kokyo: Yeah, so Ngöndro means, preliminary practices, and, all schools of vajrayana in Tibet [00:26:00] have, basically the same style of Ngöndro with slight variations, slight different liturgy, and as a kind of preliminary to any Vajrayana practice, mostly a preliminary to deity visualization and mantra and so on.
A lot of it is just classic Buddhism, actually, not necessarily Vajrayana. It's these four contemplations that turn the mind towards the dharma, reflecting again and again on the, rare opportunity of, human life and the impermanence of life and how karma works and the suffering of samsara.
These are these four thoughts. And then the practices are accumulating 100,000, prostrations while reciting verses of refuge and bodhichitta. So that's just classic Mahayana Buddhism In Zen, we recite refuge and bodhichitta verses every day too, and we do prostrations, but we don't do, uh, we don't, accumulate so many of them.
It's kind of, accessing that, really heart of surrender and devotion. And then the 100,000, recitations of vajrasattva 100-syllable mantra. So that [00:27:00] is more Vajrayana flavor, but it's more of a repentance practice. The flavor of it is, repenting and purifying karma, and the method is to recite this mantra.
so Zen, we also have, daily verses for, confessing and repenting past karma. We don't really have that kind of, long mantra method for purification. But we do actually, there are dharanis that are like, early tantric, texts that are designed partly to purify karma, and we do do those even in modern Zen, recite them every day, but We just do them because it's a tradition. But later, looking at the sutras that they come from, oh, these are also to purify karma. So it has some corollary, to Vajrasattva practice. And then there's, 100,000 mandala offerings as part of Ngöndro, is, um, offering the whole universe by offering precious stones and rice on a, plate basically over and over again, with a verse.
And, again in Zen, we make offerings to Buddhas in daily practice, but it's not so emphasized and [00:28:00] accumulated in this, huge way. And then there's, guru yoga, accumulation of, verses invoking the teacher in the form of like a dharmakaya Buddha, but also it's mingled with your actual living teacher.
Their mind is dharmakaya Buddha, and your mind is also dharmakaya Buddha. So that's guru yoga means union or unity with, the guru, or we could understand it as the practice of, mingling the nature of mind with the nature of mind of your teacher and the lineage teachers. So all those principles are also there in Zen, but not so methodical and emphasized as something that you're ritually accumulating.
With the Vajra Guru mantra, it's actually over a million mantras that you're accumulating in Ngöndro. So that's what the practices are, and I came to that, long after discovering dzogchen meditation. probably 10 years into doing many retreats with Tsoknyi Rinpoche and other dzogchen teachers, and always hearing about here and there in the background this [00:29:00] dzogchen preliminary practices.
And, uh, Tsoknyi Rinpoche is, is very open-minded teacher. He goes, "You don't need to do these to, have, you know, an authentic dzogchen practice, but they're in the tradition and they're nice. They're, they're like you." For people who are drawn to them and would like to, he's very supportive and like, "If you-- It's great if you wanna do them."
He would say things like, " They're a good way to, smash your laziness." So I think that when I hear things like that, I feel some laziness. I could use a little kick in the butt, from some preliminary practices. so, um, over time, that and other elements of vajrayana practice too.
but just natural curiosity and exploring them and hearing about them here and there and receiving empowerments and trying them on. I would say almost like an addendum to my Zen and dzogchen practice then. uh, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche is one who also teaches them that way. He said, " in traditional Tibet, you first do all these Ngöndro practices to [00:30:00] really make the body and mind very porous and open and, cultivate this heart of renunciation and devotion, and then you can just pour the, direct pointing into this open body and mind.
and it works well that way, and people have a lot of time and space in ancient Tibet. They can do these practices. But in modern Western culture," he says, "it's actually, not so helpful. It's hard to understand the cultural implications of Ngöndro practice or all these Buddhas and deities and what are we doing.
and people are already busy and stressed." So, um, He often teaches the reverse is better. First, get some pointing out and get some taste of dzogchen and the ease and spaciousness of, big awareness, and then in that spirit, then you can begin Ngöndro. So it's kinda like reversing the order.
and just if you feel, inspired. So in that spirit, that's how, after some years of we could say, the main practice, then going back to the preliminaries. and I did them very slowly. I was the teacher at Santa Cruz Zen [00:31:00] Center at this time, so it took me about 10 years to finish Ngöndro, which in a, a three-year retreat or something could be done in a year or But I learned a lot. I felt like, it did kindle some of this devotional spirit and renunciation, and they just go on and on and on. So like I say, all of those principles in Zen that were there in the background that I wasn't relating to so strongly, now I feel like those Zen practices are much more alive after doing this kind of intensive version of them through Ngöndro.
so yeah, not necessary, but for people who are slightly crazy, maybe, um,
Adrian: Yeah.
Kokyo: it's, uh, it, it was a great practice for me
Adrian: I mean, I think that's part of it too. I mean, you make a joke, but I think part of it is like just wearing down the ego right? It's not dismissing the other. It's, cultivating, deepening devotion, renunciation, all that. But, in a way, it is kind of wearing down the ego. That's part of the,
Kokyo: And even the rational mind that's like, "Why am I throwing these [00:32:00] stones in this plate over and over again? is this really like-- Are the Buddhas really appreciating this offering?" And I might just keep doing and doing and doing till That rational mind is like, "I don't know, but I'm just doing it, and I'm doing it wholeheartedly 'cause, uh, if, if it's not wholehearted, then it's misery."
Adrian: Well, if 20 years of, Dogen doesn't wear down your rational mind, you've gotta, you've gotta turn to drastic measures like Ngöndro for sure.
Adrian (2): Thank you for listening to this podcast. That was part one of my conversation with Kokyo Henkel.
If you enjoyed that episode, please leave a like or comment and tune in to the next episode for part two, where we talk about integrating Zen and Dzogchen practices, how Kokyo balances daily rituals with solo retreat life, and how setting strict boundaries and taking time off of our screens can transform modern practice.
Also, please bear in mind that the plants and compounds mentioned on this podcast and on the Sahaja Soma platform are illegal in many countries, and even possession can carry severe criminal [00:33:00] penalties.
None of this represents medical advice or advocacy and should be construed as a recommendation to use psychedelics.
There are serious legal, psychological, and physical risks. Psychedelics are not for everyone. They can exacerbate certain emotional problems, and there have been, in very rare cases, fatalities.
Thank you very much for listening, and I hope to see you on the next episode, or elsewhere on the SahajaSoma platform.