Ben Andersen remembers Trevor Leggett
Trevor Leggett: My spiritual friend
Wherever I am my heart is my refuge;
In the real of existence my heart is king
When I despair of reason’s mischief.
God knows I am grateful to my heart.
-Ustad Khalilullah Khalili-
I first met Trevor at Shanti Sadan, the meditation centre set up by his guru, Dr. Shastri, in Notting Hill Gate. Our initial connection was through judo and our shared conviction that judo was somehow more than just a sport. Trevor had articulated this idea in his talks and his books, particularly Zen And the Ways and the Spirit of Budo. I had assumed that Trevor’s interest in Zen and meditation practice had developed as a consequence of his interest in judo as ‘shugyo’, a Japanese term to denote a character building activity, and his judo practice his. In some ways, I placed him in the sort of category of wise martial arts teacher living in semi-retirement, who could teach me the secrets of the art that would lead to overcoming my psychological and spiritual immaturity and consequently make me successful in life. It was not really that simple and it turned out that the path he followed was not, in fact, Japanese Zen but rather an Indian school of yoga. Both the man and the path he was following encompassed much more than I had at first imagined. It also turned out that we had a lot more in common than I had realised.
I found myself standing outside the impressive front door of the huge house on Chepstow Villas that served as the meditation centre, where Trevor went to sit every evening with another older judoka by the name of Mike Woodhead. I had met Mike one evening when I was training at a dojo in Hammersmith. Mike was a slim man in his 50s who had been European champion in the 1960s. He was a student of Trevor’s, and had lived in Japan for many years. We become good friends, and he helped and encouraged me with judo and studying Japanese and naturally the conversations had turned to Trevor and what sort of teacher Trevor had been. So one day Mike asked me if I would like to meet Trevor and here we were outside Shanti Sadan ready to attend one of the public lectures held there on Friday nights. Trevor was a little bit gruff and I got the impression that he and Mike had fallen out at some point. Still, there was something I found very attractive about the place and I was interested in learning about the teachings of Dr. Shastri. There was some sense in which Mike reminded me of a son who was a little ashamed to be in the presence of a very strict father whom he had let down or disappointed in some way. Underneath all the discomfort there was clearly a lot of love and respect for Trevor. Indeed that is why their exchange was so awkward and uncomfortable. I shook Trevor’s hand and told him that I was a black belt in judo, had spent some time training in Japan and wanted to study Japanese. He smiled and was encouraging enough, but I wasn’t sure that he appreciated the intrusion. We stayed for the lecture, and I bought a book by Dr. Shastri called Echoes of Japan, which captured something of what I loved about the country. It was like a love letter to the country.
Reading the book really touched my heart. There was something about it that reminded me of the importance of beauty in life. It gave me a new perspective on things not just Trevor but on Zen and Buddhism. Buddhism is a heterodox school in Indian philosophy and Yoga is an orthodox school. Buddhism is to some degree an atheistic religion and Yoga posits the existence of God or a Universal Self. The Buddhist equivalent is the Buddha nature. In some ways, I was following philosophical recommendations of Derrida and exploring opposing arguments and opposites to understand better the nature of things. The doctrine of no-self has something in common with deconstructionist logic, which, being so de rigueur in social science, opens up the possibility of seeing the no-self doctrine in this light. Yet, here was Yoga and Zen emphasising knowing things in the heart and indicating the limitations of the world. It pointed to something more, some way of knowing that can’t be apprehended by the intellect. Life was leading me to new learning experiences and preparing me to improve my understanding and relate properly to Trevor as a spiritual friend. Though I had gone there to practise judo, my time in Japan had kindled love for the country and its beautiful temples and gardens.
I loved everything about the experience of being in Japan. The training hall was a huge wooden building with a sloping roof with eaves that turned up a little at the end. The combination of exhaustion and the effect of post-training endorphins meant that colours seemed more vivid, food tasted better, even though the skin on my feet had blistered and worn away from the long hours of training. This time may have been the happiest of my life. Sitting silently for only five minutes of meditation with sweat dripping down my face with the sound of cicadas outside made a profound impression on me.
The six months passed much more quickly than I expected and I had made some good friends, but I was also aware that it was time to go home. I had decided that I would follow in Syd Hoare’s footsteps and study Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies. On my return, I shared my plans with Tony Sweeney, Nick and others at the Budokwai and they were very encouraging.
One way I was encouraged was when I started to do some bits and pieces of work for Nick (Nicolas) Soames. Nick was a music journalist and had set up a small company to publish books about judo. It was called ‘Ippon Books’ and the books are some of the best books on judo ever published. He was a Buddhist and ran the company from his flat in North London. He gave me a part-time job doing odd bits of work for Ippon Books, and I enjoyed it very much. The atmosphere was hard working and yet relaxed. He had a cushion and a little Buddha statue in one corner, and I decided to set up a little corner just like it in my room at home.
One day he asked me if I was up for a long and laborious task. I replied with a very enthusiastic “Yes!” without really knowing what I was going to be asked to do. The task was to go through tapes of talks given by Trevor at the Buddhist Society, going back many years, and to identify and transcribe all the stories relating to judo. I enjoyed his talks enormously. His voice had a calm confident air to it, and he had a great sense of humour. I began to understand why and how Trevor had had so much of a positive effect on people’s lives. I also understood that his view of judo was broad and that its purpose was shugyo or character development rather than to win medals and I felt that this was something very valuable. The work was an education, and it had a deep effect on me and made me very much more committed to the path of meditation. The book was published as The Dragon Mask and Other Judo Stories in the Zen Tradition.
My interest in Zen grew, and another judo friend who had studied Japanese at Cambridge University said that his uncle sat Zazen with a group at the Buddhist Society in Eccleston Square, near Victoria. I joined the group soon afterwards and practised with them for several years. Although Trevor was at Shanti Sadan I felt more inclined to practice with the Zen group as I knew he visited them to give lectures and I really like the teacher. Myokyo Ni was a round and rather imposing Austrian woman, with round glasses and very smiley face and a wicked sense of humour.
About six months later I was sitting in Trevor’s little apartment having tea – he liked Earl Grey. Nick and I were there to show him the finished book and he was very friendly and encouraging. In the course of the conversation Trevor said: “Now that the book is finished I guess you haven’t got much to do. How would you like to come and do some work for me?” and I heard myself answering: “Yes,” without knowing what the work was, just as I had when I agreed to do the transcribing of the talks without any idea of how much time it would take.
The job was actually very pleasant and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I came by the flat to help Trevor at home three or four days a week. I would run errands, help him with various chores, do some bits of shopping for him, read to him, make tea and walk him down to Shanti Sadan for his evening meditation. I did this for about three years, and I thought of Trevor as a spiritual friend – what the Buddhists call Kalyana Mittata. One thing that became very clear to me was that all his varied interests and the wide range of contributions he made were not restricted to things Japanese – he was firmly rooted in the Yogic tradition, and his vision of things was consequently much broader and more inclusive than I had realised.
There seemed to be a much clearer articulation of the importance of love in this tradition. I began reading more books by his teacher, Dr. Shastri, and found that they gave me a new, broader, more inclusive vision than that I had from the Zen practice. Another book that really struck a chord with me was A.J Alston’s translations of the Persian poet Hafiz. I have treasured the book ever since and still read the poems in it to this day. I was very attracted to Sufism, and the overlap between Zen, Sufism and Vedanta was quite striking. It seemed that Trevor was tapping into something deep inside himself through his connection to his teacher and his meditation practice. My own meditation practice was still in its early stages, but I did experience more peace of mind and a greater appreciation of everyday beauty; the light shining through the window and a cup and saucer glistening on the drainer by the sink; the sound of the water boiling in the kettle. I often spoke of these things but as my practice deepened and I came up against the more difficult side of practice; sitting with a sore back or knees and all sorts of unpleasant feelings coming up I found that attachment to both pleasant and unpleasant sensations was a problem, and my practice became much dryer and my attitude towards positive feelings and emotions a little distrustful.
It was at this point that I had two interesting conversations. One with Myokyo Ni during an all-night sitting for Rohatsu and one with Trevor in early January. It was the night of the 8th of December 1997. It was the middle of the night, the blue zabuton with round, black edition cushions in the middle sitting in neat rows, upstairs in the Buddhist Society in Eccleston Square. It was my time to go for my sanzen interview with the teacher. After she had listened to me she said: “This is not a sports training. It is a devotional practice. It is the Buddha heart school.” She encouraged me to add a short piece of sutra chanting and to burn incense before sitting. It was a simple practice that many people do first thing in the morning in Japan.
Then sitting in Trevor’s flat in Notting Hill talking over his favourite Earl Grey tea he began to tell me about his time in Japan and his own experience of Sanzen interviews with a Zen master. The teacher had said to him: “Ninjo ga tarinai”, which translates as: “Not enough human feeling.” Ninjo is a little tricky to translate as human feeling doesn’t quite convey the idea. Ninjo might translate more naturally as empathy or love. It is often paired with the idea of Giri or duty, and so the ideal way of relating to others is to have a balance between fulfilling duties and being aware of the feelings of others. Showing that you care about others, Ninjo is expressed through placing a little cake on someone’s desk at work, when they are going through a tough time, or taking extra care with washing their clothes or placing a blanket over them when they have fallen asleep. It is often expressed most deeply in small actions, done silently and without comment or asking for recognition. It also refers to gratitude for these small kindnesses and for the support of others. Ninjo is the heart of the Buddha and compassion that makes the strict discipline of Zen meditation possible. Without love, the discipline would be oppressive.
Looking back on all the small acts of kindness I experienced in life and in Japan, as well as the gratitude people expressed for small kindnesses I did for them, I realise that Ninjo is what holds Japanese society together. This side of Zen is not talked about much in the West, but it is there, especially in the tea ceremony and flower arranging. Freud wrote that mental health was basically a question of developing the capacity to love and the capacity to work. Both Trevor and I were told as young men not to forget that we shouldn’t neglect to develop the capacity to love.
Now, almost 18 years after Trevor died, I look back on our friendship, and I am very grateful for it. I miss him even though or maybe because he is always with me. There is a lot of confusion about the Buddhist and Yogic ideas of attachment. Emotional connections to others are necessary for a person to function in the world as a healthy individual. We need to love and care for others and to receive love and care in return. A person who cannot form healthy attachments with others is in a state that is actually quite negative and this kind of detachment is far removed from spiritual detachment which requires the experience of the transitoriness of things in the world, including ourselves, and the other is the experience of eternity and oneness through love. This is a very important point to make and is one of the key stumbling blocks for many people when they gain some distance from the overwhelming power of their emotions in meditation. They identify very strongly with the watcher consciousness and can become, to some degree, disassociated from emotions and have a very negative attitude towards their own emotions and those of others. This state of mind in fact strengthens the sense of separateness and makes it harder to form healthy attachments and turns ethics into something very dry and cerebral, rather than something which is clearly only really possible through empathy and sympathy for others. This is probably the best way to understand the statement that the passions are the bodhi and the bodhi is the passions. Bodhi or Buddha nature comes from the development of Bodhicitta or Buddha Heart.
‘In love, there is no difference between monastery and the tavern, wherever there is anything there is light of the face of the beloved’ -Hafez
Memories and thoughts about afternoons spent with Trevor Leggett in my student days: Carrying water and chopping wood or rather making tea and cheese sandwiches.
“Look on this time of friendship as a lucky windfall, for after this time has passed, the wheel of heaven will make many a turn and bring another day and another night.”
It was a spring afternoon and I had finished my lectures for the day. It was a short walk from SOAS to Tottenham Court Road tube station and then a 15-minute ride to Notting Hill Gate. I have always had an excess of energy and usually ran up the stairs at underground stations rather than using the escalator or the lifts. Today was no different. I bounded up the stairs and out into the street. I walked into the fishmonger and picked up Trevor’s order of smoked salmon. He ordered it every week, and the man behind the counter knew me as I always dropped by to pick up “Mr. Leggett’s order”. He wrapped it up and placed it in a white plastic bag. Sometimes there was an order for fishcakes as well.
Trevor lived in Buckingham Court, a serviced apartment just around the corner. The journey from door to door was a little over half an hour. I would ring the bell, and I would hear his voice say, “Mmm…Yes, come on up,” and I could picture him in my mind’s eye in his white woollen tracksuit top, shuffing back to his armchair, leaving the door ajar for me to come in. He would be sitting there with a note, or a list of things he wanted to remember, written in a thick black pen in slightly shaky handwriting. He was a big man and walked with a stoop, and his white hair was combed back. “Tea?” I would ask as I flicked the switch of the electric kettle. He would often say yes and then tell me what he wanted to eat. “Yes, and put some toast on. I’ll have it with some of that Jarlsberg cheese”. He did not say please or thank you much, and he had a certain gruffness about him, but I still liked going to see him. The flat was quiet, clean and the light shone in through the windows. There were a few pictures on the wall, but it was quite sparsely decorated, with white walls and a wooden floor. The walls were lined with books. I often thought that I would get some pearl of wisdom and that something he said in our conversations would help me be more successful, wiser, more like him. I thought some of the respect other people had for him would rub off on me. But when I look back on it, the things that stick with me are making tea, doing the shopping, running errands; the sense of being useful and the growing sense of friendship. At the time, what I thought was most important was actually rather superficial, and what was incidental and seemingly less important; simply friendship, turned out to be the most important thing. Wiping down the table surface, massaging his feet to help with the circulation; taking care of someone, even just a little, was just as valuable to me as the meditation practice or indeed the engagement with teachings on the level of mind.
Other memories that stick with me are him taking my arm as we walked from his apartment, round the corner to Shanti Sadan in Chepstow Villas. He used a walking stick made of a sort of reddish wood, and we took a long time to walk the relatively short distance and he would sit on a wall to rest at least once on the way. On that afternoon in spring, we sat on the wall, and I remarked how beautiful the area was and he said, “Yes, my teacher always used to say that the feeling in the area was very sattvic”. I had never heard people talk about anything but food or people as sattvic or rajasic or tamasic, but it made sense. There was something energetically balancing about the area. A walk in Holland Park or Kensington Gardens always made me feel more positive and balanced. I was involved in Buddhist practice so I was not so interested in the idea of the three gunas in Adhyatma Yoga, and I was surprised to hear Trevor use these words as I associated them with a sort of health food, vegetarian or even vegan alternative culture that was not Trevor’s cup of tea. He did talk about the effect of certain activities, people and even foods on the mind and its ability to meditate and I wasn’t entirely in agreement with him on that; largely because I had a very romantic, slightly heroic view of the Bodhisattva ideal and the idea that a good Buddhist would not seek to avoid relating to anyone or any situation. A very high ideal but one that I was not ready to take on fully and only later understood as an aspirational vow, rather than one you can realistically achieve. If you are not a strong swimmer it is better to throw a lifeline to a drowning person than to jump in and drown with them.
What strikes me now is that I placed far too much emphasis on the value of gaining a philosophical understanding of spiritual paths, and a technical understanding of meditation, than on ordinary things like service. Now, I would say that serving others and being of service to oneself, one’s family, friends and the people we come into daily contact with are the beginning and the end of the path. It is interesting that Zen has phrases like: “Zen is nothing more than carrying water and chopping wood”. I think this has sometimes been interpreted in terms of being in the moment and in the body, doing physical tasks and being practical. All of which is true, but I also think that it boils down to the importance of being of service and it points to a way of transcending ego by focusing on something outside oneself. The pleasure comes in not feeling self-conscious, and in doing something that is meaningful. Sometimes meditators, who have been taught mindfulness of body as part of their practice will frame these ideas, not in terms of service and being of service, but in terms of concentration. If their concentration is good, then they will label it as being mindful, and if they lose concentration and spill some water, they will feel that they have failed somehow. In this way, they become overly self-conscious, and the watcher element of consciousness becomes more and more important to them. They are watching themselves like hawks. What is interesting about this technique is that it is a double-edged sword, especially in a social context where people don’t have secure attachments and feel under the threat of criticism all the time. This is sometimes said to be deliberately cultivated by Zen teachers as it builds up intensity and sometimes leads to a moment of crisis. It is often at these moments of crisis that people can have, what we might call, religious experiences, but these can be dangerous and lead to mental breakdown and mental illness. That is why concepts like the Bodhisattva vow, the idea of serving others and not gaining enlightenment for oneself are so important. It is also why the emphasis on meditation practices like metta, loving-kindness, and the virtue of koruna are essential parts of a complete path if people are to remain balanced, happy and of use to themselves and the rest of the world.
There does seem to be a tendency to focus strongly on mental states and the experience of pleasant mental states amongst many people interested in some types of popular yoga and dharmic religions and, in that sense, it is not out of place to describe it as “spiritual materialism”, the term coined by the trendy and dangerous Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa. The point being, that chasing happiness, be it in the shape of meditation experiences, drug-induced experiences or any other kinds of pleasure, is, ironically, precisely what makes people less happy and more ill-at-ease with themselves. I can’t say Trevor was always a happy person, but he was not ill-at-ease with himself and his way of life did suggest that the search for meaning was, and is, a more fulfilling path than the search for happiness. I think this is an important point as the intention behind a meditation practice can hugely influence the results. Although enlightenment is beyond our understanding, we cannot avoid the trap of holding some concept about it, or ideal about what an enlightened individual is like, and this is why some people say that there are as many paths to God as there are people. Trevor was very much a man of karma yoga or the yoga of action, and one yogic text that we did discuss briefly was the Gita.
I found our conversation about some of the ideas in the text very helpful, and the idea that the real test of insight comes when you get off your cushion and start to interact with the world again is something I want to explore. Trevor included some of that aspect of the Gita in his talks about judo. He used to say that you might step off the meditation cushion, feeling at one with the universe and feel that you had reached some great stage on the path, only to arrive on the judo mat with your head in the clouds and end up being buried on the mat! The point not being that there is a connection between being a strong judoka and enlightenment, but that taking part in the battle of life you soon find that attachment to any given mental state is of little value to you, even in the ordinary pursuit of looking after yourself, let alone others. The practice recommended in the Gita is simply to do your duty and leave the results in the hands of God. The results can include anything of a causal nature, be they winning in a wrestling contest, receiving a promotion at work, being sacked or experiencing pleasant or unpleasant sensations or mental states. The idea is simply to meet them all with equanimity. A straightforward practice to understand, but one that is very hard to realise.
There is a Sufi story of a young man who leaves his town which has periodically been laid to waste by a dragon. The young man goes on a quest to conquer the dragon. He spends many years with trackers and mountain vagabonds, practising his sword techniques and his ability to climb and survive in the snowy mountainous regions where the dragon is said to live. After many years of dedicated searching and practice, one day he finds the dragon in an icy cave. The dragon has been completely frozen in a block of ice. He can’t believe his luck! And he ties crampons around the dragon and decides to transport the creature in the block of ice back to his town. He wants to show everyone that he has captured and conquered the dragon. Of course, when he gets home, he is greeted as a hero. However, soon afterwards, the ice block melts, and the dragon wakes up and destroys the town.
The story is analogous to immature meditation practice. The quest is the beginning of a spiritual path. The dragon symbolizes our passions, and stumbling across the dragon in the ice by accident is pretty much how we experience some tranquil calm states in meditation. We can carry our memory of that experience back into our everyday lives in the town, and we can fool ourselves and others into the idea that the dragon has been conquered, but the conditions that brought about our experience in meditation, as represented by the icy cave, are not the same in town. The dragon is not dead; he is only sleeping, and he is just as strong and powerful as he ever was.
My own practice has had its parallels with the story of the youth and the experience of deep states of absorption in meditation have only placed my passions and my faults in the deep freeze, so to speak. Service to others and helping people has been one of the most important antidotes for the disappointment that inevitably comes with a spiritual practice that focuses on oneself and one’s mind, and the mistaken notion that equanimity, in the form of frozen passions and emotions, is the aim of the path. Trevor was active through all his life, and his ability to concentrate, developed in meditation, was turned towards activities that were of service to others and were meaningful to him. His books on Zen, Shankara, the Bhagavad Gita and yogic practice, his involvement in judo and his work with the BBC Japanese service were all a source of meaning in his life. People need to draw on different sources of meaning in their lives, and the pursuit of happiness often doesn’t provide enough meaning to fulfil us. People need a sense of belonging; they need meaning; they need to experience transcendence, and they need a sense of purpose. Trevor’s great talent was that he was able to promote these things, and in the atmosphere and influence he created around him through his involvement in judo, his work and his connection to the Buddhist Society and Shanti Sadan. Experiences of transcendence are moments of happiness; moments where we lose ourselves in what we are doing. People find transcendence in art and music, in watching the sun go down. Meditation can help us access a deeper capacity for transcendence. It can also provide us with purpose, but once we have done a certain amount of work on ourselves then this is not enough to provide that sense of purpose. This is where the ideal of Bodhisattva is essential in Buddhism.
In Hinduism, traditionally, the first stage is being a student, then you become a householder and devote yourself to serving others and the final stage is physical renunciation, when you leave behind family and home and withdraw to forest or cave to spend time in solitary meditation and yogic practice. When I look back on the time I spent with Trevor I realise that what made it special was having a genuine spirit of devotion. I wasn’t chewing through obligations, like a worm chewing through mud, unable to see anything either side of him. I was able to enjoy the sun and the breeze coming through the window. It brought me purpose, and friendship as a source of belonging. I even had a sense of transcendence when the cups and plates shone back at me as if to say thank you when I had done the washing up. The friendly interactions with the porter in the entrance to Buckingham Court and with the fishmonger, the magnolia trees in bloom as we walked ever so slowly towards Shanti Sadan all had the common thread of love running through them like beads strung on a mala. I can see him now waving to me from the top of the steps in front of the front door in Chepstow Villas, smiling.
“It may be time to say good-bye but this is a tale that never ends”- Jelaludeen Rumi
© Ben Andersen