The Path to

Bodhidharma

The teachings
of
Shodo Harada Roshi

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 Table of Contents

Preface................................................................................................ 3

Bodhidharmas Outline of Practice ..................................................... 5

Zazen ................................................................................................ 52

Hakuin and His Song of Zazen ......................................................... 71

Sesshin ........................................................................................... 100

Enlightenment ................................................................................. 115

Work and Society............................................................................ 125

Kobe, January 1995........................................................................ 139

Questions and Answers ................................................................... 148

Glossary .......................................................................................... 174

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Preface
Shodo Harada, the abbot of Sogenji, a three-hundred-year-old
Rinzai Zen Temple in Okayama, Japan, is the Dharma heir of
Yamada Mumon Roshi (1890-1988), one of the great Rinzai
masters of the twentieth century. Harada Roshi offers his teachings
to everyone, ordained monks and laypeople, men and women,
young and old, from all parts of the world. His students have
begun more than a dozen affiliated Zen groups, known as One
Drop Zendos, in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The material that follows was gathered from the newsletters

Harada Roshi has prepared for his students, from public talks
and talks given during sesshin (one week of continuous zazen
with breaks only for sutras, eating, and sleeping), and from his
answers to questions posed by his students. It is not an academic
text but an invitation to practice, compiled from material presented
directly to students of all levels of experience. No transcription of
the Roshis words can capture the immediacy of his presence
or the full measure of his compassion, but I hope that the simple
and straightforward essence of his teaching will hereby made
available to every one.

Many words from Japanese and other languages for which

there are no precise English equivalents are used in the
discussion of Zen. Words that are used here only once are
defined where they occur; those that appear more than once are
given in italics on their appearance and explained in the Glossary.
Many of these words would be rendered with diacritical marks in
their original language; for ease of usage, and because many of
the terms are finding their way into English without diacritical
marks, such have been dispensed with here. The names of sutras
are given in their most commonly used English form. The names
of the Zen ancestors are given in their Japanese forms, as the
Roshi speaks them; for the Chinese patriarchs, the Wade-Giles

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forms of their names are provided in the Glossary.

Many, many people have contributed to this volume. First and

foremost Priscilla Daichi Storandt, in addition to being always at
hand to translate the Roshis words, offered constant and
enthusiastic support. Mitra Bishop transcribed tapes, edited many of
the newsletters incorporated herein, reviewed drafts of the
manuscript, and also provided unfailing encouragement. Thomas
Kitchner provided additional translations for and careful editing of
the 'Zazen' chapter and answered my many questions with good
humor and vast knowledge.

Tony Dairyo Fairbank and Jim Whitehill made available copies of

material in this book; Doyu Albin and Shonen Bressler translated
passages; and Chozen Bays offered advice and guidance; and
Breanda Wajun Loew, Lee Paton, Roy Tribelhorn, Eunice Nakao,
Domyo, and the many others whom I know only as voices on
tapes asked the questions that appear in the final section.

Last but not least, I owe a personal dept of thanks to Tim Jundo
Williams, for his constant love and support, and for having
encouraged me to go to Japan and meet Shodo Harada Roshi.

Jane Lago

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Bodhidharmas Outline of Practice
There are many avenues for entering the Way, but essentially they
are all of two kinds: entering through the Principle and entering
through practice.

'Entering through the Principle' is awakening to the essential by

means of the teachings. It requires a profound trust that all living
beings, both enlightened and ordinary, share the same true
nature, which is obscured unseen due to only mistaken
perception. If you turn from the false to the true, dwelling
steadily in wall contemplation, there is no self or other, and
ordinary people and sages are one and the same.
You abide unmoving and unwavering, never again confused by
written teachings. Complete, ineffable accord with the Principle is
without discrimination, still, effortless. This is entering through the
Principle.

'Entering through practice' refers to four all-encompassing

practices: the practice of requiting animosity, the practice of
accepting ones circumstances, the practice of craving nothing,
and the practice of accord with the Dharma.

What is the practice of requiting animosity? When experiencing

suffering, a practitioner of the Way should reflect: 'For innumerable
eons, I have preferred the superficial to the fundamental, drifting
through various states of existence, creating much animosity and
hatred, bringing endless harm and discord. Though I have done
nothing wrong in this life, I am reaping the natural consequences of
the past offenses, my evil karma. It is not meted out by some
heavenly agency. I accept it patiently and with contentment,
utterly without animosity or complaint.' A sutra says, 'When you
encounter suffering, do not be distressed. Why? Because your
consciousness opens up to the fundamental.' Cultivating this
attitude, you are in accord with the Principle, advancing on the
path through the animosity. Thus it is called the practice of requiting
animosity.

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Second is the practice of accepting circumstances. Living beings,
having no [fixed] self, are entirely shaped by the impact of
circumstances. Both suffering and pleasured by circumstance. If
you experience such positive rewards as wealth and fame, this
results from past causes. You receive the benefits now, but as
soon as these circumstances are played out, it will be over. Why
should you celebrate? Success and failure depend upon
circumstances, while the Mind does not gain or lose. Not being
moved even by the winds of the good fortune is ineffable accord
with the Way. This is the practice of accepting ones circumstances.

Third is the practice of craving nothing. The various sorts of

longing and attachment that people experience in their
unending ignorance are regarded as craving. The wise awaken to
the truth, going with the Principle rather than with conventional
ideas. Peaceful at heart, with nothing to do, they change in
accord with the seasons. All existence lacking substance, they
desire nothing. [They know that] the goddesses of good and
bad fortune always travel as a pair and that the Triple Word,
where you have lived so long, is like a burning house. Suffering
inevitably comes with having a body - who can find peace? If
you understand this fully, you quit all thoughts of others states of
being, no longer crave them. A sutra says, 'To crave is to suffer; to
crave nothing is bliss.' Thus we understand clearly that craving
nothing is the true practice of the Way.

Fourth is the practice of accord with the Dharma. The principle of

essential purity is the Dharma. Under this principle, all form is
without substance, undefilable, and without attachment, neither
'this' not 'that.' The Vimalakirti Sutra says, 'In this Dharma, there are
no living being because it transcends the defiling [concept] of
living beings. In this Dharma, there is no self because it
transcends the defiling [concept] of self.' When the wise embrace
and understand this principle, they are practicing accord with the
Dharma. Since in the Dharma there is fundamentally nothing to
withhold, [the wise] practice generosity, giving their bodies, lives,
and possessions without any regret in their minds. Fully
understanding the emptiness of giver, gift, and recipient, they
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do not fall into bias or attachment. Ridding themselves of all
defilements, they aid in the liberation of living beings without
grasping at appearances. In this way they benefit themselves and
others both, gracing the w ay of Enlightenment. In the same
fashion, they practice the other five perfections. To eliminate
false thinking in practicing the six perfections means having no
thought of practicing them. This is practicing accord with the
Dharma.

Bodhidharma, door Yamada Mumon roshi

The author of these words, Bodhidharma - known in Japan as

Daruma Daishi - is said to have been the third son of Koshi
Koku, a king in southern India. Bodhidharmas real name was
Bodai Tara, and his older bothers were Getsujo Tara and
Kudoku Tara. The following story is told about Bodhidharma.

Hannyatara Sonja - a spiritual teacher whom Bodhidharmas father

greatly respected - came to visit the royal place one day. The king

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was so moved by Hannyatra Sonjas way of teaching the Dharma
that he gave him a jade ball. Hannyatara Sonja showed this ball to
the first son of the king, asking him what it was. Getsujo Tara
answered, 'It was a wonderful ball, unequaled in all the country -
a great national treasure.' Next, Hannyatara Sonja asked Kudoku
Tara how he saw the ball. Kodoku answered, 'This is a superb
wonderful jade ball, but if a regular person held it would have little
meaning. Only because you are holding it is it so wonderful.'
Then he asked Bodai Tara what he thought of the ball. Bodai Tara
answered, 'This is a wonderful treasure in this world perhaps, but it
is not the most important thing. Mind is by far more important. It is
like comparing the moon with the sun.' Hannyatara Sonja was
amazed at the boys deep understanding.

When several years later, the king died, Bodai Tara became the
disciple of the Hannyatara Sonja, who gave him the name
Bodhidharma. For forty years Bodhidharma was with his teacher,
it is said, and for sixty more he taught, walking all over India. At
the end of this time, he knew that conditions were right for him to
go to China.

One of the most famous koans in Zen involves the question

asked of the Master Joshu, 'What is the meaning of the
Patriarchs coming from the West?' Josju answered, 'The oak tree
in the garden.' Why did Bodhidhrma leave India and go to
China? Bohidharma did not leave India simply to spread
enlightenment and teach what he had learned. He had experience
enlightenment and received the transmission directly from the line
of Shayyamuni, the Buddha, and his disciple, Makakasho
Sonja. One day during his schedules talk to his students, as we
are told in the Mumonkan, the Buddha stood on the top of the
Vulture Peak and simply help up a single flower, and on that
day only Makakasho understood. This was the beginning of the
transmission, from Shakyamunis awakening down to the present
day. If his teachings had been looked at only as a philosophy, this

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transmission could never been passed down. This awakened
experience of the Buddha, that which created a path for us to
experience, is what the Buddha conveyed that morning; this
path cannot be understood on by studying the Buddhas words.

In China before Bodhidharmas time, the people who first

studied Buddhism were busy studying the philosophy and
teachings of the Buddha and the works of the later Buddhist of
India. But these words were not the true teaching; these words
just by themselves could not awaken one to the Buddha nature.
What, then, could awaken one to the Buddha Nature? This was
Bodhidharmas mission, to bring this direct experience to China.
Bodhidharma was destined to correctly bring Buddhism to China
- not words, but the correct and true essence of Buddhism.

Fifteen hundred years have passes since the time of Bodhidharma.

Imagine how difficult it must have been so long ago for such an old
man to cross the Indian Ocean, to have faced the wind and the
terrible seas in that part of the world. It is said to have taken
Bodhidharma nearly three years to reach China; it surely took all of
his life energy and strength to make the journey. Bodhidharma ha
no intention of ever returning to India, but he was not simply
looking for another place to teach his Dharma. He knew within that
this was what he had to do, beyond any personal desires or
needs. Would he actually raise Buddhist discipline in China? He did
not know. Would they understand all that he taught? He did not
know. How confused were the Chinese about the meaning of the
true Dharma? This he could not foresee.

As we live our lives, we encounter many obstructions. These

obstructions, like stones in our path, can become source of
confusion, suffering, and pain. It is important that we move
beyond them and continue. This is true for everyone, even those
who have had a deep enlightenment experience. Even the person
who has opened his heart will at times become confused; even

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those with great wisdom will suffer. Here, a higher training a
greater training is necessary. This is what Joshu was saying
when he answered, 'The oak tree in the garden.'

Master Rinzai was also asked the question, 'What is the

meaning of the Patriarchs coming from the west?' He answered,
'If there is any meaning at all, you can never save yourself.' That is,
if there is even the smallest bit of the self-awareness left in our
minds, we cannot be content, and we cannot say we are
liberated. Yet if we have no self-awareness, no consciousness,
how do we take on social obligations? If we have no self-
awareness left in our minds, how do we go about living our
lives? Such questions naturally arise when we look at these words
of Rinzai.

'If there is any meaning at all, you can never save yourself.' This
is not an intellectual problem. Rinzai is saying that if you take the
question up intellectually, you will never get it. In fact, you will
be doing what all the scholars and social theorists are doing.
There is essentially no difference. But how can we then say that
Bodhidharma did not have self-awareness? How can we say that
we should not be working consciously when we are out in the
world? How can we go about living our lives so that we will not be
caught by our own thoughts and fantasies when we are out
there functioning in the world? What is Rinzai saying? This is
what we are all trying to know, and what Bodhidharma taught.

According to Transmission of the Lamp, Bodhidharma reached

China in the year A.D. 527. The emperor at the time was Wu, the
founder of the Liang dynasty. Emperor Wu was known as a strong
support of Buddhism because of his great efforts in bringing
monks and priest to his realm, in building thousands of temples,
and in training tens of thousands of monks. By doing these things,
he hoped to raised the spirituality of his countrymen. When he heard
that Bordidharma was coming, he looked forward to meeting him

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and awaited him eagerly.

When Bodhidharma arrives, the emperor said, 'Ive built many

temples, given livelihood to tens of thousands of monks, and
translated many sutra. What is the merit from this?'
Bodhidharma answered, 'No merit.'

No matter how many temples or monks the emperor asked bout,

'No merit' was the answer he received from Bodhidharma.

It is easy to understanding Bodhidharmas answer. What is he

really saying? When we do our zazen, is it really of no merit? If
there is th e slightest speck of thought as to what will be gained
through this practice, such a clouded view will get us nowhere.
At the same time, if we do not vow to attain enlightenment, how
can we get there?

If you are thinking about these questions all the time, you still have
far to go. As Joshu wrote, 'The dogs Buddha-nature: Offer up
yourself from the tips of your toes to the very top of your head!' if
there is the slightest awareness of good or bad, you are as good
as dead. If you are still aware of your breathing and your
body, the zazen of no merit is far away. When you
experience the mind without a single speck of clutter, you will, for
the first time, experience the zazen of no merit.

Bodhidharma answered 'no merit' and said it all. If you want to do

wonderful things - building temples, raise disciples, translate
sutras - go ahead. But if there is even one speck of self-
awareness in your doing of these things, then it is all impure.

The emperor was shocked at Bodhidharmas response and asked,

'Building temples, raising disciples, and translating sutras - if these
all of no merit, then what is most important in the world? If
these are all meaningless, where is the deepest meaning to be
found?'
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Bodhidharma answered, 'Nothing holy, only emptiness.'

Nothing splendid. Only emptiness everywhere, like that vast fall

sky. Not a speck of anything to be grateful for. We all have to sit
until we can experience this. We must sit straight like Mount Fuji
rising out of the sea and do zazen that raises our entire body and
touches our deepest center! Foggy, vague zazen will not do.
Unless we can become taut and full it will be useless. Yet even
that is not good enough if any trace of self-conscious awareness
remains. We have to be rid of it all. Bodhidharma said, 'Nothing
holy, only emptiness.' We have to sit until we know this essence for
ourselves.

The emperor was again shocked, 'Who is answering the emperor

like this?!'
Bodhidharma said, 'I dont know.'

The emperor could not understand these words spoken by

Bodhidharma. So Bodhidharma left Emperor Wus land and
traveled north to a mountain called Sozan near present-day Beijing,
where he was given a temple.

It is said that, at this temple, Shorinji, Bodhidharma just sat for

nine years, but probably he did not simply sit. For at this temple he
had a student, Niso Eka, the second Chinese patriarch. If
Bodhidharma had not raised a disciple, the Dharma would not
have continued. Many guests came to the temple with questions
for Bodhidharma , the answers to which he left in a collection of
writings. One brief part of these writings is his Ni Nyu Shi Gyo Kan
- his teaching called Outline of Practice, also known as On the
Twofold Entrance to the Tao or The Two Entrances and Four
Practices, which we are reading here. So, clearly, Bordidharma
was not just sitting doing zazen.

As a young monk, Niso Eka was a scholar. He had studied for

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many years and mastered the scriptures, but in his heart he
was never able to be secure. Dissatisfied with what he could
discover through his intellect, he went to see Bodhidharma, to ask
for his help and guidance.

Bodhidharma was very strict master and very strict on himself.

No matter how much physical strain or suffering he experience,
he never took his mind off the wall in front of him; he sat and sat,
facing the wall. But he was not wasting a minute in doing this -
he was in the true practice of no gaps. In our daily life we leave
many pauses unfilled; for Bodhidharma, it was natural to return
immediately to the cushion - to return immediately to zazen -
after a meal, after completing a task. Whenever there was
open time. Throughout the ages, many Buddhists have lived this
way, so is always continuing in life and back on the cushion.

Many words have been written describing the suffering state of

Niso Eka when he went to call on Bodhidharma at Shorinji in early
December. In the area of China near Beijing the weather is
extremely cold at that time of the year. Yet on that winter evening,
the middle-aged Niso Eka stood outside Bodhidharmas temple,
in the blowing snow. His studies had been thorough, but he still
had doubt; he had practiced zazen for eight years, but he could not
find solace in his practice. He had heard of Bodhidharma s
arrival in China and that he taught not any special morality, or any
special virtue, but only sitting, facing the wall.

When Niso Eka arrived at the temple, Bodhidharma was sitting as

usual on his cushion. It snowed and snowed, but Bodhidharma just
sat quietly without even turning around. And Niso Eka waited,
standing in the snow that was piling up nearly to his waist. He
made his best efforts at this time, his greatest efforts to cut all of his
thoughts, to be ready to finally encounter the true teaching.

Finally, Bodhidharma answered the door. He looked down on

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Niso Eka, standing in the snow and asked him, 'You have long
been standing in the snow. What are you here for? What are you
seeking?'

Niso Eka replied, 'I came to learn the true Dharma. I came to find
true faith. Please, Bodhidharma , have compassion and teach me,
teach us, the truth.' In tears, he pleaded with Bodhidharma .

Bodhidharma told him, 'The true path is not so easy to get out. You
will not get there just like that. With your knowledge in your head,
you will never get there. With only belief, you will never get there.
The Truth is at the Source of all beings; but if any shadow of
information and learning is still there, you will never be able to see it.
It is best that you stop your searching right now.'

This encounter is recorded in the Transmission of the Lamp, but

we do not know how accurate the account really is. The story
was most likely embellished. I t continues, saying that Niso Eka
then took out a knife and, having let go of all attachments to his
body, cut off his left arm and presented it to Bodhidharma. We do
not know if this really happened, but we do know that Niso
Eka was very sincere when he traveled to find Bodhidharma,
and that he was indeed ready to put his life on the line.

Niso Eka, through eight years of doing zazen, had deepened to a

place we can hardly understand nowadays, but we know that at
times we can feel a power of will and enthusiasm similar to his. It
is difficult to manifest that will for practice, but a new monk in the
monastery traditionally is taught something of this effort. He sits for
days outside the gates, not being allowed in. Then, when he finally
allowed inside the temple, he is put into a room where he must
meditate for few days, not knowing what will happen. He does not
know when, or how many times, he will be thrown out of the
temple again and forced to try reenter. A new monk entering the
monastery is tested in this way for up to seven days. It is

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possible that this tradition, still followed today, derives from this
legacy of Bodhidharma and Niso Eka and their first encounter.

Niso Eka had asked Bodhidharma to teach him of the Buddhas

mind and was unrelenting in showing his deep and true
resolve. He had come to know that this Mind of the Buddha
was something no one else could give him. His thoughts were
keeping him far away, and he was desperate for help.

Bodhidharma knew clearly that people often become

discouraged and give up before reaching the resolution of their
practice, pulled away by ideas, mistaking them for the real thing. Or
they become conceited and overly self-assured, straying far from
the path to enlightenment. When Bodhidharma saw Niso Eka
cutting off his arm, he said to him, 'Buddhas, when they first seek
after the truth, give no heed to their bodies for the sake of the
Dharma. You know now cut off your arm before me, and have
shown your sincerity and your seeking.'

Niso Eka replied, 'Until now I have studied how to live, I have
studied the Tao, I have studied the sutras, and I know the path
very well, but I am not satisfied deep inside. After all that
endless study, I still cannot find true peace of mind anywhere!'
he was asking Bodhidharma for help, for the courage to awaken
himself.

Niso Eka was brilliant; even as a child he had been able to read
the most difficult philosophical texts. Even when he was young
he was looking for some word of advice on awakening, but this
is something that does not come easily. With a well-studied
mind come images and ideas that are always the true light.
Those ideas are not necessary. If you are settled in your heart,
you do not have to think, you do not have to worry whether you
exist or not, you do not have to pursue any such philosophical
questions. This was Bodhidharmas truth.

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Niso Eka said to Bodhidharma, 'Your disciples mind is not yet at
peace. I beg of you, my teacher, please give it peace.'
Bodhidharma said, 'Bring your mind to me, and I will set it at rest.'

Bodhidharmas answer was so sharp. Penetrating to the core, he

tried to point to Niso Eka to the root of all his problems. Niso
Eka was wise in thought and words, and in using his head, but
Bodhidharma did not allow any room for that at all - he cut
through it, getting to the final place right away. Bodhidharma was
always living his life right out there on the line, without the
slightest excess; if that had not been the case, he could not have
answered like this.

We do not know how long Niso Eka tried to do as he was asked.

Eventually he said to Bodhidharma, 'I have searched for the
mind, and it is finally unattainable.'
Bodhidharma replied, 'I have thoroughly set it at rest for you.'

At that moment Niso Eka attained enlightenment. He realized his

deepest mind. If he had not just gone through all of that pain,
it would not have happened when Boddhidharma responded as
he did. Niso Eka realized his own clear mind and in one moment
melted his burden of doubt.

Bodhidharmas words - 'I have thoroughly set it to rest for you'

- are clear; they are not the words of scholar. It took
Shakyamuni six years to attain this understanding; before his
enlightenment, Shakyamuni was taught by his teacher that the
True Mind finally, in the end, has no thought. If we do not come to
know this, we will never be able to appease our doubts. Yet
Shakyamuni was able to see beyond this point. He had the energy
to cut of all his thoughts; yet he questioned deeper. 'What about
daily life? When I go out into the world, what if I need food,
what about the mind then? My mind then cannot just be the mind
of no thoughts. There must be something else.' True, in the essence

16
of the mind there is no thought, but this was not Shakyamunis final
realization. He knew he would have to work harder, work
longer, and take it to the very end. It took Mumon Ekai six years
to finally understand. It took Niso Eka eight. It is not easy to
understand the words of Bodhidharma .

Niso Eka said, 'I have searched for the mind, and it is finally
unattainable.' He had come to a very good place and worked very
hard, or he would have been able to say this. It took him many
years to reach this place. Perhaps the shadows were all gone and
his thoughts had all disappeared, perhaps there was nothing left
there. He had comprehended this point, and Bodhidharma saw
his purity. Niso Eka had reached the very roots of his mind when
he approached Bodhidharma and said, 'I have searched for the
mind, and it is finally unattainable.'

'I have thoroughly set it at rest for you,' Bodhidharma said. There,
that is it; if you look there, that is it. Bodhidharma cut right through
what remained of Niso Ekas thoughts. We all have to be able to
achieve that clear cutting edge of Bodhidharma - no body, no
mind, nothing anywhere, nothing but that clear place: 'I have
thoroughly set it at rest for you.' It is that simple. As Shakyamuni
was also teaching us, if we meet that true Source completely, if
we know our true living minds, then no thoughts are necessary.
Rinzai, too, received that clear teaching from his teachin, Obaku.
We all have to believe and come to see this.

In his Outline of Practice, Bodhidharma teaches the true and correct

way of the mind. Mumon Ekai said, 'The Great Way is without a
gate.' It is not some small path but the Great Way of heaven and
earth! And yet there is no such visible way.

Joshu was asked, 'What is the Way?'

He answered, 'Just outside that gate run Route 2, which goes to

17
Tokyo.'

This is not just any old path - this Great Path of no gate with no
planned shapes! You can enter everywhere. It can be confusing
because the possibilities are many. However, as Bodhidharma
tells us, this can generally be divided into two main divisions.

The first entrance to the path is by reason, or 'through the Principle':

'Entering through the Principle' is awakening to essential by means

the teachings. It requires a profound trust that all living beings,
both enlightened and ordinary, share the same true nature, which is
obstructed and unseen due only to mistaken perception. If you
turn from the false to the true, dwelling steadily in wall
contemplation, there is no self or other, and ordinary people and
sages are one and the same. You abide unmoving and
unwavering, never again confused by written teachings. Complete,
ineffable accord with the Principle is without discrimination, still,
effortless. This is called entering through the Principle.'

There is a phrase, 'to hear one and understand ten.' This is

refers to an ability to grasp, without words of explanation,
exactly what is being said. When those of true, deep practice hear
just a bit, right away the whole thing and exactly how to proceed.
The first way is to go directly, straightforwardly, without looking
around, needing no prompts, no zazen - just aiming for kensho
with no other needs whatsoever.

Rinzai never said to do zazen. Only to realize kensho - this is

Rinzais Zen. And if we don't do it now, if we do not attain
enlightenment at this very time, then for the infinite amount of time
that exists, the mind of the Buddha, with which we are all
endowed, will never be awakened to. This is said by Rinzai very
severely and very clearly. He said only go to ahead directly
and straightforwardly, and you will know without asking how each
day should be lived. If we can reach that understanding once, we

18
will understand the rest without problems. This is the first entrance
of which Bodhidharma speaks. This is how the sixth patriarch did it.

Can you hear the Dharma of this very moment? What is there to
listen to right now? Is the Dharma in peoples explanations? Will
speaking words of kindness be thought of as the teaching of the
Dharma? Right here, right now, hearing the drum go boom,
hearing the ring of sutra gong - or even the sound of the book
page tuning - what is it that hears this? Directly and clearly
experience that, and then there will be nothing left to seek; for
your whole life you will live as a true person. Rinzai taught this time
and time again: that which hears the boom of the drum - this i s
neither man nor woman, young nor old, rich nor poor, neither
scholar no an uneducated person, not square and not round, not
red and not white - it is simply one True Person of No Rank and
only that. It is not form or substance and has no standing at all. It is
that which becomes our nose and smells, and becomes our mouth
and tastes. It is that which becomes our hands and can hold things,
becomes our feet and can try our body. Rinzai would say, 'Do you
still not understand?'

We do not experience kensho merely from our energy of the Way,

nor can we experience it from not trying anything at all. If our zazen
power is strong we will attain enlightenment without fail. This is
how it works. But it will not make kensho into a concept. The word
kensho is constantly on our tongues, but if we think there is some
kind of change waiting to happen to us, or that we will become
some other kind of person, we are in for a big surprise. Instead,
our mind becomes perfectly clear - that which is speaking,
hearing, and seeing just as it is is kensho. The mind - we
cannot see it, but we know it. First and foremost, if you realize your
Original Nature, the way that things should be done in society will
become clear and obvious.

The second entrance Bodhidharma speaks of can be found within

19
our daily lives - eating, going to the bathroom, moving our arms
and legs. We can realize it in lifes very midst. This is Entering
through Practice, or Entering through Conduct. And if our conduct
is truly correct conduct, we naturally enter 'through the Principle' as
well.

The four parts of Entering through Practice listed by Bodhidharma

include and encompass all others. The first is to know how to
receive hatred and yet know also how to requite it. This is the
practice of requite animosity. The second is to follow our karma with
acceptance and without resistance. This is the practice of accepting
circumstances. The third is to not desire anything or wish anything
external. This is the practice of craving nothing. We wish for
things outside ourselves because we are lonely and missing
something within. But if we are truly fulfilled and taut within, we
are not lonely in this way and need nothing else. The fourth part
is the practice of accord with Dharma. This means to live each
minute of each day in accordance with the Dharma.

To arrive at the gate of Zen, wanting to realize our deepest profound

mind - if this is what we are truly searching for we should remind
ourselves of the following:

When experiencing suffering, a practitioner of the Way should

reflect: 'For innumerable eons, I have preferred the superficial
to the fundamental, drifting through various states of existence,
creating much animosity and hatred, bringing endless harm and
discord. Though I have done nothing wrong in this life, I am
reaping the natural consequences of past offenses, my evil karma.
It is not meted out by some heavenly agency. I accept it
patiently and with contentment, utterly without animosity or
complaint.' A sutra says, 'When you encounter suffering, do not
be distressed. Why? Because your consciousness opens up to the
fundamental.' Cultivating this attitude, you are in accord with the
Principle, advancing on the path through the experience of

20
animosity. Thus it is called the practice of requiting animosity.

We often think - mistakenly - that we were life in our first cry at birth.
This is an easy illusion and one that occurs frequently. But if
we look more closely, we can see it is not like this. We have
not sprung from the earth and the rocks. We have come from
the living bodies of our life separate from theirs? Of course not.
Our life comes from theirs, and if we look back through time into
endless past, we find a connection to all of our ancestors, and even
beyond that. More than four billion years ago the earth was born. It
is said that one million years ago or so human life as we know it
appeared on the earth. That means it took many millions of years
for this very life to be given birth to. Our life, the life, the life that
we are expressing right now, did not easily appear in one moment.
We did not come to be living here so simply, so coincidentally. Our
life is part of a continuous line of hundreds of millions of years.
We are a t this historys present point, expressed at its fullest
in this very moment. And that is only looking at it from the point
of view of the age of this earth. If humans originally came from
another planet or celestial body, we may have an even greater
amount of history behind us.

Science teaches us about many life-forms that existed before

humans. Embryonically we can see similarities between humans
and amoebas, fish, birds, and all animals. In the months and
days of pregnancy, this development of millions of years is
condensed into a short period. What were our ancestors - the
birds, the fish, the amoebas - doing during the millions of years
that passed before human emerged on this planet? Were the
strong eating the weak in order to survive? Probably we ate a
good living others in order to bring about this life today. This is
how we came to be present in this living form.

Looking realistically at the history of mankind, we can see that,

simply to preserve our existence, we have left so much to our

21
instincts. And because of that we have the civilization that is here
today. Did we all do such good things? Of course not. Because
we left everything to instinct there were wars and struggles.
History teaches this clearly. Finally, twenty-five hundred years ago,
the Buddhas teaching came forth. Two thousand years ago
came the teachings of Christ, Socrates, and Confucius. At around
the same time they all appeared and finally offered a guiding light to
humanity. Maybe there were glimpses before this, but no one carried
them on.

Look at the world today: We are constantly threatened by war. We

have just become a little more clever; this all. On this earth, this
civilization that lets its instincts lead has taken many lives. We
call ourselves the most highly developed culture now, but we also
bear responsibility for the evil deeds of those lives of the past: hate,
ill will, wrong doing, limitless mistaken behavior. Even if we can say
we have not done anything mistaken or evil in the years of this
present body, compared to the entire history of human beings
this i s a very short time. Even if we can say that we have not
harmed or bothered anyone from the time of our birth to the
present, that is relatively a very brief interval. Think it over carefully.
In this world, when we experience our own suffering, we should
look at in this way.

Bodhidharma has a very severe perspective on this: No one

can foretell what will happen next. The deeds of the past are
bearing fruit right now, in this very moment. Neither the heavens
nor the gods nor others can be held responsible. It is all from my
own deeds in the past that I experience these results right now.
Our life is not just from the moment of this birth. If we are living and
suffering now, accept that we are experiencing the consequences of
our own doings in the past, and do not hold it against others.

When we fall into evil-doing and mistaken behavior in society, we

are called responsible and are blamed by others. But those

22
who understand profoundly the deepest path know that we have
reached the true and solid character of human beings when we
realize that we must throw away the stingy idea of not accepting
our own behavior. If we can see this, no matter what happens to
us, we can accept it, we can say, 'Even if people of society
do not know, I do.' We must clearly be able to say that we
have understood where this responsibility lies, and not just say it
after justice has been decided by others. If we are truly clear in
our state of mind, then we will let what has come be as it is. This
attitude is identical in Christianity and Buddhism.

In a house near the temple of Shoinji in the town of Hara,

where Master Hakuin Zenji lived, the daughter became pregnant.
Her father was furious and demanded to know who the father of
her baby was. Knowing that her father respected Hakuin and was
always talking about him, she answered that Hakuin was the
babys father, hoping that would keep her father quiet. The father
became even angrier, shocked at this respected priests
behavior. When the baby was born, he took it to Hakuin, yelling at
him and accusing him. Knowing something was behind the fathers
behavior, Hakuin accepted the child, saying, 'Yes? Yes?' He took
the baby in, never defending himself. He had to find places for
the baby to be nursed. When he would go on takuhatsu, his
begging rounds, people would point at him and talk behind his
back. He even wrote a letter saying that the rumors had becomes
so burdensome that he could no longer go outside.

Finally, the young mothers mind become so weighted down with

what she had done that she confessed that the father of her child
was in fact another neighborhood man, and tried to apologize. Her
father, even more furious at the shame she had brought on the
family, went to Hakuin and apologized profusely, thinking of
course that Hakuin would be very angry. But Hakuin only
answered 'Yes? Yes?' and returned the baby. During that time
he never defended himself or accused others. It takes a truly

23
great person of the Way like Hakuin to be able to do something like
this.

When Furuna Sonja, a disciple of the Buddha, was preparing to

go far to spread the Buddhas teachings, the Buddha asked
him, 'Where you are going they have no culture. They will kick
you and strike you and spit in your face. Is that OK with you?'
His disciple said, 'I think about it like this: Even if they hit me and
kick me and spit on me, they will not take my life.'
The Buddha said, 'They might even take your life; is that still all
right with you?'
At that his disciple said, 'At that time I will think like this: They are
liberating me from my body, the physical source of my great suffering
and grief.'
The Buddha said, 'Then go there. If you have confidence and
resolution like this, there is no mistake.'

This is the first of the four paths of Entering through Practice, the
practice of requiting animosity. Bodhidharma is telling us about this
very clearly, not to confuse us but to encourage us to accept this
truth in everyday lives.

Ryokan says in a poem:

To meet disaster at the time of disaster is fine just as it is.

To meet illness in the time of illness is fine just as it is.
To meet death at the time of death is fine just as it is.

Disaster and illness, being alive every day and then dying - these
are all passing varieties of scenery. Once we know their source
and their transience, we will not be caught by them, we will be able
to remain unmoved by pain and pleasure. Then clean, pure mind
of zazen shows us the way things truly are in society, in the world
around us. It is all synchronicity. When we can live our everyday
life in this way, knowing this like kensho. The sutras teach us that
when we receive others revenge and suffer through torturous

24
worlds, we should receive it all just as it is - and not only that, but
make it into our foundation and live that place and express ourselves
from the Great Mind beyond all attachments. If we can accept the
difficulties and use them in our own favor, not running away from
them but following them, we will certainly come to enlightenment.

A story is told about a large temple called Zuiganji in Sendai, and

about the person who became he first abbot there, Hoshin
Kokushin. In the nearby area of Makabe there was a castle, and in
the castle a servant by the name of Heshiro was responsible for
taking care of the daimyos geta - the lords footwear. One night,
Heshiro accompanied the daimyo as he went out for the evening.
But when the daimyo reached his destination, Heshiro was not
allowed to go inside with the daimyo because he was only a
servant. It was a very cold night in Makabe. As was the custom,
the daimyo left his shoes outside as he entered the building.
Because he did not want the daimyo to have to put cold geta on
his feet, Heshiro warmed the shoes in his coat. Just before the
daimyo was ready to leave, Heshiro returned the geta to the
buildings entrance. When the daimyo came out and found that
his geta were warm, he was furious and accused Heshiro of
having sat on them. The daimyo irate at Heshiros kindness;
everything had gotten turned around. He was so furious he threw
the geta at Hishiro, who grabbed them and run away. Heshiro
went to Kyoto, where he remained enraged at his miserable
situation, thinking only about what he could to get back at the
daimyo. They were both equal as human beings on this
earth, so why should he have been put into such a miserable
position? He decided to become ordained, because that was the
one way he could get the daimyo to bow down to him.

In those days one had go to China to become ordained, so Heshiro

stowed away on a ship. When he arrived in China, he went to a
dojo on Kinzan Mountain, but he could not understand a word that
was said there. He could not read, either - having been only a

25
servant he had never learned any kanji. This troubled the Kinzan
roshi. Heshiro was a very enthusiastic student, and the roshi
wanted to do something for him. Then the roshi had an idea. He
drew a huge circle with a big J in the middle and asked Heshiro what
it was. Heshiro did zazen day and night trying to figure out what
the circle and the J meant. He had been deeply injured by the
daimyos insults, and he trained desperately - harder than anyone
else. Maybe there was no meaning in that circle with the J in it,
but through his deep efforts he reached enlightenment doing
zazen on this drawing. That one deep thought of anger and revenge
at the daimyo brought him to this great understanding; finally he
was able to drop it all, to lose all sense of inner and outer, his
whole sense of self and other, earth and heavens, until, like a huge
explosion, it all fell away. He could not understand the drawing, but
everything around him appeared illumined. After that he returned
to Kyoto to the temple of Myoshinji.

Zuiganji, the temple in Sendai, which was near Makabe, had

just been made into a dojo of the Myoshinji line, and Heshiro was
sent there to establish it as a training monastery. A great
ceremony was held in his honor as the new abbot. All the royalty
lined up along the path to the entrance of the hondo, where
Heshiro was to offer a poem expressing his understanding, as
is customary at such times.

The daimyo had forgotten Heshiros face, of course. The abbots

poem was about having climbed Mount Kinzan in China, having
done many years of practice and finally realizing true
understanding, and then coming down from Kinzan to this
faraway place of training. It was about how our physical bodies are
made up of the Five Elements, of sadness and joy, so that if we
look at them through awakened eyes we need no property, no
fame or great name. We can see that they have no meaning and
rise out of emptiness. He concluded by saying that now the Buddha
Nature had returned to open this new dojo and bring sentient beings

26
to enlightenment.

After that it was time for the daimyo to do prostrations to Heshiro,

who was now the daimyos teacher. Heshiro laid out grass on a
tall tray, and on the same tray carefully laid out those very
same geta that the daimyo had thrown at him. The daimyo
entered, but still he did not understand what had happened. The
new abbot came down off his cushion and bowed to the
daimyo, saying that although the daimyo had properly forgotten
who he was, he - was formerly Heshiro - had not been able to
forget. Then he described the incident of the geta in detail, and
told the daimyo that those same geta were on the tray before them.
He told how he had trained with all his energy jus so he could get
the daimyo to bow him, but when he thought about it carefully, it
was thanks to the daimyos anger that he had gone into training at
all. If it had not been for that, he would have remained the
daimyos servant for the rest of his life. If the daimyo had not been
furious at him, he would never have become abbot that day. He
bowed in thanks to the daimyo. The daimyo was, of course,
astonished at hearing all of this.

In society, justice is of great importance. Today we have

courts for that reason. We have to pay our debts; in society this is
a matter of course. But we must ask if this is the only way.
How can we make up for our own mistake? We have courts to
settle dispute, yet still there are fights and still we have wars. In
society that is considered normal. But is right to take peoples
lives for the sake of justice? Is that best possible solution, the only
possible solution?

There is another way. If we follow that way of Zen, first we become

Buddhists, and then we awaken not only ourselves but all
others. The Buddha showed us this by his example. In his
own life, before his very eyes, he saw his parents die and his
country fall to ruin. But the Buddha saw through all of this. He

27
saw that the actual truth could not be destroyed, that it was not a
mater of winning or losing or being happy for one brief period of
time. Buddhism is the Way that teaches us this eternal truth. This
Way is not a transient way. It is the ultimate resolution, not a
temporary one. We must heed the teaching of this Way.

No matter how long we take various roundabout paths in our lives,

at some point we must realize our Buddha Nature. For this we
have been walking always, with all of civilization. In the ultimate
world we will all be in this way of Zen. Why not do it right now
instead of waiting until tomorrow and starting over from the
beginning? The teaching of the Buddha and of Bodhidharma are all
for this, for doing it now, right away.

Bodhidharma teaches that the second part of Entering through

Practice is about being obedient to karma. This is called accepting
circumstances.

Living beings, having no [fixed] self, are entirely shaped by

the impact of circumstances. Both suffering and pleasure are
produced by circumstances. If you experience such positive
rewards as wealth and fame, this results from the past causes. You
receive the benefit now, as soon as these circumstances are
played out, it will be over. Why should you celebrate? Success
and failure deepen upon circumstances, while the Mind does not
gain or lose. Not being moved even by the winds of good
fortune is ineffable accord with the Way. Thus it is called the
practice of accepting ones circumstances.

No matter what happens, what is most important is to accept

it all and respond accordingly, moving correctly in our daily.
We must become as accepting as a newborn baby. None of us
thought to be born into this world, at this time, to these parents.
We received from the source, totally and innocently, the
circumstance into which we are born, with no expectations,
knowledge, and no preconceptions about what this life would be

28
like when entered it. We accepted our situation to be born into
this difficult-to-live-in house, into this period of history. After the term
of pregnancy we are merely born, and we arrive with a big cry
and total acceptance. Our mothers, fathers, and ancestors
habits are give to us without our expectation. Therefore, to say
'This is good' and 'This is bad' is to add something on afterward
- it is not something that is part of our pure mind at birth.

Were we not pure when we were first born? No one comes out of
the womb complaining about having to be born - that is what
Bodhidharma is saying. In this part he is teaching that we are
fundamentally without any egoistic self whatsoever. The baby
accepts the world with which it is presented without judgment,
exactly as the world is presented. Adults are always judging and
complaining. Which is the easier way to live?

When our minds are free from egoistic view, we can accept things
exactly as they are. We can see everything with our eyes because
our eye empty; they no longer take double exposures. As one
thing leaves, then the next thing appears. My teacher, Mumon
Roshi, used to tell a funny story about someone looking in the
mirror one morning and noticing that she had a wrinkled face
and white hair all of a sudden. Upon investigation, she found that
her grandmother had just used the mirror, and he image was
still reflected there. Of course, mirrors do not act like that. Nor
do our eyes. Only our egoistic consciousness does this, and this is
unfortunate.

We have the teaching of Bankei on the Unborn Buddha Nature.

He would say that when people came to see him, they came
expecting to hear him speak. But if a dog were bark at the same
time, they would hear that dog barks as well, without having had
any expectation of hearing the barking of dog right then. Even
though the mind is empty, void of any intention of hearing a
dog barking - there is no idea about it in there at all - you still hear

29
the dog when it barks. This empty mind that hears the dogs barking
is Unborn Buddha Nature, this mind that works with no
expectation or preparation or plan. Our True Mind is empty of ego,
like a babys mind.

To realize this mind we use the breathing practice of susokkan or

the Mu koan of Master Joshu: 'A monk asked Master Joshu,
Does a dog have Buddha Nature? Master Joshu answered MU!'
But if we are saying this all the time, does it mean we are empty
and pure? If I call a person in sanzen a fool, that person becomes
angry immediately. Where does that anger come from if the person
is so empty? To do zazen until the Mu flows and circulates
throughout the body and mind, that is all that can be done. In our
minds we know what Mu should be, but to realize it, to become it,
is not so easy. We must do it not just in the zendo but eating,
standing, and working, we can keep that Mu going always, then
no matter what comes along, we have only Mu to meet it with.
Although we are pure from the origin, we still have physical
bodies; we still have to eat and sleep. But our physical bodies
are merely borrowed utensils for the purpose of realizing our
Buddha Nature. In truth, there is nothing but mind, which is
completely clear. Not even a name can placed here. That which
sees the red flower or the green willow and hears the dog barking
is the same for each of us who sees and hears it. If we say it
sounds different in different languages, that i s already putting on
to it the dualism of language and separating ourselves from tit.
Every person is born with this mind from the origin, which is Mu.
Anyone can realize this.

Yet we are all different in our physical characteristics,

possessions, intelligence, and personality. Why we are all so
different? All children spend a long time wondering about this one!
Bodhidharma teaches that of course we different. Our parents are
all different, our parents personalities are all different, and their
parents personalities as well. We are not little rolls or croissants

30
being made exactly alike at the bakery each day. We have our
fathers personality and also the karma of being born from him.
We have our mothers personality and also the karma of being
born from her. Why does the person next to me come from such
a rich family? No matter how much I worry about it, it will not
make any difference. All of our difference come from karmic
connections reaching back long before our own birth.

Originally, our source is without stain, empty of egoistic self. But

why, then, we wonder, do we suffer so? There are even some who
suffer all the time; they live in the midst of constant suffering,
unable to do anything about it, while other people are living in
happiness and comfort. Everything comes from karmic
connections, and everything will eventually change when the
karmic effects that brought it about wear off.

Near Uwajima in Imamatsu there was a family of long standing -

ten or more generations - named Konishi. This was a family of
sake makers and among the ten richest families in all of Japan. One
day, the father of the first generation went into town, and on his
return he rested along the way with a big barrel of sake next to
him. A samurai came walking toward him, sweating and tired.
The sake makers barrel was full of sake, and the samurai
could smell it. He asked for a drink because he was so thirsty.

First the sake maker took out a little plate. Using some leaves he
gathered nearby, he sprinkled sake in the four directions; then
he gave two other offerings as well. The samurai asked him what
was doing. The sake maker said that he had just opened a new
sake barrel and was thanking all the gods in the four directions,
and the daimyo as well, with his offerings. The samurai
understood thanking the gods, but why, he asked, was the sake
maker thanking the daimyo? The sake maker answered, 'Because
the daimyo keeps the country in peace so the sake can be
made. We always thank him before taking the first drink out of the

31
sake barrel.'

The samurai, who was high rank in Uwajima Castle, returned to the
daimyo and told him what had happened. The daimyo made the
sake maker into the royal sake maker who provided all the
sake to the castle, and he became very famous and his sake
very popular. For many generations his family continued to hold
this position, until the time in history came when the current sake
make had to give up his home, his lands, and all of his
possessions to the country. When the karmic connection is finished,
everything changes. All circumstances are only borrowed; good
things, bad things, suffering, joy - all come out of past karma. So
there is nothing to be so proud or so happy about. If you see the
present reality clearly, you will not be tossed and turned about by
current conditions, knowing they are only transient and will change.

It is easy to see this in times of suffering - in the tough times,

especially, we can believe that those conditions will change. But
when the winds of good fortune and wealth begin to blow, how
weak we become! We so easily become proud and feel rewarded
and comfortable in our circumstances. Knowing there is only one
kind of karma, no matter what comes along, we must realize the
truth and follow the path; whether our karma is good or bad,
we must not drown in it. We should become obedient to our
karma, accepting all circumstances, as Bodhidharma writes in
this section. 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle, than for a rich man enter into the kingdom of God' - this is
how it is written in the Bible.

There was once one very, very rich family named Tajima. There was
a strict rule in his family, however, that when each years rice
harvest came in, only what the family needed was to be kept - all
the rest was to be given away. The rule was never to build
storehouse or warehouses, but to give rice to all the temples and
shrines and to the poor people. When the end of the

32
Tokugawa era came, the daimyo ran out of money and asked
everyone to give something from the wealth in their stores. The
Tajima family had no money at all - they had given all of their
rice and profit away. This was known by everyone; it was
known that they could not give money. The government, too,
was aware of this and did not ask them for anything. Other
great houses went broke, but the Tajima had known from the
beginning that it was all borrowed profit.

In Zen there is the teaching of the half scoopful of water. In the

monastery each morning, three small bamboo scoops full of water
are allowed to wash the face and rinse the mouth out, and the
last half of the third scoop is always returned to the water
source. We continue this practice of not wasting water today, even
though we now have running water in the monsters.

At Sogenji is the story of the master whose bath-water was far too
hot. He told the disciple who was in charge of the bath that day to
bring some cold water. At that time, of course, there was no
faucet to make the water start running. The disciple had to go all
the way out to the well, pull up a bucketful of water, take the water
into the bath, and then go back to the well again to bring up another
bucketful of water, and go back into the bath with it. Many times he
went back and forth from the well bringing cold water. When the
bath was finally cooled to just the right temperature, the master said,
'Okay, thats good enough.'

When he said 'thats good enough,' the monk took the little bit of
the water that was left in the bucket and dumped it out on the floor.
He put the bucket upside down and, thinking his work was
finished, prepared to leave. His teacher was furious and said,
'What are you doing?' The monk was amazed and did not
understand why, when he had just finished his job, his teacher was
suddenly angry at him. The master said, 'You thought there was
only a little bit of water left in that bucket, so you dumped it

33
out so carelessly. Why, just because it was a little bit of water, did
you not perceive how to give that little bit of water life? If you had
taken it outside you could have put it on a flower, you could have
given it to a tree, you could have used it for the vegetables in the
garden.'

The master knew and was telling the monk that in one drop of
water, even in the slightest drop of water, there is an entire
universe of energy and functioning. We must make our efforts so
that we are using hat comes to us totally - if there is a lots of water
we can use it in a big way, but with even the smallest drop of
water we should put our efforts totally into taking the life of that
one drop seriously and using it in the best possible way. That is
what doing our practice is all about.

There are four major temples of Myoshinji, for whom there were
four big pine trees planted, which are still growing at Myoshinji
today. A story that comes from the time of the planting of those
pines tells us that at that time one of the Myoshinji priests was
traveling near Lake Biwa. It was a very hot day, and he saw the
cool-looking water. One man was swimming in the water, a
second man was bathing himself in the water, a third man was
washing himself on the bank at the edge of the water, and a forth
man was washing himself with a towel that had been dampened
in the water. The meaning of this story is that we can easily
jump into the water and swim and bathe. But the priest - being the
one who had the most understanding - said, 'I dont have the merit
to use the water like this; some must be left for those who come
later. If I do what is easiest and use up all the water now, what
will be left for generation to come?'

The same is true for our pollution today; if everyone thought like
this priest, there would be no problem. If we think that our life is
only from the moment we are born until the moment we die, we
are making a big mistake. We exist from the very beginning of

34
history, one million years ago. The straight line that comes down
from that moment through now - this is my life! And this moment is
the ultimate point of it, right now. Every being breathing the air and
drinking the water on this planet, on this earth, is my life as well. If a
big bomb drops, it is over for all of us. The earth is turning, and the
radiation will fall everywhere.

Remember, as Bordidharma tells us, Living beings, having no

[fixed] self, are entirely shaped by the impact of circumstances.'
We have to perceive this Buddha Nature clearly, doing our zazen
with this in mind - and not as if we are stuck in a dark hole. Do your
zazen for all of humanity; for all of those people who are not yet
enlightened, sit firmly. Do not breathe in a dark hole, but burst
thought the entire universe with your energy, crash through the
heavens with your feet at the roots of the trees, and then bring that
life forth - express that life! There is nothing that needs to be
forced or produced, there is nothing to think about and then bring
up. Put everything into it! Do not leave anything undone and
unexpressed. And then, when it is all expressed, even if kensho
is not realized, how bright and fresh you will become! Zazen in
a dark hole with a lot of fog will bring nothing, and you will have
wasted you time. To fill up with the energy of the heavens and the
earth - for that it is worth doing zazen.

The third part of Bodhidharma s Entering through Practice is

craving nothing.

The various sorts of longing and attachment that people

experience in their unending ignorance are regarded as craving.
The wise awaken to the truth, going with the Principle rather than
with conventional ideas. Ideas Peaceful at heart, with nothing to do,
they change in accord with the seasons. All existence lacking
substance, they desire nothing. [They know that] the goddesses of
good man bad fortune always travel as pair and that the Triple
World, where you have lived so long, is like a burning house.
Suffering inevitably comes with having a body - who can find

35
peace? If you understand this full, you quit all thoughts of others
states of being, no longer crave them. A sutra says, 'To crave
is to suffer; to crave nothing is bliss.' Thus we understand clearly
that craving nothing is the true practice of the Way.

From the birth of civilization, or going back even further, to the

beginning of the earth, all these millions of years, everything has
been left up to desires and instincts: liking and disliking, wanting
this and that, using our bodies always for this desiring, acting
with anger, greed, and hate; yearning endlessly for something,
always something else; always holding anger within, or always
complaining about what is going on. Why are we so angry, so
greedy, so ignorant? We do not even know, but there is no end
to our lack of satisfaction. We are always wanting something
else, something more. We are always thinking about what
everybody else is doing. And for what? We do not even know. Yet
even not knowing, we continue doing it - our complaining and
desiring continue to arise from that craving mind.

The first of the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha is

that we are always suffering. And why are we always suffering?
Because we are always accumulating. A monk who arrives at the
temple to enter the monastery has very few possessions; yet in a
year he accumulates a truckload of stuff. And it is such precious
stuff! We also accumulate in all of our noses, taking in smells of
the kitchen; in the cold, wearing as many clothes as we can
until we become huge lump. We collect in our minds as well, not
being satisfied with our state of mind, wanting to re-experience a
past state of mind, or worrying that we are not fir for this path,
Clean it all out! That is what this practice for! Do a great cleaning of
your mind!

Those who have understood the truth - those wise people who
know well how the mind and society and nature and the truth
work - these are the wise people. In China, a lord asked a wise

36
man, 'How can I make all of my people wise?' Rather than
suggesting various activities that the lord might have his people
do, the wise man simply answered, 'Have them be virtuous. By
thinking of others first, that virtue will gradually, naturally becomes a
huge expression of sincere heart. As this expands further, peace in
all the country will reign.' And the old lord was very happy with this
teaching from the wise man.

People of the world want everything they see. They crave it all,
yet they never find satisfaction with any of it. One who has
understood clearly the Buddhas teaching the nirvana exist in
the extinguishing of the flames of greed, anger, and delusion -
what the Buddha realized in his deep enlightenment - has
obtained this same wisdom and is called an Awaken One.
He or she knows this True Mind, empty and clear, containing
nothing at all, without one speck. Someone who truly experiences
this mind will not need one thing, not one single thing. What are
you looking up in the sky and asking for, when from the origin it is
all empty?

If you need nothing, then you naturally want to give away what you
already have to someone else. Your enjoyment comes from giving
your mind of the Dharma to everyone. Every time you come into
contact with someone you give it away. People who do this are not
craving, they are eager to give; that is their pleasure.

The mind of no worry, no anxiety - this is the difference

between a truly ordained person and one who is ordained only in
form. To worry about your life and what it will bring you is for
people of the world. If a monk thinks in that way, even if he is
wearing the robes of ordained Buddhist, then he is still a person of
the world and not a true monk. To be able to totally entrust,
leaving everything up to the workings of the heavens - only if you
do true zazen will you be able to understand this state of mind.

37
When we can live without great concern for our own welfare, the
food we need usually comes. In doing takuhatsu, I have never
had a single day of receiving no money or offering of food. If
you are truly walking the path, living with only exactly what you
really need, and truly practicing, you will be able to stay alive and
receive what you need. It is possible to go without eating for a
full month, and even if you die sitting, it will be a fine way to go. It is
truly foolish, the way everybody rushes around working for the
money and the food and the possessions they think they need.

At one point during my training I could not pass a koan, and was
packing up my things in the monastery, ready to leave, giving up. At
that time I thought it should not have taken me - or anyone else -
more than three years to reach kensho. I remember my tears at
the end of my first rohatsu sesshin when I could not realize
kensho. Was something wrong with the way I was sitting in the
zendo? I would even go out and sit all night long, but still I
could not break through. So I packed my things and went to the
roshi. I told him I was going to sit for long as I possibly could
alone. The roshi asked, 'Then what are you going to do?' I said I
would know then, that I did not know at the moment, but when
that time came I would know what I had to do. The roshi did not
say anything.

I went to the Nara mountains, doing one sesshin after another on

my own; I then went to different mountains in another area and
did the same thing, sitting one sesshin after another. It was
nearing the time of rohatsu when a young man appeared in the
mountain. Neither of us had seen anyone for few days and we
were eager to talk. He asked me if I was practicing Zen, and I
said, 'Yes.' The other young man had been doing the practice
of chanting the Buddhas name, and exclaimed, 'How lucky you
are, to be spending all of your time, your whole life, doing your
practice!' This from someone who was able to practice only a few
days a week. His words hit me like a blow on the head. At that

38
moment, all the burdens I had been carrying around fell away,
and I knew that I had never left the Buddhas palm. I became
suddenly light, as if my body were weightless. I returned to Nara
and found a letter from my previous training temple asking me to
come there for rohatsu.

Knowing the path would always open in front of me, I have never
lost that confidence that I have never left the Buddhas palm at any
time in any way. From that time on, sanzen was never terrible
again. All of the koans were just my karma ripening, and to be
done going on and on. Since then, the path has always been
open to me. I could accept whatever came. If there was no food,
it would be OK to die sitting. This is the important point: to
entrust completely, to live today with ones fullest energy; to have
no anxiety deep within, to have no sense of having done this and
that, leaving it all up to the natural way, leaving it up to heaven and
earth.

There is a community in Shiga called Itoen, founded by a

man named Nishida Tenko. He originally worked for a large
company in Kobe that made woolen good such as sweaters and
blankets; he was one of the officials there. But one day he
suddenly left the company, went to Hokkaido with friends, and
there bought a large piece of land of farm. However, the times
were bad, and the groups harvests on the land were continually
poor. The others had families, and they argued about how to go
about fixing things, saying they wanted such and such an
amount in order to support their families, and in general could
not come to any agreement about what to do with the land and the
profits. At the end, Tenko was troubled, and he found the problems
impossible to resolve with other members. They eventually quit,
all of them, and that ideal village was ended. They had set out to
make a perfect village, and a mere six years had passed since they
begin. Tenko returned home penniless, with no idea of what to do
next. He had no energy left to live, nor any faith left in people. He

39
had thought that if people thought and talked about things - if
they were willing to talk things out - they could make anything
things happen; they could have made this new village. But all this
his hopes had been dashed. What would he do from tomorrow? He
had nobody to go home to, no money for food.

He sat down on the porch of a shrine and thought. He thought and

thought and thought. He thought all through the night, and then the
dawn came and he heard a baby crying from a neighbouring
house. He thought, 'Its crying. Why doesnt its mother get up
and feed it? I wonder what shes doing?' Suddenly the crying
stopped, and he knew that the baby was being fed. Then
suddenly he felt as if he had received a great blow in his back;
he understood something very deeply at that moment. That baby
came into this world, and there was the food here for it, already.
We come into this world as well, and the air, food, and water
are here, provided for us - whether we think of it or not, expect it
or not. This is the human source point from which we live; we are
born to live, to survive.

Tenko felt that his life was decided with that, and he borrowed
cleaning tools from a nearby grandmother to clean the shrine. Later
she said that her breakfast was made, and invited him to eat with
her. He said he had used the shrine, and that was why he had
cleaned it, but that she had no reason to feed him. She told him not
to be like that, and finally he agreed to eat, for he had not eaten for
a long time. He washed his dishes after eating and saw that the
toilet area was also dirty. He cleaned it, and here and there as well,
as he saw other things that were dirty, and finally she gave him
lunch. He returned to his inn and asked if he could work there for
no money at all about just to be able to live there. This is where it
began. For fifty years, from that time, he never had a time of not
eating. He started the community of Itoen, and all of its members
cleaned everywhere: stations, public buildings, shrines. They raised
gardens together and lived equally, working and laboring in a

40
community way, giving their whole bodies, their entire energy, in
service, knowing they would be provided for through that.

When we clean up and do what is necessary, what is

needed always comes. Being always satisfied, looking around
for where to clean next, where to straighten up next, we are
able to see well and understand well where people are sad and
suffering, and we have no free time for craving! This kind of life we
must live. So says Bodhidharma.

If nothing craves, then this world is joyful just as it is. All of it is my

world, and everyone in it is child - even the difficult and hard-to-
handle children are my children. In a place called Hamanako
there was a temple named Konchi, which was surrounded by rice
fields spreading far into the distance. The priest was enjoying
himself, commenting on what a good harvest there was going to
be that year. Someone asked if all those fine rice fields
belonged to the temple. The priest said, 'Yes they do - we
just dont receive the harvest from them.' By the front gate of
Sogenji we have a bank. Everyone brings money to our gate.
We just dont want have the bankbook for getting the money out.
In the spring we have the mountains of Nara of cherry blossoms,
and in fall we have the Arashiyan River full of maple leaves. At
Sogenji we have the flowers off the mountains - we just dont pick
them all. We have a huge lake with a boat in it, and it is all ours.
Thinking like this we live with a great mind. It is with this kind of
grand mind that we must also be doing our zazen. It is when we
want to claim everything as our own personal possession that we
run into trouble.

In the Nirvana Sutra a story is told about a man who heard a

voice at the entrance of his home. When he went to see who
was there, he found a beautiful woman. He was amazed at her
great beauty and asked who she was. She said she was the
Goddess of Good Fortune and that wherever she went wonderful

41
things happened, that good fortune would last as long as she was
there. The man was overjoyed and invited her to come in and
stay for long time in his best rooms. But soon afterward, an
ugly and miserable woman came to the same entranceway.
W hen he asked who she was, she said she was the Goddess of
Bad Luck and Poverty, and she told him that however she went the
world would be ill fortune. He told her to go away immediately,
but she said she could not leave because her older sister, the
Goddess of Good Fortune, was there, and they always had to
stay together. Greatly dismayed, the man had to ask them both
to leave. Always entwined like the strands of rope are good
fortune and ill fortune. Being born we have to die; we cannot get
away with only being born. We want only the good things and
none of the bad. This is the life of the sentient being - wanting
only the good things.

In one twenty-four hour period we have both day and night. With
both we have one complete cycle. Happiness and sadness are
both of life that we must take together. We cannot accept just
one without the other. In the Lotus Sutra there is a teaching
about a house that is on fire - a great rich old mans house where
many families lived together. All of the younger parents were
out, going about their business, but the children were home
playing, unaware of the great danger of fire. The old man tried
to tell the children to run out, to get away quickly, but the children
did not know what fire meant, nor what danger was. This story
is not about that house and these children; it is also about us,
right now. How shall we spend our time? Do we have any idea
when our lives will end? We know only that death has not arrived
for us yet. We are still unenlightened and do not even know
where are going. Having this body we suffer. We cannot run
away from that. We are planting the seeds of our suffering all the
time. Why dont we face it directly, head-on and go beyond it!

A sutra says, 'To crave is to suffer; to crave nothing is bliss.'

42
Thus we understand clearly that craving nothing is the true
practice of the Way. Doing zazen, our bodies suffer - our legs
hurt, we become sleepy. We cannot reach the place of peace,
things around us continue to bother us. 'To crave is to suffer.'
We are all looking for something. But no matter how much we crave
and receive things, we cannot take them with us; when we die we
have to leave it all behind.

When Emperor Godaigo was ruling Japan, the country was divided
into the northern and the southern parts, and the emperor was
forced to flee his home. But he left behind a poem:

No matter how wonderful a wife and child and precious things

- even the rank of Emperor - one has,
one must leave them behind when one dies.
This is just what this sutra says. How true it really is!

This is his exclamation, that even an emperor finally has to die

all alone. We think always of how we can decorate our bodies and
our lives, but it is all a dream within a dream. Each one of us will
have to leave it all behind eventually. Craving nothing, we
realize that is the Original Mind. In that Original Mind there is
not a single thing to crave. So said Bodhidharma.

The last part of Entering through Practice is the practice of accord

with the Dharma.

The principle of essential purity is the Dharma. Under this principle,

all form is without substance, undefilable and without attachment,
neither 'this' nor 'that.' The Vimalakirti Sutra says, 'In this Dharma,
there are no living beings because it transcends the defiling
[concept] of living beings. In this Dharma, there is no self because
it transcend the defiling [concept] of self.'
When the wise embrace and understand this principle, they are
practicing accord with the Dharma. Since in the Dharma there is
fundamentally nothing to withhold, [the wise] practice generosity,

43
giving their bodies, lives and possessions without any regret in
their minds. Fully understanding the emptiness of giver, gift, and
recipient, they do not fall into bias or attachment. Riding
themselves of all defilements, they aid in the liberation of living
beings without grasping at appearances. In this way they benefit
themselves and others both, gracing the Way of
Enlightenment. In the same fashion, they practice the other five
perfections. To eliminate false thinking in practicing the six
perfections means having no thought of practicing them. This is
practicing in accord with the Dharma.

Through this is the fourth and last party, it is in fact the most
important. In Christianity we have, from the beginning, God. But in
Buddhism we do not put the Buddha first. We have the Buddha, the
truth he preached, and those who follow it, but that truth - the
Dharma - come first. On the eight of December, under the
bodhi tree, the Buddha saw the morning star and realized his
True Mind, exclaiming, 'Thats it! Thats it! Thats me shining!'
Having spent six years doing training, getting rid of everything, in
that deep samadhi he realized that new life out of a place of
complete emptiness. What was the substance there? That body of
nothingness, seeing the trees and hearing the birds - what is that?
What is that which is clear-minded, that which beyond expression?

Believe that he could not make anyone understand, he thought

about keeping this experience to himself, since no one would believe
him anyway. But it is said that when he returned to his deep
Samadhi, the gods came to him and told him, he must share
this experience and guide others to it through expedient means.
Probably there were no gods actually talking to him, but rather
a difficult inner struggle as he tried to figure out how to
communicate an experience that was beyond words to the rest of the
world. He at last knew that he had to teach this to all others; he
had to teach his deeply spiritual fellow Indians. They already
honored many gods and prayed to mountains and trees, since
everyone wants something to believe in and worship. But the

44
Buddha knew from his own experience that even if there were
many gods, there was not even one to be prayed to. There was
nothing as wonderful, as sublime, as that very mind which he
had now realized. This was the Dharma, the source of all life, of
the sun, the moon, the flowers, and all the Ten Thousand Things.
This was the source of life consciousness, the roots of Mu. This
is what we have given the borrowed name of our True Mind. This
clear, bright mind is all that exist, and it itself gives birth to all those
gods. This mind that the Buddha had newly realized - this deep life
within each of us - was given the name of Dharma.

The Buddha brought forth the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold
Path, the Twelve Ways of Causation, and went to teach of his
experience to his five training friends, who all attained
enlightenment on the spot after hearing what he said. These
were the first sangha members. At just that time there came rich
young man who had used up all his money and was now broke.
He was going to the mountains to commit suicide when he met the
Buddha.

The Buddha told him of his realization, and the young man
attained enlightenment on the spot and became his next
disciple. Then the rich young mans father came looking for him.
He, too, heard of the Buddhas realization and became
enlightened himself, and was the first to call him Buddha, the
Awaken One.

The Buddha taught in a way that could be applied to anyone, but it

was all explanation that had to break through explanation. He
taught that it was necessary first to realize the true source - not
with conceptualizations, but by actually knowing for oneself the
genuine essence - or it would be nothing more than
interpretation. The Dharma in its essence is pure. It is above
defilement and attachments; it cannot be decorate; it does not
increase, it does not decrease; it has been here from the

45
origin and it cannot die. Consciousness can die, but its source, its
roots, do not. That which gives birth to consciousness does not
die. There is never too much nor not enough. In every single
case the source is just as it as it is, never soiled or clean. It is
sometimes called the universe, but that is already an imagined
things, an explanation.

Shakyamuni said, when he gave the flower to Makakasho, 'I have

the True Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True
Form of the Formless, the Subtle Dharma Gate, which does
not set up words and phrases, and is a separate transmission
outside the scriptures. This I entrust to you Makakasho.' I have
found mind, that place where nothing gets stuck, he was saying,
not that place of no thinking, not that place of saying when we
walk that we are not walking, of saying when we sit that we are not
sitting, but the place where we are not stuck on the thought of those
things, that place of just becoming that sitting, of just
becoming the life energy of whatever we are doing, of whatever
comes to us.

The true Dharma Eye, the source of all that is: This is what
the Buddha passed on to his disciples, who continued passing it on
to their disciples, to Bodhidharma , who passed it on to Niso Eka.
But what was transmitted? When people see someone point
finger at the moon, they always look at the finger, when the
point of course is to see the beautiful moon. The 'moon' we
must see is that understanding that was passed on by each
person to another became pure by realizing that source of all, the
true root. To know the Dharma, our True Nature, to experience that
same thing which the Buddha experienced - to understand each
other - we have to experience this for ourselves. It cannot be
found in thinking about it or in reading a sutra or in trying to
understand it with our heads.

When the Buddha was about to die, Makakasho asked, 'To

46
whom shall we turn to guide us when you are gone?' The Buddha
replied, 'Take refuge in the Dharma. Find guiding light in your
own true, pure mind. Never look outside yourselves for it. Even
if there seems to be something wonderful outside yourself, that
will only lead to confusion and doubt.' If his disciple had not
themselves attained enlightenment as well, they would not have
been able to understand. If they had only read about it or heard
about it, their experience would not have been the real thing.

Through twenty-five hundred years of history, this life energy has

continued, filling up the eyes of those who could see. They all
could see with those eyes of the Buddha; they could see the
whole world clearly. We, too, can experience it like that. When
asked, 'Why did Bodhidharma come from the west?' Joshu
answered, 'The oak Tree in the garden.' Simply that oak tree, right
in front of his eyes. That was it. Joshu was deeply enlightened,
completely selfless, egoless, and true when he said this. It did not
have to be an oak tree; it could have been anything. It could have
been the mountains; it could have been the rivers; it could have
been a different kind of tree; it could have been a stone. What is
right in front of your eyes? Are you becoming one with it? Is your
state of mind such that there is not a stain left? Cut through to
the core, vast and wide - this was Joshus state of mind when he
said, 'The oak tree in the garden.'

We open our eyes, we open our ears, we feel sensations in our

bodies and minds, but isnt it always the past that we are
looking at? Yesterdays menu? What is it that right here in front of
us, right now, completely new? It comes to us, touches us in our
whole body, fresh and alive. What is it? Are you feeling this,
knowing this as your own experience? If you are tasting this,
then you know Joshus state of mind well. He is not stuck in
feeling, thoughts, and ideas. He is one with society, one with the
whole world; he is not stuck inside himself, but right there,
completely filling up the heavens and the earth. We must

47
promise ourselves that we, too, will understand it like this.

Our True Nature is pure; this is the Dharma; this is what

Bodhidharma is teaching us here. In our basic humanity there is no
color, no space, no time. It is empty from the origin. As Rinzai puts
it: 'In this lump of red flesh there is a True Person of No Rank
always coming in and going out. If you have not seen it yet, see
it now! See it now!' This True Person of No Rank is neither
woman or man, neither rich nor poor, neither clever nor
foolish, neither adult nor child, nor does it have color or shape - and
yet, from our eyes it becomes mountains, rivers, birds, and the
oak tree in the garden. From our ears it becomes the song of the
birds, the sounds of the wind - all the sounds of the Ten Thousand
Things. From our nose it becomes the fragrance of the flowers
and all the smells of the Ten Thousand Things. With our body
we feel heat, cold, pain, and all the other sensations possible - this
Person of No Rank, always coming and going freely! If you have not
noticed it yet, even while using it yourself, at this very moment meet
it, right now! We are urged in this way by Rinzai.

This life force is neither good nor bad, nor is it stained by the
outer world. We are usually stained by likes and dislikes,
becoming attached to things that brings us joy and trying to avoid
what we dislike. But because our very center is pure and
unstained, there is truly nothing to be attached to! In truth,
there is no such being as a sentient being, because everything is
a part of the Basic True Nature. In the Dharma, in our purest self,
there is no ego, because we are not attached to a small self. Those
who have realized the truth, who have understood it with their own
experience, have the same understanding as the Buddha because
the mind is understood as the same mind, without any
attachment, moving freely. To live in this ways is to practice
the Dharma. One who has understood deeply will always be living
in this way easily.

48
If you live in this essence of Dharma there is an unchanging center
that has no wish to posses. It can be truly sad when meeting a
sad person, and be ready to do whatever is possible for a suffering
of miserable person, helping not just physically but the totality of
ones life energy. The closest things to this completely selfless
functioning may be the love of a mother for her child. It can be
called instinct, yet it is more than that. It is possible to call it the
purest human emotion, yet it is not limited to humans; it is
found in animals as well. Practicing charity, giving offerings, never
being greedy with property, body, or a life - this greatness of mind
is found in one who truly loves humankind with a pure, clear mind.
It is one expression of the understanding of True Mind.

We become greedy because of ego appearing; we become

begrudging and unwilling to give. Shudatsu Chooja, a very rich
man in India, was said to have hundreds of warehouses full of
gold and silver and other possessions. But he was a truly
generous man, always following the Buddhas teaching and giving
everything away. Whenever he saw a poor person, he would
immediately give him or her things. Everyone around him
respected him greatly. But this giving had limits, and possessions
have their limits as well, and one day his warehouses were empty.
He had to let all of his servants go, and only he and his wife
were left. They spent days without enough to eat. During this
time, Mokurin Sonja was sent to their home by Buddha for
takuhatsu. Shudatsu Choojas wife had just sold their last wooden
box and had bought only enough rice to last for the next few days.
Yet when he saw Mokurin Sonja coming on takuhatsu, she
gave him almost of her rice, feeling very good about what she
had done. But then after him came the Buddha. So she gave
him the rest of the rice. To give when you have is easy; to give
when you do not have is much more difficult. When the
womans husband came home and found no rice he cried out
in dismay until he heard the details of what had happened. Then
he told her that she had done for her best in giving all of the rice,

49
and he said, 'Let us go look for something that might have been
left in the warehouses or somewhere.' But the doors of the
warehouse would not open. They tried one after another until finally
one gave, and looking inside they found the warehouses to be again
full of and silver. This is of course a symbol of spiritual wealth.

Ikkyu Sojun, a Japanese master of the Rinzai school, was out

one day, being given dinner. Because he could not eat all the
food he was offered, the lady of the house gave him what was
left to take home. On his way home he met a beggar, and
feeling good and full of food he gave the beggar the box of
food he was carrying. The beggar received it and said nothing.
But Ikkyu said to the beggar, 'Dont you think you could at least
say Thank you?' Again the beggar said nothing at first; then after
a while he replied, 'Yes, but you feel better than that for giving
something, dont you?' To be thankful that we can give something
is the natural expression of our True Nature.

Through takuhatsu - one of the most important practices left by the

Buddha - we learn of this threefold nature of emptiness, this
emptiness that is the essence of Dharma. The giving, the
receiving, and the things given: all are one and all are
emptiness. Once we realize this emptiness, whether what is given
is $10,000 or $10, it is all the same thing. Those who are giving,
and those who are being given to, must give and take with no
prejudice, no egoistic attachment. In India, the monks went out in
the early morning, without making prostrations or offering any
other expressions of thanks. They were served the first rice in the
pot by the people they visited, although they came for the leftovers.
To receive and give an empty mind, with no ego attachment
rising, is the point of this practice of takuhatsu. It teaches us the
threefold nature of emptiness and enables to rid ourselves of
attachment to things we receive and give. In Japan, people bow
to each other and consider that a practice to cut the
conceited ego. The most important point, however, is not to be

50
attached to any form, whatsoever; this is the most important lesson.

The practice of charity, just as it is, saves society and aids in the
development of the Buddha world. The other virtues - such as
endurance, meditation, great care, and wisdom - are also for the
purpose of saving society and ourselves, and all of them
originate from within our own True Nature. The way of the mind
is to endure but not get angry. As we do zazen, be enduring
the pain, the cold, and the wish to move around, we develop
and express our True Mind, the source of all activities. To want to
clean and care for everything around us, to help those in trouble or
those in need - these are activities of our True Nature; they are
nothing but the expression of our Original Mind, just as it is.
To move when we should move and yet be totally still when we
are still, expressing appropriately the love for humanity that come
from our deepest mind - to be able to do this is to practice the
Dharma.

But what is most important is to function in this way without being

aware of it. The same is true for each of the practices Bodhidharma
has listed - the practice of requiting animosity, the practice of
accepting circumstances, the practice of craving nothing, and the
practice of accord with the Dharma. For them to arise naturally and
of themselves is if the greatest importance. This is the world that
Bodhidharma is writing about in his text. That source of what is
listening, right this minute; of what is seeing, right this minute - no
matter who you ask or what you read will not find the answer in
words. You must experience this eternal life, your Original Nature,
for yourself! Each of you please realize these roots, and from this
foundation, standing firmly on that realization and experiencing it
thoroughly, reveal that life beyond explanation - this place of no
time and no space, that which is from the origin empty. To
experience this True Nature is what we must all do! And for the
doing of this, we have zazen.

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Zazen
Joshu Jushin was born in China during the Tang dynasty
(618-907). A student of Master Nansen, he attained enlightenment
at the age of eighteen and continued his training with Nansen until
the latters death nearly forty years later. At the age of sixty, after
several years of tending his teachers grave Joshu left on a
pilgrimage, 'I will ask even a child of seven to teach me if his
understanding is greater than mine, and I will teach even a man of
one hundred if my understanding is greater than his.' For the
next twenty years he traveled to every corner of China, seeking out
teachers and studying the Dharma until, at the age of eighty, he
was invited to the city of Joshu to become abbot of the temple
Kannon-in. There, until his death at age of 120, Joshu devoted
himself to instructing the many disciples who gather around him.
Among Zen people he is regarded as a model of ideal Zen
practice and living, and is noted for his penetrating use of words
'Joshus lips,' it was said, 'flash light.'

One day a monk came to see Joshu. 'Im a new monk who has just
arrived. Please teach me what is important in training - how
should I live? The monk was undoubtedly hoping for a few
precious words of guidance to treasure and follow in his Zen
practice. Joshu, however, responded from precisely the opposite
direction. 'Have you eaten your gruel this morning?' he asked.
The monk was probably surprised by Joshus seemingly
irrelevant response - he had requested instruction on how to go
about Zen training; he did not expect to be asked if he had had his
breakfast. Joshu, however, was not asking, just about the monks
morning meal. He was pointing a central aspect of training:
the need to be attentive in whatever one does. When the
monk answered, 'Yes, Master, I have eaten,' Joshu immediately
responded, 'Then be sure to wash your bowls!' with this the
monk suddenly understood what Joshu had been saying.

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This story tells it all. The words zazen and training are
constantly on our lips, and we never tire of talking about Dharma
and Truth, making it seem as thought there is something special
and out-of-the-ordinary to be attained. This only proves that our
truth creativity has yet to come alive. We may have reached a
certain understanding on the level of reasoning and logic, but we
have still to see the very place upon which we stand; we may have
fathomed the workings of the universe, but we have yet to grasp the
essence of our very own minds.

People often ask me is zazen can ever be of my practical use

in these complex and turbulent times. By way of answering,
let us consider the concept of aligning. The word align signifies the
idea of suiting everything in its proper position relative to everything
else. First we align our body, then we align our breathing, then we
align our mind. And once these things are accomplished, we find
that we cannot be satisfied with aligning only our limited
individual minds, but that we must finally align ourselves with
the Mind of the larger Self that pervades all existence.

Since the process of alignment starts with the body, let us begin
with the physical side of Zen practice. There are four aspects to
this physical side, corresponding to the four basic postures - gyo,
'moving'; ju, 'standing'; za, 'sitting'; and ga, 'lying' - that a
human beings assumes during the course of the day. There
are times in which we are engaged in activity (gyo), during
which we attempt to remain focused and aware; times of
standing still (ju), during which we attempt to return to the
source and observe the content of our minds; times of sitting
(za), during which we delve even deeper into our inner source;
and, finally, times of lying down (ga), when we ret our bodies.

The first of the four postures, 'moving,' is fundamentally not one

in which we turn inward and observe ourselves - activity requires
that we direct our energies outward toward whatever it is we are

53
doing. Standing still permits a greater inner focus, but it is in the
posture of sitting that this element finds its deepest expression.

I once heard a raconteur of the traditional Japanese comic

anecdotes known as rakuyo say something about the relation of
sitting and comedy. Genuine humor, he commented, touches upon
something universal in human beings, something that cuts across
individual and cultural difference. If this universal element is missed,
even the most skillful related rakugo will fail to evoke either
laughter or sadness in the audience, even if the people see the
storys point. The raconteur then added that it is extremely hard to
move people at this deep inner level when they are standing, but
relatively easy when they are sitting, particularly when they are
sitting not in chairs but solidly on the floor in the traditional
Japanese fashion.

Thus there is something about the sitting posture that facilitates

access to the deeper regions of the heart, and this is as true
of zazen as it is of rakugo. When we assume the sitting
position we quite naturally draw to something universal in the
human spirit. Merely sitting is not in itself to bring about peace of
mind, of course, but it does have a certain settling on even the
most troubled soul. This is something we experience at a more
fundamental level than that of intellectual speculation. Doctrine
questions - for example, 'What is salvation?' and 'What did the
Buddha teach?' - are certainly important, but in zazen it is more
essential first to find that state of settled tranquility in which all
humanity has a share. Differences in culture, language, and
national temperament definitely exist, but there is a certain 'place'
of settled tranquility where we all naturally come to rest.

Zazen is not a matter of intellection; it must be rooted in the

physical sense of inner liberation that is most easily experienced
through sitting. This sense of liberation is not in itself enough,
however. It is also necessary to attain an inner state open to the

54
essential nature of things. If liberation was all that mattered, it
would be enough to drug ourselves to sleep, but this would
hardly resolve the problem of how to act in our everyday live form
a stable inner essence, regardless of how turbulent or
dangerous the outer circumstances are. It is here that the
important of sitting emerges, for it is though sitting we are most
easily able to stabilize ourselves in this inner essence.

Thus, although we can say that moving is Zen and sitting is

Zen, it is important that we first master the basics of sitting
meditation so that we may best experience this inner essence.
There are three central aspect of zazen: the aspect of body, the
aspect of breathing, and the aspect of mind.

The bodily aspect concerns the physical posture of zazen. In

meditation, the aspect of mind is in many ways central, but the
body-mind relation is such that unless attention is paid to the
details of proper posture, it is extremely difficult to achieve
anything on the mental level of true zazen. Sitting for even a
thousand years with a slack posture will leave you just as confused
and deluded as ever.

The body may be considered in terms of the section above the

waist and the section below the waist, and both have their
respective to play in the overall balance of zazen. The upper
portion must be light and relaxed, while the lower portion must be
firm, taut, and settled. We might compare the physical form of
zazen to that of pyramid, broad and stable at the base and
gradually tapering toward the top, until it reaches a single point. The
folding of the legs during meditation into the lotus position puts one
in firm contact with the ground, creating a calm, stable foundation
for both body and mind. Either full lotus or half lotus is fine, through
the full lotus is preferable since the half lotus more easily results in
a loss of balance and consequent injury to the legs.

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The folded legs comprise a triangle where the knees form the
two base angles and the coccyx form the apex. The buttocks
are pushed back the lower abdomen is pressed forward, while
the trunk rises perpendicularly from the middle of this
foundation, forming a balanced centerline for the overall body
pyramid. The lower back is curved in as much as possible to
provide a solid support for the upper trunk; sitting with your back
bent out may seen more comfortable, but it easily leads to
sleepiness and random thoughts, and makes the attainment of
deeper meditative states impossible. The upper body should rise up
in a light and relaxed manner, almost as if it is not there. The chin
should be pulled back and the top of head thrust upward, while
the neck should touch against the back of the collar. With the body
in this posture the strength will quite naturally settle into the
tanden, the place in the lower abdomen, two or three inches
below the navel, the physical and mental foundation of zazen
practice. It is important, however, to think the tanden not as a
specific point the body but as something that appears when a
number of factors are in proper balance - the tanden is, in a sense,
the expression of an overall condition. It will not appear unless the
upper trunk is relaxed, the back is straight, and the lumbar area
is firmly tucked in. When the back is curved in as far as possible,
the trunk naturally straightens and the ki, the vital energy, flows
freely upward along the spine.

The use of zazen cushions, known as zafu, make it easier to

maintain this posture. Do not sit right in the middle of the zafu, since
this tends to shift the bodys centerline backward, rendering it harder
to sit properly and defeating the cushions purpose. Instead, place
yourself more toward the font of the zafu, so that the body slants
slightly forward and the back curves naturally in, easing the burden
on the lumbar muscles. Make sure the cushion has the right height
- people with years of experience may be able to sit even with a
relatively low cushion, but beginners usually need to raise the
pelvis higher to aid the proper in-curving of the lower back.

56
When you start a period of meditation, particularly if you are a
beginner, straighten your spine by leaning forward slightly, then
leave your pelvis tripped forward and your lower back curved in as
bring the rest of your trunk to an upright position. Continue to rock
forward and backward until you find the proper point of
centeredness. Doing this will provide a quite clear sense of both the
lower back and the tanden. Some practitioners find themselves
sleepy, unfocused, of full of scattered thoughts nearly every time
they sit. Ive found that almost always this is because their back is
not curves in and their centerline is off.

Whether sitting is full lotus or half lotus, it is easiest to maintain

your balance if you pull your feet up on your thighs as close as
possible to your trunk; it is when you sit with your legs not high
enough that they become numb and painful. The soles of your feet
should be face upward and not out the sides. Attention to such
details of posture is very important in finding the right physical
alignment. Of course, your legs will hurt if you remain in this
position twelve hours a day, but you need not make an endurance
contest out of zazen. Try to sit in this manner, focused and
straight, for even a single short period every day.

When sitting, it is important to close your anal sphincter muscles

slightly, as this help the lower trunk in the proper position and
in the right state of tautness, promoting the free flow of ki up
through your tanden and backbone to the top of your head.
When this flow is present, the back straightens naturally and
entire body comes into proper balance with the centerline. When
the body is thus properly aligned - the lower portion taut and firm,
the ki flowing freely, and the upper trunk straight, light, and relaxed
- the mind, too, becomes settled, and extraneous thoughts are
minimized. In contrast, when you sit in a careless fashion,
inattentive to the details of posture, your ki, which should flow freely
throughout your system, stagnates body into proper balance
and causes painful stiffness in the shoulders and neck. The

57
stability of the lower trunk is thus disturbed, causing a loss of
balance in the entire body; you feel unsettled and overact
emotionally. Even the ordinary activities of daily life become difficult.

In this way, the study of Zen must proceed through the body -
theorizing alone cannot lead to the inner experience of true zazen,
in which your ki fill your tanden and provides a sense of
boundless energy that seems to extend to the very ends of the
universe. When you are grounded in your physical center and
the various bodily parts are settled in their proper positions,
the energy circulates naturally; the spine is straight, and the
entire physical structure rests in a position of optimal balance, like a
pagoda rising up with each story settle firmly on the one below. By
maintaining this posture not only during zazen but in daily life - in
walking, in working, and in all other activities - you are remaining
centered in your lower abdomen, so your upper body feels fresh
and light and you are filled with a sense of clarity.

This will be aided by loose clothing that does not restrict the flow
of your breath. Another factor to be careful about is eating. Meat
and other greasy fare thicken the blood and should be reduced;
the emphasis should be on good nourishment. The matter of
sleep, too, is important - neither too much nor too little is good
for zazen.

One receives energy and support from food, from sleep, and
from surrounding environment. A balanced approach to these
factors not only helps your practice but also contributes to good
health, and a state of good heath is, needless to say, the most
suitable physical condition for the practice of Zen. I might add that it
is best to sit with other Zen practitioners, so that everyone can
sense everyone elses zazen energy and draw strength from their
efforts to harmonize the mind. It works the other way around,
too - it is quite difficult to sit among people who no interest in
meditation.

58
Ones inner, mental environment is also important. You must make
a conscious decision to practice, vowing from deep within to bring
your body into balance, to harmonize your breathing, and to clarify
your mind. Merely crossing your legs and sitting vacantly on a
cushion is not enough. Useless you express your commitment in
the form of conscious, directed effort, you will never be capable of
genuine zazen.

It is very important also to keep your eyes open during

meditation. Sitting with closed eyes may seen a good way to cut off
distractions and achieve a state of inner silence, but doing so
usually encourages drowsiness and extraneous thoughts. Even if
you succeed in reaching a tranquil state of mind, this is nothing
but hothouse Zen, of little use to you amid the challenges of
everyday life. Furthermore, the senses, particularly sight and
hearing, provide the most basic link between the outside world
and the activities of the mind. Unless we learn to integrate such
sensory input with our zazen, our training will be of little practical
use.

Let us now move on to the matter of aligning the breath.

Settled, well- regulated breathing is basic Zen practice and is vital
to the realization of the inner essence of zazen. When the breath
is disturbed, it is impossible to observe things accurately and
make appropriate judgments. Moreover, shortness of breath often
leads to shortness of temper - one losses one sense of
perspective and reacts solely on the basis of immediate
circumstances. You become overly affected by what people say
and are easily swayed by the events around you, leading to further
disturbance and delusion. All of this signals that your breathing is
not in order. Regulating the respiration means maintaining your
breath in relaxed and unobstructed flow regardless of the situation
you find yourself in.

Begin your zazen with shinkokyu, 'deep breathing.' The kind of

59
deep breathing during athletic warm-up exercises generally
focuses on inhalation, but in zazen it is the exhalation that is
the central. It might be called 'exhalation-type deep breathing.'
This necessitates, first of all, that the upper body be straight and
completely free of tension. Centering your respiration in your
tanden, begin with an exhalation; if you start with an inhalation
there is a tendency for the body to stiffen. Exhale completely,
using the mouth, not the nose, for the first several breaths.
After this, breathe through the nostrils. The respiration should be
neither overly forceful nor overly gentle - it should feel full and
expansive, as though it extends infinitely and without constraint.
The breath should feel as though it comes not from the chest but
directly from the lower abdomen, as though there was an open
pipe directly connecting the tanden and the mouth.

Do not force the breath, but allow it to flow completely out in

a relaxed, expensive way. If the upper body is completely free of
tension, the settling of the strength into the tanden area will occur
in quite a natural way. Continue the exhalation for about thirty
seconds or more if possible, out every last bit of air until the
abdomen becomes convex. At the very end of the exhalation
some tension ends to set in, so try making your two or three light,
gentle pushes - this heightens the sense of the tanden and make the
transition to inhalations quite natural. When the in-breath is
complete (generally it does not take long), begin the next
exhalation, again letting out all the air until the abdomen is
concave and finishing in the same manner with two or three small
pushes.

This type of breathing, in which the air is released until the belly
becomes concave, is called abdominal breathing. Try to take about
ten breaths in this way, being careful to exhale fully with each
one. When the exhalation is complete, the ideas filling the head
are, as it were, expelled along with the air. This is the best way to
effect the mental 'turnabout' that enables you to leave behind the

60
agitations of everyday life and begin zazen with a mind that is
fresh, clear, and empty. With only a partial exhalation, your
mental state in zazen remains a mere continuation of what
was in your mind before.

When you have settled into this abdominal breathing, with the
shoulders and chest free if tension, the entire upper body relaxed,
and your strength seated in the tanden, then a shift takes place -
from abdominal breathing to tanden breathing. In the former, the
abdominal muscles play the major role in the drawing in and
letting out of the breath, expanding and contracting to enable
long, relaxed, free respiration. This quickly brings about a
settling of ki in the tanden, which in turn gives rise to a sense of
strength and lower abdomen, drawing the consciousness there and
filling it with relaxed energy. In this case, the abdomen remains
rounded and nearly motionless even as the breath moves freely in
and out, as though (in words of Hakuin) there were a fully inflated
ball inside. Were the belly to be poked from the outside, it would fee
taut and firm but not rigid.

Once this tanden breathing is mastered, you can maintain the

zazen state of mind whether you stand or sit, work or talk - in
the words of Yoka Gengakus song of Enlightenment, 'Walking is
Zen, sitting too is Zen; speaking or silent, moving or still, the
essence is undisturbed.' This is not easy at first, of course, and
we soon become scattered as we go about the activities and
interactions of daily life, but as tanden breathing matures, you will
notice your inner state remain the same in all conditions, even
during sleep. This is because in tanden breathing, the body
and the respiration have come into a state of oneness; it is not
something performed through willpower, but something that the
body quite naturally does. For the same reason, the body is always
relaxed during this type of respiration - it is only when the
conscious mind tries to influence the breath that tension and
stiffness set in.

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This state of integration alone, however, is not in itself enough
to bring about the third type of alignment mentioned above:
alignment of the mind. Attaining the stability of a well-aligned
mind is essential in Zen training, since most of us do not live in
a quite world of our own, cut off from other people, but are
instead surrounded by the constant distractions and demands of
everyday life. In daily life there are, of course, important matters
that demand careful thought, but so much of what fills our heads is
utterly unnecessary. We constantly replay emotionally charged
situations and fret endlessly over personal relationships,
overloading our minds with thoughts that are of no real
account. One memory leads to another to create an endless
chain of ideas that clouds our awareness and confuse our mental
functions. We end up enable to judge situations accurately and
therefore act in inappropriate ways.

In Zen, it is through the practice of susokkan or the koan that

alignment of the mind is attained. Sosukkan, which literally means
'counting-the-breath meditation,' is the most basic practice in Zen
for mind-alignment. It is not a mere breathing exercise, as it is
often regarded even by experienced Zen practitioners; rather, it is
the primary means by which we gather the ki in the tanden, and it
leads to a thorough cleansing of the very roots of the mind.
Traditionally, sosukkan is said to consist of six 'wonderful gates'
that is, six aspects or stages. The first is called su (literally, 'to
count'), in which one counts as one observes the inhalations and
exhalations; the second is zui ('to follow'), in which one comes into
harmony with the breathing and simply follows its movement as it
flows in and out; the third is shi ('to stop'), in which the mind
focused in a state of oneness; the fourth is kan ('to observe',
in which one sees clearly and directly into the true nature of all
existence; the fifth is gen ('to return'), in which the all-seeing eyes
attained at the kan stage are turned inward to see clearly within
oneself; and the sixth is jo ('to purify'), in which one reaches the
state where not so much as speck remains.

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In susokkan, the out-breath should be long and steady. One
breath after other, inhale and exhale with the entire body,
keeping centered in your lower abdomen and taking care not
force the outbreath, as this would prevent the expensive, free
respiration necessary to zazen. The full exhalation should last for
ten to fifteen seconds (or, for beginners, for about eight seconds,
with eight seconds for inhalation, so that there are about four
complete breath cycles a minute). As you become accustomed to
this type of breathing, the exhalations will grow longer, while
the inhalations will remain about the same length.

As mentioned above, the first stage of susokkan is counting the

breaths; the counting in and of itself is not essential, but in the
beginning it helps focus the attention on the breathing process.
Slowly and expensively become one with each number, breathing
and counting in a relaxed, unhurried manner free of all tension.
Generally, one counts in a series of from one to ten, but it is also
possible to count from one to a hundred or from one to thousand,
or even just to recite 'one' over and over again. Allow the exhalations
to be full and complete, aiding the process with the two small,
relaxed pushes describes above - this will lead to a very comfortable
breathing cycle.

Again, the respiration in susokkan must not be forced or

artificially controlled, as this would simply constrict the
breathing process. Do not count in an automatic manner, but with
relaxed yet complete attention. You must apply yourself
unceasingly and with single-minded sincerity to this careful
counting, working with ever-fresh attention and creativity. Exhale
from the lower abdomen in an open, relaxed manner until your
belly feels totally empty the in-breath begins spontaneously; if
you are too hasty or hurried, your practice will become
mechanical and your mind will remind restless and unable to
deepen into a state of intense concentration. At the beginning,
your trunk tends to pull backward and the movement of the

63
abdomen feels unnatural; you become very self-conscious about
how the process is going, and about whether you are 'succeeding'
or not. As your sitting ripens with constant practice, you will be
able to remain with your breathing quite naturally, you body in
perfect harmony with the rhythm of respiration.

Focus on each individual breath, one after another, centering

your consciousness in your tanden and filling it with energy. Breathe
each breath totally, then forget it and move on to the next.
Superficial concentration is useless - you must feel that the
respiration is piercing through the ground to the very ends of the
universe. Let no gaps appear between your concentration on one
breath and the next. Continue like this, one focused breath
cutting off all thought of the one before, cutting and cutting
and cutting until there is no room for random ideas, no room for
concept of self, no room for inner noise. Your body, the zendo,
the entire universe are all contained in this total focus on
breath, in this utter singleness of mind. There remains nothing
to hold on to, nothing to depend upon.

This condition is known as Samadhi of susokkan, where only the

breathing and counting remains; one has become the breathing;
the mind is occupied with nothing else. In this state of true
emptiness you feel completely refreshed, full of energy, and taut,
yet fresh and lucid. This is the state of the first 'wonderful gate' of
susokkan, that of su.

In this way, follow the coming in and going out of your breath
from until night. Count and count and keep on counting the
breaths whether you are doing zazen or not; count whether you
are standing or sitting, whether you are asleep or awake. As you
continue, the inhalation and exhalations become completely
natural, and finally you enter a clear, open state of perfect
unity mind and respiration, where it is no longer necessary to count
help focus your attention. This stage, in which the awareness

64
and the breathing are one, with no need for numbers, is that zui,
'following.'

Then, at a certain point, all awareness disappears. This is the

stage of shi, 'stopping.' When this will happen cannot be
predicted - it must occur naturally; it cannot be produced or
forced. Some time after this 'stopping' takes place you come back
once again to awareness. This is kan, 'to see.' Again, you cannot
deliberately generate this stage, it must happen of itself. Following
this is gen, where you forget yourself completely, and finally jo, a
state of mind that is bright, clear, and transparent. In all six of these
stages - the natural path to Samadhi - it is vitally important that
one not attempt to force things but simply allow the process to
unfold on its own.

Although six stages may be identified in the practice of susokkna,

it is the first two - counting and following - that are most
important. Once these are experienced the rest will follow of
themselves. Do not get caught up in analyzing your progress or
attempting to determine which of the six stages have been
attained - just stay with the breathing. You must become the
breathing. This is the most important point. The nature of the
respiration varies, of course, sometimes becoming deeper and
sometimes becoming shallower depending on whether you are
working, reciting sutras, or sitting zazen, but press on until you
can no longer tell whether it is you who is breathing or the
breathing that is breathing itself.

This state must be deepened to the point that all connection with
the outside world is cut off and nothing whatsoever touches or
enters your awareness. This does not mean, however, that the
senses are shut down. Externally, the correct way to cut off
connections is to collect the mind into a single point and maintain
this state of absolute attention and clear awareness. Internally, it
is to avoid holding on to anything at all. Do not get caught by

65
thoughts or fantasies - just let the breath flow in and out while
staying with susokkan or your koan. Allow the images that arise
to come and go as they will - like pictures passing on a screen -
but keep your awareness focused on the breath, allowing nothing
to linger in your mind, until you and your breath become one.

Breathing never stops - it is with you all the time. You need only
remain attentive to its flow. Even if thoughts arise, even if stimuli
press in from the outside, just push on without pause, allowing no
breaks in your awareness. Put everything into the process and
move relentlessly ahead. No matter what comes along, do not let
it become on obstacle. If you lack the courage to advance in one
connection line, you should not begin in the first place. To do
zazen and susokkan just because you think you ought to will never
lead to a true understanding of the mind. If you want to touch the
True Mind that connects each and every one of us, you must be
willing to push beyond any problems that arise.

Bodhidharma likened such perseverance to the stability of a wall:

'Cutting away all connections to external things, letting go of all
concerns within, when our mind is like a firm, tall wall we are then
at one with the Way.' But the idea is not to be hard and stiff.
Whether sitting, standing, or engaged in the activities of everyday
life, just maintain your awareness of the breath. If you proceed in
this way, the noisy, bothersome thoughts that fill the mind will
eventually quiet down, and all the ideas you once thought necessary
will fade away. With all the stimulation in todays world, this does
not happen easily, but if you continue with a straightforward
effort you will eventually realized a state of mind that is full and
replete, a stage of mind so still and clear that, like the depths of the
ocean, neither wind nor wave can touch it.

Koan work and susokkan are not about attaining a quietistic

state; they must become your total life energy, engaged in with
the entire body and with the inner eye fully open. The first

66
case of the Mumonkan it clearly: Zazen must involve every bit
of your being, all 'three hundred and sixty bones and joints and
eighty-four thousand hair follicles.' In the face of such total
awareness, random thoughts and fantasies soon vanish. In true
zazen, not so much as a speck must remain of dualistic notions of
self. Our existence fills the universe, and it is this existence that
speaks words, that moves the body, that carries on the
activities of everyday life. It is only when we realize this inner
essence that koan work has any meaning. Zazen is not a trance -
the eyes are fully open, the ears are fully open, the mind is fully
open, the inner and outer worlds are one. It doesnt matter if you
are sitting in the zendo, walking, or cleaning the grounds; the
essence is the same.

In this way align your mind so that absolutely nothing superfluous

remains. This is the state called 'no-mind,' the nature of
which is impossible to explain; thus we describe it as 'a fully
aligned mind.' The spirit should always be clear, vast, and
luminous. Not that we should be clinging to the notion of
maintaining an empty mind or endlessly tell ourselves to avoid all
thought- this is still delusion, and must be transcended as well.
Nor, of course, should we go about searching for understanding
in books or the words of others - this simply causes
uncertainty and aimless wandering of the mind, quickly
dissipating any concentration that may have been gathered
through zazen. When filled with thoughts, the mind tends towards
anxiety and dejection; when free of them, it becomes naturally
fresh and relaxed; our facial expression clears, and our lives are
filled with light. From this is born the true way of being and living.

This explanation, however, does not yet express the full purpose of
zazen. At the entrance of a Zen temple we often see the
words kyakka shoko: 'Watch you step!' What these words are
telling us is to be aware of everything we do. We take off our
footwear attentively and in such a way that later no one has to

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rearrange it correctly for us. We put our shoes at the side of the
entranceway, not in the middle, so that other people may more
easily slip out of their shoes. In this way, even to the way in which
we take off our shoes, continual awareness is necessary.

The words kyakka shoko do not, of course, apply only to our

feet and shoes. They remind us to remain attentive in our entire
way of living. If we keep our room in order then our home is
kept in order, and next neighborhood is kept in order, and next
society is put in order. In this way, step by step, the nation, the
natural environment, and finally the whole planet are put in
order. The entire universe then comes into order. Thus, when
we regulate our own mind, this circle extends to include the
whole planet, and then entire universe. To align your own mind, to
put it in order, is to correct and put society in order.

When Master Joshu said, 'When youve finished your gruel,

be sure to wash your bowls!' he was showing us how the process
of creating order is not something special or unusual. It is living
simple and natural life in a simple and natural way. If we do
this, then order manifests naturally and of itself - there is nothing
special that has to be done in order to produce or maintain it. In
your everyday life, if your way of being is in order and your
minds creative and inventive are full and consistent, then
everything around you will spontaneously and naturally come into
order as well. This is living zazen, useful throughout our lives.

When the Buddha spoke from the top Vulture Peak, he held
a single flower in front of everyone. This was not just any
flower - it was the Buddhas experience, the manifesting of the
Buddhas very essence. Even if it is true that humans are simply
another type for animal, as some people so dismissively put it, we
are not here simply to live our lives eating and sleeping. If we
simply live and dies as the animals do, then our existence as human
beings has no significance. To be truly human we must live in

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a humane and dignified way. We are not alive merely to
accumulate things and fulfill our desires. Our life, our mind - how
brightly can they shine and illuminate all that we encounter?

Zen is the direct realization of the divine light as it exists right

within our bodies. To have the exquisite teachings of the sutras
come forth from our very own bodies, expressed in our word and
every action - that is the point. Unless we experience this our Zen
is not genuine. With our wonderful human mind and spirit we are
not mere animals; we are called to live our lives in the best way
possible. This is the understanding that Master Joshu expressed
so that the young monk, too, might be able to understand.

If we view our zazen as something separate and independent

from our actual, everyday lives, then it has no meaning
whatsoever. In this world, in our actual living bodies, we must
discover to what degree we can refine and develop our creative and
to what extent we can shine forth with a great and brilliant mind
throughout our lives. We must examine ourselves always in this
manner, employing the same creative energy we use in our
zazen to see ourselves clearly and never turn our gaze away.
To develop such watchfulness to its highest level is our most
important task.

It is through zazen that we nurture and develop this ability. Thus

we can see the crucial importance of meditation in the
insecure, ever-changing society of today. Zazen enables us to
live and develop in accord with the truth.

One lifetime is not very long. In the time you have left, live
in the way indicated by Master Joshu when he said, 'When youve
finished your gruel, be sure to wash your bowls!' How brightly can
you make our bowls shine? You have to work energetically and
deeply on this! It is not someone elses problem - only you can
resolve it. Your life in this world is not someone elses

69
responsibility. To grasp this deeply is what Zen teaches us. If
one person truly understands, then that persons way of living will
have a lasting effect on all of society.

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Hakuin and His Song of Zazen
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.

As with water and ice, there is no ice without water; apart

from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas.

Not knowing how close the truth is, we seek it far away - what a pity!
We are like a one who in the midst of water cries out desperately in
thirst. We are like the son of a rich man who wandered away among
the poor.

The reason we transmigrate through the Six Realms is because

we are lost in the darkness of ignorance. Going further and further
in the darkness, how can we ever be free from birth-and-death?

As for the Mahayana practice of zazen, there are no words to praise

it fully.

The Six Paramitas, such as giving, maintaining the precepts, and

various other good deeds like invoking the Buddhas name,
repentance, and spiritual training, all finally return to the practice of
zazen.

Even those who have sat zazen only once will see all karma
erased. Nowhere will they find evil paths, and the Pure Land will not
be far away.

If we listen even once with open heart to this truth, then praise it
and gladly embrace it, how much more so then, if on reflecting
within ourselves we directly realize Self-nature is no-nature. We
will have gone far beyond idle speculation.

The gate of the oneness of cause and effect is thereby opened,

and not-two, not-three, straight ahead runs the Way.

Realizing the form of no-form as form, whether going or returning

we cannot be any place else.

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Realizing the thought of no-thought as thought, whether singing
or dancing, we are the voice of the Dharma.

How vast and wide the unobstructed sky of Samadhi! How bright and
clear the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom!

As this moment what more need we seek? As the eternal

tranquility of Truth reveals itself to us, this very place is the Land of
Lotuses and this very body is the body of the Buddha.

For those of us who make zazen our primary practice, these

words of Hakuin Zenji in the Song of Zazen are of great
importance. They are an excellent guide for understanding the
actually essence of doing zazen. Before we look at the Song of
Zazen itself, however, I would like to tell you about Hakuin Zenji.
This will help you to understand. Hakuin Zenji is one of the greatest
figures of Japanese Buddhism. Today, the Zen Masters who
transmit the Dharma in the Rinzai line are all the Kamakura and
Motomachi eras down to today, all joined in Hakuin Zen to
become Japanese Zen. Although Hakuin Zenji has also been
criticized in various writings, his enormous influence continues to
the modern era. As one ancient put it: 'There are two things
Suruga that are great beyond anything else, the great mountain of
Fuji and Hakuin of Hara.' The people thought of Hakuin in this
way even when he was alive; he was famous and well loved
and deeply respected.

For information about Hakuins life, we have the records of Torei

Enji, one of his top disciples. We know that Hakuin Zenji was born
in 1685 in Shizuoka Prefecture in Numazu at Hara, at the base of
Mount Fuji. At the age of four, he was already expressing great
brilliance and genius. At the age of seven, he heard a Dharma
talk on the Lotus Sutra at a temple and memorized the entire sutra
by heart. At the age of eleven, he was taken by his mother to a talk
at a temple where he heard about the terrifying horrors of hell for
the first time. He was so deeply frightened that he began shaking

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and trembling. Perhaps more than most children, he was very
sensitive and nervous. He wept and gabbed at his mothers knees,
weeping and crying. 'Hell is too scary! Hell is so scary! Even when
I have you nearby, hell is so scary! If I fall into hell it will be terrible!
Please make it so that I do not have to fall into hell!' He was a child
very affected by things. At the age of twelve, he heard a monk say
'Even if in fire, it wont burn, even if in water, it wont drown.'
Hearing this, he made a vow and gathered his own mind to realize
this state of mind. He imitated the monk by taking a fire that was
heated to red-hot and touching it to his calf, to try to see if he,
too, could do this without being burned. This is how dedicated he
was.

It has been said that Hakuin was a man who lived his life while he
kept an eye open on hell. As a young man, he carried his fear of hell
with him, and it was perhaps as a result of fear that he yearned to
be ordained. At the age of fifteen, overcoming his parents
reluctance to his being ordained, he became a monk with their
permission. He was ordained at Shoinji in Hara by Tanrei Soden.
This priest ordained and supported him and gave him the name
Ekaku. When Hakuin was seventeen, Tanrei died; under
another teacher, at the age of nineteen, he began actual training.

One day, when reading the records of the old Chinese

masters, Hakuin found the account of Ganto Zenkatsu, a
famous Zen master who lived during the Tang dynasty. When
Hakuin read that Ganto had been killed by bandits who cut of his
head, he was stopped short. His deep fear of hell had sent him into
training. He had become ordained to be liberated from that great
fear, and now he learned that a great master who had already
completed his training had been slain by thieves! He had been
sure that a person who did such training would have enough
merit to change evil thieves into good and faithful people -
that should be enough Dharma power in a man like Ganto to
accomplish something like that. Was Ganto no different from an

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ordinary person in society? Hakuin thought that if Gantos death
was in spite of all that training, then the training must have no
meaning whatsoever.

Just as huge as his hope and expectation had been, so was

his disappointment and discouragement. 'Everything was the
bragging left by the old masters - nothing more - fantastic stories
with nothing in them.' With these thoughts his training lost its vitality.
He had no motivation and he suffered. For many months, he would
not sit or study. He wrote poems and read book, doing whatever
he felt like. Still, he remained unsettled. His mind was insecure,
hopeless, and tired; every day he was in deep despair. What had
that all been about? For what had he been training? He could find no
answers.

One sunny day at the temple where he was living, the monks
were airing the old books to rid them of bugs that might destroy
them. Facing all the book sitting there, Hakuin made a vow and put
his future in the hands of the gods: 'Please tell me in which
direction I should go!' he prayed. 'Please, I promise that I will follow
whatever you tell me to do!' From the bottom of his heart, Hakuin
Zenji made this deep commitment. Then, from the pile of
books spread all over the room, he took one in his hands and
opened it.

The book he happened do to pick up was by Jimyo Insui. In the

old days, this splendid teacher, Jimyo, told about going to the
temple of Funyo Zensho Zenji. Funyo Zenji was a very, very
strict and outlandish teacher who would not let just anyone come
into his temple to train. If you became even the slightest bit
drowsy, Funyo would beat you and tell you that you had to leave.
So, as Jimyo sat outside Funyos temple doing for admittance, doing
his full and taut zazen, he held an awl just above his leg so that if
he started to fall asleep the point of the awl on his leg would
awaken him. He worked diligently and creatively on his practice.

74
People of old always said, 'Great efforts will, without exception,
bring great Realization. To be alive in this world without any
reason - to live and yet be known by no one - for what are we
born into this world if this how it is?'

Jimyo kept himself going with these thoughts, making extreme

efforts with intensity, and he was finally allowed to enter Funyo
Zenjis dojo. In later years, the Dharma of that same Funyo Zenji,
of whom all people and beings were frightened, was transmitted
to Jimyo. Hakuin, reading about this, thought that if you do not
believe deeply enough in the Buddhadharma - even if you think
about why these people did what they did for training - it must be
because you have not done enough yet, and he corrected his
thinking. Over and over again he would say to himself, 'Great
efforts bring great Realization.' Again and again he gathered his
courage and done once more began training.

At the age of twenty, having decided how the rest of his life would
be lived, Hakuin Zenji traveled to the east and to the west looking
for teachers and places to train. At a temple in the Banshu area he
wrote this poem:

The mountains flowing waters

surge forth the Buddhas sermon endless.

If you would practice in the same way that these rivers flow, before
long you will without fail realize kensho.

He did zazen at this temple, which was located at the top of a

mountain. From the mountain, he could hear the flowing waters
of the river in the valley below him. Listening all night to the
sounds of the rivers as it ceaselessly made its way to the sea, he
knew that if a person made a firm commitment and deep vow to
practice in this same unceasing manner, if a person could
continue in this way without stopping, then realization was
guaranteed. One would awaken to the True Mind without mistake.

75
He then trained with no book or brushes or calligraphies or pictures
or inkstones - none of it at all. He pursued his path with total
determination.

In the spring of his twenty-fourth year, Hakuin was at Eiganji

Temple in Takata, in the Echigo area. At this time his training was
well advanced and his state of mind had ripened to the place of no
inside or outside - to where it could not be known what was himself
and what was Mu. He was truly still and clear - truly serene. His
was the state of mind of the mute person who has seen a dream
and cannot express it, that of sitting without knowing you are sitting
and standing without knowing you are standing, of speaking
without even knowing you are speaking - the world had become
like one smooth layer of Muji, completely closed into this one
layer. This was that moment just before ones own purified mind
extends throughout the heavens and earth. People of old said
that great efforts will without fail produce great light! Hakuin
vowed deeply in his mind and began a sesshin sitting in the
graveyard. He began his sitting determined not to stand again until
he had attained enlightenment. He continues intensively with
this determination and entered a great Samadhi. At dawn on the
last day of this sesshin, from far away in the dim light of the dawn,
he heard the sound of the temple bell. At that moment Hakuin
Ekaku Zenji jumped up and cried out, 'That ringing! That ringing!
That is me ringing! That is me ringing!

His still and clear mind had been pierced through by the bells
sound, and that and every moment was full of deep wonder.
Great joy filled every moment of his hands and feet. Hakuin
expressed it jubilantly: 'Ganto has never died! He is here, right
here. Alive, just like this!'

He had struggled for so long and had endured so much, and

finally all of those efforts were coming to fruition. He felt that no
one had such a deep experience for at least there hundred years.

76
He was such deep wonder that he became very excited. And when
he saw people everywhere suffering, he was moved to tears that
the Buddhadharma had come to this earth to help them. He was
deeply, deeply moved. Yet the priest of Eiganji, Shotetsu, could
not do anything with him. Hakuin had fallen into a severe case of
conceited self-importance. This Hakuin Zenji, if he had stopped
there, would never have become as famous throughout the world
as he is today. The great functioning that he expressed in his life
would never have been possible.

The person who was responsible for bringing about this

turnaround was Dokyo Etan Zenji, familiarly known as Shoju
Rojin. The person who encourages Hakuin too see and speak
with Shoju Rojin was Doju Sokaku, his only disciple.

When Hakuin arrived at Shoju Rojins hermitage, the teacher

questioned him immediately, 'How did you see Muji?'

'Muji! There is no place to lay a hand on it.'

Shoju Rojin immediately took Hakuins nose in his hand and

twisted it, saying, 'You say it cant be touched but this is how much
it can be touched!' he became furious with Hakuin, and Hakuin
saw the extent of his conceit and dropped it immediately in front
of Shoju Rojin. He became like a baby with him. Next, Shoju Rojin
asked him how he had seen the koan of 'Where did Nansen go
when he died?' 'How about it: Where did he go?'

No matter what Hakuin answered, Shoju Rojin would not accept it.
One time Shoju Rojin grabbed him and hit him and almost threw
him off the porch - this was how strong and energetic he was. He
yelled at Hakuin, 'You stupid priest - stuck in the dark hole and
blind besides!' Hakuin had experienced that Mind of the Great
Death, but from there he was unable to function; he was stuck and
fixed. With that reborn consciousness and way of being, he was

77
deeply troubled. Whenever he encountered Shoju Rojin, Shoju
Rojin would call him 'that Ekaku Joza who was stuck in a deep
dark hole.' It is written that Shoju Rojin would hit him and pull
him around. Yet Hakuin stayed with Shoju Rojin and trained at his
hermitage for eight months.

One day Hakuin was doing takuhatsu in the town of liyama. Still
working on the koan about where Nansen had gone when he died,
Hakuin was standing in front of a house steeped deeply in
Samadhi when an old lady came out of the house and told him to
go to the other the side of the street. Because he was in deep
Samadhi, he did not hear her. The old lady became very
angry. 'If you dont get over there across the street, I will hit you
with my broom!' She began hitting him, and he suddenly came to
and spontaneously encountered his true Life Source - that actual
Truth was touched. Koans that he could not touched before he
could now pass one right after the next. He saw them all in one
flash. He was so full of joy, he returned to see Shoju Rojin. When
Shoju Rojin saw how Hakuin looked, he confirmed his experience
completely.

But while Shoju Rojin confirmed Hakuins experience, he did not

confirm his understanding. Leaving Shoju Rojin hermitage, Hakuin
returned to Namazu to nurse his former teacher. While there he
continued to deepen his practice, but his body was so tired and
exhausted from his great efforts that he became depressed and
sick with tuberculosis. He became so sick that even the most
famous traditional doctors of the time gave up all hope of saving
him. He then went to visit a hermit, Hakuyu, who lived in the
deep hills near Shirakawa in Kyoto. From this hermit he was
able to learn the hermits method of staying healthy and healing
- the naikan, the healing practice of introspection. With this
method his sickness was cured. He cured. He saw that it might
be easy for any person of practice to have this same kind of
experience, to lose the meaning of practice, to become conceptual,

78
and so he wrote a book, Yasen kanna, in the common language
that would be easy for anyone to read and understand.

After the age of twenty-eight Hakuin continued to deepen his

understanding by going to pilgrimages to meet the great
masters in Fukui, Aichi, and elsewhere. Here and there he
looked for the masters and did his inventive practice, steeped in
Samadhi wherever he was. At thirty-two, he finally returned to
the temple where he had been ordained, Shoinji. He taught the
many disciples who came to him and worked in society a little bit at
a time, giving life to his experience through Dharma talks. At the
age of forty-two, he once again took in hand the Lotus Sutra, which
he had not looked at for such a long time. As he read the
section entitled 'The Chapter of Examples,' he coincidentally heard
the sound of cricket crying weakly underneath the porch and was
suddenly awakened to the deepest truth the Lotus Sutra. At the
age of sixteen he had thrown down this sutra, declaring it
simpleminded; now twenty-six years later, he was finally able to
realize its truth.

In his diary he described how, without even thinking about it, he had
given a great cry of joy and astonishment. He must have been
deeply moved. Until then he had thought this sutra was a shallow
work without much meaning, and he had taught people in this way.
He realized now that he must apologize from the roots of his being
for having done this. At this time, also for the first time, he
understood what a great state mind Shoju Rojin lived in every single
day of his life.

Shakyamuni Sesson, the Buddha, had not deceived people after

all! This he also understood: In Buddhism there is only one
straight path - this fundamental truth of the Mahayana he now
understood clearly. He was now able to live the Buddhadarma
freely. As the Buddha had put it, 'Everywhere in these three worlds
is my home and all of its beings are my children.' This great

79
compassion of the Buddha was absorbed more and more deeply
into his being. He knew without doubt that all beings are from the
origin Buddhas, and that all of these Buddhas have come into this
world to open the eye of wisdom in all beings - to open and
enlighten this eye of wisdom. In all of this subtlety, he knew that
there is nothing but this in the Buddhadharma.

The exemplary teachings in the Lotus Sutra were to illustrate

and teach how to do it, like a mother trying somehow to get her
child to be able to understand. In teaching how to understand
the mind of human, this sutra express the compassionate mind
and wisdom of the parent who first chew the food in order that
child will be able to eat. Hakuin realize this great kindness he
had not understood before, that great determination of the
Buddha to liberate all beings, to leave out not even a single
one. The immensity of this all-embracing, compassionate mind
was what he could then also feel, and in his deep and intense
amazement he could not hold back his overflowing tears. At the
beginning, when he had heard about being in fire without being
burned and being in water without being drowned, looking for
dreamy miracles, he had become ordained. But now he knew that
which he had finally realized, that great, all-embracing compassion
of the Buddha, was his very own life energy as well.

In the Lotus Sutra it is written, 'I do not have any feeling against
you, nor deride you. You are one who will become a Buddha.' In
this way it is said to both old and young people, to both rich
and poor people: prostrate and realize this vow. Shakyamunis
mind is expressed in this teaching clearly. For those of you who
do zazen, it is in the realizing of this that what we are able to be
rid of our own heaviness. To awaken to this, we let go of the
layers of accumulation and realize the essence. This is what
our zazen teaches us. For all beings to be liberate it is
required that all beings be awakened to this very fact.

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From that time on, Hakuin Zenji worked with truly sharp
intensity. In his fifties and sixties, never resting and not needing
to regret the passing of a single wasted moment, he taught the
many disciples who came to him, spoke wherever he was
invited. Did calligraphy, painted, and wrote, leaving simple texts and
dynamically working in every direction.

At the age of seventy-nine he was a little sick, yet he never rested.

On New Years Day in the year 1768, he said, 'I will this year be
eighty-three - an old monk - but I have never had such a
wonderful New Years. It is so wonderful and I give great thanks!'

That year - in December of 1768 - he was sick and was visited

by the local doctor. The doctor took his pulse and concluded that
there was nothing to be concerned with. Hakuin said to the
doctor, 'If you cannot recognize that a man is going to be dead in
three days you must really be blind quack!' On the tenth of
December, Hakuin called his disciple Suio and told him he wanted
things to be done from then on. On the morning of the eleventh of
December, quietly laying on his side, Hakuin gave a great
growling and died. Six years later he was given the posthumous
name of Jinki Zumyo Zenji, and following that he was also given
name Shoju Kokushi.

Hakuin Zenjis Song of Zazen begins, 'All sentient beings are

essentially Buddhas.' Religion is the seeking of the eternal, the
perfect, the pure, and the absolute good. To put it another way,
we can say that it is the seeking of God or Buddha. Is this God or
Buddha inside us or outside us? We leave that question for now,
since there are different ways of looking at this depending on
the fundamental point of view of various religions and practice. Yet
all religious seek this eternal purity and perfection. There is no
difference in this. This is why religion is necessary - because we
are not perfect and pure because our life is not eternal. Because we
are incomplete we seek something in God or Buddha to complete

81
this imperfect, small self.

In the records of Buddhism we read that the Buddha at his

birth immediately stood and walked seven and one-half steps.
Pointing his right hand to the sky and his left hand to the earth,
he said, 'In all the heavens and on earth only One is holy.' This
may be only a legend, but it holds the flavor of Buddhism in a
kernel. It tells us that our own mind is our place of refuge. His
walking seven and one-half steps is about the freedom and
rights of humans as they walk on the earth. He did not say
'In all the heavens and on earth only One is holy' in order to
say how superior he was. He was not saying it to call
everyone but himself a fool. As the representative of all
human be was saying that the human is the most splendid of
all creation of heaven and earth. He was saying that humans are
free. There is nothing that can deprive us of our true freedom and
actual rights. If we return to our Original Mind we will always
know that place of absolute dignity and profound meaning. In
each being there is this true clear mind. In Buddhism - in its basic
teaching - we have this point made clearly: Humans are free and
dignified. This wisdom and deep compassion are encompassed by
each one of us, this absolute freedom cannot be denied. If we think
of it in this way, we can see how legend of the birth of the
Buddha has deep meaning for the teaching of Buddhism.

The Buddha was born a prince. He was versed in all the

philosophies and schools of learning taught in India at that time.
In the martial arts, he was able to throw off all challengers. He
had a summer palace and a winter palace - and autumn and
spring palaces as well. He was this rich and this full of blessings,
and not missing anything in his pleasant life. So why, then, did he
leave his beautiful wife and adorable child?

He left his deeply respected father, against his fathers wishes. He

gave up all of his possessions and political power and left his

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countrymen. Why? He had seen how meaningless material and
animal pleasures are, and he had seen that no matter how we
try, it is impossible to fully and completely satisfy the urge for
them. He had understood this melancholy state of mind thoroughly.
He went to the mountains to find true eternal life and meaning, to
know true joy. He sought the answer there to his questions and
the resolution to the unfulfilled path he had been walking. He was
taking on the greatest problems of all beings and making a
determined commitment to resolve them. Someone had to do it, or
the truth would never be realized.

For six years he continued his ascetic training. At the age of

thirty-five, on the eight of December, near the bank of the
Nirenzen River, near Bodhgaya, he glanced at the morning star
and was suddenly and deeply awakened to the Supreme Truth.
At that moment, without even thinking of it, he said, 'How
wondrous! How wondrous! All beings, without exception, are
endowed from the origin with the same bright, clear mind to
which I have just been awakened!' That is to say, there is in the
deep mind of each person a clear, pure, and eternal state.
This true place is what he w as enlightened to. It is not
external to us. This was the first declaration, since the beginning
of humans, of the true liberation of all beings.

In his Song of Zazen, Hakuin Zenji is telling of this great

wisdom - this compassionate wisdom that we all have the origin.
This resolution is expressed in the first line: 'All sentient beings
are essentially Buddhas.' Beginning with this conclusion he
commences his Song. He puts that most basic teaching of
Buddhism in his first line, teaching us about zazen. By putting
the conclusion first, he shows us the basic tenet of Buddhism
that relates to all beings: Why, when we are born into this world,
do we suffer and become delude and confused? The answer is
expressed in the next lines. Many ways of liberating ourselves
from delusion are spoken of, but the Mahayana teaching is the

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most important. In accordance with the teaching of Samadhi as
the way of utmost importance, we are able to encounter that
true quality of our Mind, finally, 'this very body is the body of the
Buddha' is known clearly. This is the overall flow of this Song of
Zazen.

Even though it says in the very first line that 'All sentient beings are
essentially Buddhas,' we are all born with both a very thick egoistic
layer as well as the clear mind of Buddha. Yet the next line tells us
that this egoistic layer and this clear, purified mind of Buddha
are in fact that very same thing. We may perceive them as
separate, but they are in fact only two sides of the whole: 'As
with water and ice, there is no ice without water; apart from
sentient beings, there are no Buddhas.' An old song says that
rain, snow, ice, and hail are no different from water; when
they fall all become the same for the valleys stream. Water
becomes rain, becomes snow, becomes sleet, becomes hail,
becomes ice, becomes frost. The form changes, but the source
material is one and the same. Ice and water are of the same
material and essence, but they are completely different in shape.
Water is warm; ice is cold. Water has no form; ice has a form.
Water flows; ice cannot flow. Water seeps into any place and
leave no cracks between itself and its container; ice cannot blend
or accommodate. Water can bring life to trees and plants; ice
harms trees and plants and kills fish. Water and ice are the same
material, yet because their form is different they function
differently. They are very different, yet they are in essence the
same. In this same way, Buddhas and ignorant beings are different
yet also the same.

The water that gives life can also be destructive. Sometimes there
are great floods, and in these great floods homes and precious
belongings are destroyed. A piece of ice is hard and resistant, yet
if you heat it, or if it is touched by the warmth of the sun, it
melts and turns to water. 'As with water and ice, there is no ice

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without water.' As there is no ice apart from this water our chunk
of being egoistic is also part of our clear Buddha Nature.
Even that mind which is concerned all day long with winning
and losing and gaining and profiting, even that mind, just as it is, is
the mind of the Buddha. There is nothing separate or different from
that.

For ice to become water, heat must be applied. For human beings
to return to the Original Mind, they have to throw away
everything and offer themselves to society; they must let go of
all delusive and extraneous thoughts. The only question that
actually exists is: Do we have the wisdom to make use of that
mind? We learn to prosper, to bring ourselves what we need, to
take care of ourselves, but do we have the wisdom to work not
only for our own good but also for the good of all beings, of all
people in society, of everyone in the world? This wisdom knows
that our greatest joy is the growth and prospering of all people,
not for the food of our own selves but because when everyone
grows, everyone flourishes, and we flourish as well.

Yet if we are not careful, that small egoistic view immediately

pops up again. And we are once more caught up in our own self-
centered concerns, once again we are working only for our own
comfort, taking care only of our own small, limited, narrow needs.
Because we are not satisfied with this way of being, we look
outside ourselves - we read books, we go to hear somebody talk,
and we think about things external to ourselves instead of looking
within. We look everywhere outside ourselves seeking some
explanation, some reason, some excuse. 'Not knowing how close
the truth is, we seek it far away - what a pity!'

Usually, those people who enter the path of Zen have already
read too many books and have done too much thinking about Zen.
They want somehow to actualize all of the complicated
explanations and all of the words they have picked up from those

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books. What they are attempting to do is truly a difficult thing. In
fact, for zazen - which literally means 'sitting Zen' - it is better
not to read so much but simply to sit, as the word implies. What
sits is not our mind but our body - that is the base.

In the olden days people would study and then, to understand

what those studies did not reach, they would do zazen. To do
zazen is to realize that place study does not reach, the true
realization that cannot be experienced through scholarship. What is
actual source point of every humans nature - the original body of the
universe?

We deal with this deep and vast question through zazen because it
cannot be understood with our heads. That which can be
experienced can be found in books. This path, however, has to
be experienced. Although there are many books about Zazen, it is
better to keep our heads empty. We need to let go of all knowledge
or information and awaken to that with which we are already
endowed at birth - this zazen. What has to be done is not to learn
something but to awaken to something - this is zazen. We have to let
go of intellectual studies, of any idea of how much we already know,
of how many books we have read; then we have to just sit. To deeply
awaken to that Original Mind is what we do in zazen. That which is
the base of doing this is our body. That is why it is necessary to
correctly align our body and to awaken to our clear pure nature and
the natural wisdom that springs forth from within us. The natural
sense of how things truly are will become clear to us from within.
From the bottom up we have to look once more at
everything and see life as a whole, not small separated parts. This
is Zen. The body is always the base. The actuality of this is what we
have to align - this is zazen.

If we speak about zazen in this way, people will assume they

understand right away and think that it is enough just to sit, that all
teaching in the world are beside the point, that we must not be

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entangled in confusing words. To just sit and think nothing - we
imagine what this is, and think we should turn our backs on society
and go into the mountains and do this and only this. If we choose
not to go to the mountains, we still do the same thing by trying to
maintain silence in our mind. We mistakenly think that this is
zazen. And this kind of thinking is a very common mistake. If we
were to just sit and separate ourselves from everything, would we
be resolving our challenges, would we be bringing forth our true and
correct inner wisdom?

Can we learn to read what is in nature, to let nature teach us

wisdom? Can we truly find that wisdom within ourselves? We are all
full of ideas and thoughts and information and past experiences and
dualism, yet our internal essence separated from all that is the True
Source of everything. By returning to that mind, we can learn true
wisdom from those true ways of thinking and seeing. As long
as we are caught by our own narrow point of view and our
attachments, we cannot see with this true wisdom. Even if we have
the true teachings of the ancients, we can see and learn only
from our own small self-centered point of view. We have let go of
our thoughts completely and read the clear wisdom of ancients
and learn from them. The Buddha was first great teacher who
realized this true wisdom, but many other great saints have
realized this during the twenty-five hundred years since. We
take Zen, handed down from them, as our place of refuge. Through
Zen we look for truth and see things correctly - for doing this, before
anything else, we learn the teachings of the Buddha.

These teachings of the Buddha - this same wisdom transmitted by

many teachers who have passed the Dharma teaching down from
one generation to the next - have guided many people on the
path. The Buddhas first great teaching was that life is suffering.
We must see this directly. Everyone likes to be happy. Yet even
while living in happiness we must not let go of the truth of life: that
there is great suffering everywhere. To see the source of this

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suffering is what the next greatest importance. Next, we have to
look at this suffering correctly; if we do this we will, without fail, be
liberated from such suffering. We are taught to believe that each
one of us can be liberated and then live as an awakened person.
For this we enter the path and thoroughly clarify it to its ultimate
point - this is how liberation works. This is how the Buddha taught
his disciples. This teaching can be found in the Flower Garland
Sutra or the Lotus Sutra, earlier in which these teachings are
frequently repeated. The words of the Buddha, as we look at them
quietly and carefully, in every sentence, need to be realized not with
our heads but within our daily lives. If we give them practice,
then our minds will be freed from their delusion and confusion.

We become simple and clear, and from within ourselves our minds
become liberated. This process is one of understanding not our
heads but our bodies. We need to do it in our daily live; whether
we are sitting, standing, or walking, we need to keep doing it as
if one straight line. When we can hold just one word - looking at it
and concentrating on it all the time - the clutter in minds will be
swept away naturally, and our minds will become truly vast and
luminous. Our Bodhisattva vow to awaken everyone to this truth
will become full, and our desires will no longer catch us in
attachment.

The Buddhas disciple Shuri Hanroku is an example of this. He

was a very foolish person, not very intelligent at all. The Buddha
said to him, 'Get rid of the clutter, sweep your mind clean,' and
Shuri Hanroku actually took up a broom and a rag and clean all
day, every day, to keep this process ongoing. He then had an
exemplary awakening to that deep wisdom no different from the
awakening of the Buddha. Without any scholastic ability, and even
with a terrible memory, if we do that which we have received as
teaching with every ounce of being, every bit of the time, our mind
will off its own become liberated. This is very mysterious, it has to be
said.

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The words spoken by the Buddha feel very far away as the
days and centuries go by, and we need more intimate and familiar
words to guide us. Zen is taught within the living air of every era; it
must function in a way that is alive, vivid, and full of essence. From
China there is the famous Mu koan of Joshu. Other koan lines are
the answer to the question of why Bodhidharma came to China,
'The oak tree in the garden,' or Master Unmons answer, 'Every day
is a good day.'

These short phrases became themes and questions to be

understood - not by using head but by sitting quietly and
concentrating only on this until, without even knowing it, these
words become your state of mind, a state of mind that is no
different from that of Joshu or Unmon. These koans are united
in all people of training and touch the true source of each
persons mind. What is important is to sit and concentrate on
one thing until you become that state of mind of no thinking. Then
everything you have learned externally - knowledge, past
experiences, dualistic awareness - will fade away. You will separate
from them and return to that state of mind in which you were born,
and the original true wisdom will come forth. You mind will shine,
vast and luminous, with this wisdoms light. You will be able
to experience life from a place of attachments and see it clearly,
exactly as it is.

To be able correctly and truly to see with this eye of wisdom is

the most important thing, and that is what we are given the ability to
understand. This way of seeing allows us to give to all people an
acceptance of Just as it is. This state of mind of acceptance is what
naturally born from this state.

We have to separate ourselves from our ego filter and the idea
of self on which we are stuck. It is true that there is also the small 'I'
that lives, but we cannot function from the essential way of being
and the true way of seeing when we are stuck and attached

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and unclear. The small self is always obstructive to the higher
quality way of doing things. Those who find the higher way of
doing things are the ones who do Zen and work hard to let go of
their small selves. People who do kendo and are obstructed
by their small selves are unable to know their opponents mind. If
they cannot see the others mind, their movements become small
and limited; they cannot move in a large and free-flowing way. For
those who do flower arranging, if the arrangement is full of their
own small-minded concepts, then the flowers will be full of a
sense of self-importance, and there will not be any true
harmony. In tea ceremony as well, if you present tea with
dualistic ideas coming first, then the tea will not be served freely
and without the stain of small mindedness. There is no smooth
flow to it, and while it is perhaps harmonious in form, it is not
harmony from the deep heart. In the Noh theater or in
calligraphy or in archery, zazen is given life in this same way.
After we have learned the technique we can go beyond it and
separate from it, becoming one with the entire universe. In this
way, we can give live to a magnanimous functioning.

Likewise, in martial arts, we cannot be always stuck on winning

and losing; we have to crush that attachment, and for doing that
we have zazen. The sixth successor in the Dharma form
Bodhidharma was Rokuso Eno, who said of zazen, 'To not
allow any mind moments of concern with what is happening
outside of us, this is za. To look within and look within and no be
moved at all is zen.' This is his definition of zazen. Our
awareness can move inward and then also outward. To be where
there is no concern with any of the phenomena In the world -
good and bad, beautiful and ugly, deluded or enlightened, sin or
salvation, gain or loss is za. To look within to where the
awareness arises and to see its essence, and in seeing this to
awaken to source of this awareness - not being deluded by
anything or moved around - is zen. This is the sixth patriarchs
very practical way of putting it. In fact, zazen, or za, is not to sit

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and say we cannot think, that we should not think. Rather, za is
the place where we have lost track of all of this. Zen is saying,
'You cannot let that mind move, you should not move your mind
around to this and that!' it is not struggling like that. But when
your mind is well aligned, it does not go wandering around. This
mind that does not stray from the Origin Nature - this is Zen. This
is how the sixth patriarch defined it.

We sit and become clear, free of obstructive thoughts and fear.

This is the very important essence of Zen, but it does not mean
that we should become like a rock or a tree. We must not
make this mistake. 'Never abiding in any place yet manifesting
continually.' When the sixth patriarch heard these words from the
Diamond Sutra, he became deeply enlightened. We cannot say that
the mind is empty and then try to guard that state of
conceptualized emptiness. True emptiness does not arise from a
preconceived notion of nothing at all. It is what comes forth when
the mind holds on to nothing, when in each moment and in each
situation we can function freely. Yet we do not move and change
independently and individually; we do not act pointlessly and
without meaning. That is very important. We have to look at
nature: it never tries to prove and push itself; only humans do this.
Nature is just as it is, changing in accordance with the seasons. In
springtime, the flowers blossom; in the summer, the leaves
become full and green, and the trees make fruit; and in the fall
the leaves return to the ground to begin the preparation for
the next years cycle. Animals as well live in accord with
nature, not as if one being is more important that another. This
is true for all beings in existence; nature always moves toward the
newer, greater existence.

Life should not to be regarded in narrow sense of birth and death.

Rather, we must know the bountiful flow of the life energy of the
whole universe. This is the way nature is. Only humans hold on
attachments, and we sink into likes and dislikes. These are very

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high level emotions, but there is a difference between holding
them important and drowning in them. When we drown in them
everything becomes suffering. Instead, we must live every single
day anew, every day fresh again. In each second every new
moment is born anew. Confidently and firmly living each
moment - this is the humans natural way of being. When
laughing, laugh from your deepest heart; when crying, cry from
your deepest heart; when it is necessary to be angry, be angry
from your deepest heart; and in this way you can fill the heaven
and the earth with the essence of what you are feeling and
then leave nothing behind. With a full and abundant mind we live
in this original state of mind, in the way of healthy mind. To
experience this essence is zazen. This place of no attachment, this
free state of mind, is zazen.

Experiencing the Original Mind directly and teaching others to do so

as well - that is what the lineage of Bodhidharma is guided
by. We have his guiding words: 'To see the clear mind
directly and become a Buddha.' There are other ways of
teaching it, but this is the direct way. By directly perceiving that
mind which holds on to nothing whatsoever, immediately and at
this very moment, each and every person can awaken.

Kyogen Chikan Zenji died in 898. In his younger years, Kyogen

Zenji trained with Hakujo Ekai Zenji. When Hyakujo Zenji died,
Kyogen continued sanzen with his older brother disciple, Isan Reiyu.
When he was in sanzen, the priest said to him, 'When you we
with Hyakujo Zenji, it was said that when given one you would
answer with ten. You have a reputation for being very clever, and
you are said to have read everything that has been written on Zen.
Still, I am not interested in hearing what you have read or learned
or heard from someone else. What is it that you knew before you
come out of your mothers womb? Before you know any words -
say one word of this!' this was a very tough problem! Kyogen
certainly tried very hard and said many things.

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'Mu.'
Isan replied, 'But that is what Joshu said.' 'Form does not differ from
emptiness.'
Isan responded, 'But that is what is written in the Heart Sutra.' 'From
the origin there is only one bit of emptiness.'
'But that was already said by the sixth patriarch.'

No matter what Kyogen said, Isan Reiyu told him that it was all
someone elses words. That face before you were born - prior
to any experience and learned knowledge - what id that? Speak it
from yourself. So Kyogen reread everything and all of his notes on
everything as well. Still, Isan would not accept anything he offered,
only calling his answers the fart gas of the ancients - no matter
what Kyogen tried it all got him nowhere. When finally he had
nothing else to say, Kyogen pleaded within Isan to show
some compassion and tell the answer. But Isan just laughed and
said, 'I want to tell you, but then it will be with my words. You
have to speak your own answer with your own words

Kyogen had studied so hard, and now he could not speak even
a single word. How pitiful! It had all come to noting. He felt he had
no potential and would never be able to go back to society, so
he decided to go and take care of the cleaning of a cemetery and
not to show his face. The successor of the sixth patriarch, Echu
Kokushi, was buried in a secluded place in the mountains, and this
is where Kyogen went.

Kyogen spent his day cleaning that cemetery on the mountain.

Still, in his mind, there remained the question Isan has asked him:
Give one word from before you came out of your mothers womb.
These words never let him; all day along they rolled around inside
him. He became desperate in his contemplation. One day, when he
went to the bamboo grove to throw away the leaves he had racked,
as he did every day, a piece of tile hidden among the leaves hit the
bamboo and made a loud clunk! On hearing that sound Kyogen

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was deeply enlightened. 'This is it! This sound! I did not hear it from
anyone, nor did I read it in a book! This sound is what was received
by that self before I was born - that is it!' he felt directly, so
joyfully it came up from the very bottom of his mind. He looked
far into the distance, in the direction when Isan was, and lit
license and said: 'Isan, great priest! You did well to chide me so
thoroughly! If you had not kept me going like this, I would never
have tasted his flavor today.' Kyogen had been able to go
beyond that place of preconceived notions and ideas, forgetting
time completely, forgetting even his own existence, and from there
he heard that sound, clunk! At that point his consciousness
was directly perceived as well, that which came from nowhere at
all; in this pure awareness was his face before his parents were
even born, his True Self. To say it another way, it was life as it
is, not the physical body, but that life energy which fills the
heavens and the earth - this is what he experienced. This is
enlightenment, satori, and when we know this experience, the
things we see every day are fresh, and each day our mind is new.

What we have to do is to separate ourselves from that dualistic

awareness and knowledge that we have accumulated since birth,
to go beyond that and to cut through its root completely. We
have to realize our True Nature without giving any attention to
those and deluded ideas. When we have encountered Original
Mind, then we know that place of the Great Death and can return to
true life. Then we realize true rebirth for the first time, and that we
can realize true life. In Zen we do not compliment and flatter and
build someone up. In Zen we teach the student to do what has to be
done.

So many people still read books and learn explanations that say to
look at it this way or that way. That is all reasoning and
dualistic knowledge and information. That is not Zen. We have
to teach the limit of words and do zazen to find true
understanding. No matter what we say, we do not reach the true

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essence until there is nothing left to say; only when we
have reached that place can we do zazen with our life on the line
in one straight line. Then we work on one koan with everything
we are, completely and totally. Without even noticing it, we lose
track of our bodies, and we lose track of any sense of the zendo
as well, everything around us faces away. From morning until
night, there is only the koan that we have been given. And then,
as we dig in deeper, even the koan disappears. All that is left the
breath, and finally that disappears as well. This is the place of
slashing through the great root - when there is no self left at all. We
enter that state of mind where we are totally transparent. With no
heaviness and nothing left to hold on to, we become like a clear
mirror, like a crystal palace.

The state of mind comes forth of itself. It has to be entered once,

and from there we die completely. But this is not the final point. That
full, ripened, and taut state is touched by something, and we
burst forth - unable to stop laughing and knowing that sentient
beings are numberless and vowing that great Bodhisattva vow to
save all of them.

When Kyogen heard the sound of the tile on the bamboo it was
not taught to him by his teacher or by his parents or by a book - it
was his own mind. He knew that essence for himself. How can it
be expressed to other? We do not know. The state of mind that
cannot be explained comes from a place of no thoughts or ideas
- just that clunk; the source of that which is unnameable - so we
call it Buddha Nature.

When we are separated from all our thoughts, this is Original

Mind, and because we cannot explain it, we call it 'Mu.' From that
state of mind of Mu, that sound of clunk jumped forth. There is no
beautiful or ugly there. Nor there is a fixed world of nothing at all;
there is nothing to appear or disappear. Because it is unnameable
we call it the Buddha Nature, and from there we laugh and cry,

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sleep and wake, without any attachment at all - it is a free way of
living we can living in our Buddha Nature, 'Never abiding in any
place yet manifesting continually.'

This True Nature is what Hakuin expresses in the opening line of

the Song of Zazen as 'All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.'
This is not something that we attain from doing zazen and
repeating the Buddhas name - we already have it from birth.
Rinzai says, 'If you want to be no different from the patriarchs
and buddhas, then never look for something outside yourself.'
Rinzai also says that the mind is like a mirror, and that is why
anything can be reflected in it. A mirror does not discriminate
in its reflecting. If what is before it is a great mountain like Fuji,
the mirror does not consider whether the image will fit. A man or
a woman, old or young. Mount Fuji or sesame seed, the water
of the Pacific Ocean or a cup of water, a diamond or a piece of
glass - all are equal. In a mirror, the large, the small, the beautiful,
and the ugly are all reflected equally. Nothing is splendid or
poor or luxurious or impoverished; it is all equal. This is the
wisdom of equal reflection. In the mirror, a rich person, a poor
person, an educated person and uneducated person are exactly
the same. To see all equally, as a mirror with that clear state of
mind, is called the mysterious perception of all things as equal. As
Hakuin says, 'How bright and clear the perfect moonlight of the
Fourfold Wisdom!'

A mirror, when a flower comes before it, reflects back a flower.

If a bird comes before it, it reflects a bird. The mirror reflects each
thing exactly as it is, without any discrimination, and when that
thing is gone, it leaves no trace behind. The True Self is like this
mirror. Everyone at birth is endowed with this mind of the Buddha.
It is not something we learn at school; it is part of our basic
fabric, and from the origin it is undefiled. As Hakuin puts it: 'All
sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.'

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As Hakuin also says, 'Even those who have sat zazen only once will
see all karma erased.' Even if for only a few times you have worked
creatively and inventively on doing this zazen of letting go
knowledge and awakening to that with which we are already
endowed at birth, you will be able to see the results directly.
'Realizing the form of no-form as form,' you will be able to see
that there was nothing to be caught by in the first place. The
essential words being given here - 'All sentient beings are
essentially Buddhas' - are accompanied with this most important
phrase, 'Realizing the form of no-form as form.' How to see that
in its ultimate way is told to us in these words of Hakuin. Our
breathing is very important, but what is this deep breath
important for? It is important for us to be able to see that from
the origin there has been nothing to be caught by, nothing to be
stuck on, not even once.

Hakuin says, 'Realizing the thought of no-thought as thought.'

At this time we can let go of all that conceptualization and
humbly use our greatest potential and our wisdom freely. This is
our Original Mind, our True Nature. When we see a person who
is sad and suffering, we are able to spontaneously comfort
them. That Original Mind with which we have all been born is
that mind where we can see somebody who is suffering and
become one with the suffering, able to comfort that person by
becoming one with him or her. In that very moment when we can be
with someone as if there is no separation between us, we know well
this place of realizing the form of no-form as form. In vibrant and
living way we can live in this state of mind.

'Realizing the thought of no-thought as thought, whether singing

or dancing, we are the voice of the Dharma.' If we are always
caught by our various ideas about things, and about what is
happening to us and what is going on around us, then we cannot
clear in this way. We are not suddenly born in this very moment.
Many millions of years of life from the very beginning of the

97
universe have led up to this moment, and within each of us there
are all the many components of our subconscious and our
gathered awareness. Within that awareness we hold the stains of
all human beings. We have to cut that awareness away to get rid
of it from the root, or we will be passing it down to all the people
who come after us. Because we are here, because we are alive,
we have this awareness of an 'I,' but at the same time, if we do
not cut that away completely, we will not be able to experience
this place free from all egoistic filters.

From the times of old we have Engo Kokushis calligraphy with the
words of Daito Kokushi and Haikuin Zenjis calligraphy, which have
been carefully preserved. There is also Miyamoto Musashis
Eight-view Daruma, with its letters that were so powerful not
because they have been written skillfully but because a vast state
of mind is coming forth from them. This state of mind affects us
when we look at them. We are astonished that his mind could
become so vast, taut, and energetic that we can feel it even today
in this calligraphy. We can only be amazed and deeply impressed.
That which has no from is being manifested there. This state of
mind is Zen and also called the Buddha and is called life. Every
human has this from birth, and we all have the same capability
to encounter this Original Mind. Yet the majority of people cover
this over with the ego.

From the olden days, people of the path have sought and followed
the path of Zen, this path of suffering, to find an awakened
teacher from whom to learn. 'What is the ultimate teaching of
Buddhism?' It is to see that Zen beyond form, that state of mind
beyond form. 'What is life?' Those teachers would give a great
shout, or should single finger, or hit many blows with a stick, or
their eyes look piercingly, glaring, and in that way only could it be
expressed.

That which has no form is borrowing those techniques of form to

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express what cannot be put into words. This is where Zen and
various other paths connect and where calligraphy and Zen join.
Daito Kokushis words, Hakuin Zenjis calligraphy, these state of
mind and this energy, are still living and vivid. In fact, this state of
mind of Zen is what Zen brings forth and develops. This is that
highest quality of mind of all people and it is an important
grace. Hakuin Zenji is teaching us about this important zazen
when he says, 'All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.'

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Sesshin
Among Hakuins talks that were preserved by his disciple Torei Enji
are the teachings called the Rohatsu Jisshu. This is a collection
of the teachings given on each night of the rohatsu osesshin,
which is held in honor of the deep enlightenment of Shakyamuni
and represents the culmination of the years practice. Hakuin Zenji
taught from his own experience to encourage his disciples and to
give them energy for their practice. Through the first four nights,
Hakuins teaching is almost all about the breathing practice of
susokkan. He was teaching his students the very basic of the zazen
practice and expressing to them clearly and emphatically the
importance of susokkan, as we have done here as well.

On the fifth night of the rohatsu osesshin, Master Hakuin begins,

Intensive training sessions known as sesshin continue for

periods of eighty, ninety, and hundred twenty days. Since the goal
of all those who take part is to clarify the great matter, while the
sesshin is in progress no one leaves the temple gates, and no
one speaks unnecessarily. Practice is carried on with a spirits of
dauntless, indomitable courage.

Sesshin means to directly encounter ones mind, to touch ones

mind; the word also expresses the gathering together of mind.
This is not something we can do in our day-to-day lives. During
sesshin, we must separate ourselves from all daily routine; we
must touch directly, encounter directly, that very place in which the
mind comes forth. Therefore, when we do sesshin, we must leave
behind all connections to our daily and social life, it is not a sesshin.

Although the traditional Japanese sesshin, or ango, was for as long

as 120 days, at Sogenji a sesshin is for a period of one week.
During a sesshin, each of the seven days has its own meaning:
The first day is for starting off; the second is for putting forth our full
energy. By the third day we are getting used to it all, but throughout

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the first four days we have a hard time with our bodies. By the fifth
day we are a little tired, but we have become accustomed to our
legs hurting. Remember, though, at this point it is not about
having only two more days to go, but that this day comes only
once. We must understand this. On the sixth day, seeing the end,
we finally put forth everything we have. The seventh day is
the last day stretch. We cannot do our practice vaguely or
haphazardly - to do so would be a waste of sesshin days. Our
life is being shaved off by the second! We must understand how to
use the sesshin in the best possible way.

Putting aside everything, facing straightforward, we work

inventively and creatively to encounter the true source of mind.
During the time of sesshin, everything in ones life is put aside in
order to clarify this Great Matter, the most important issue, the
problem of life and death. This is not about how to make todays
living or how to solve emotional problems. If, while we are
young, we can just once cut through to the deep root of
life, then life becomes centered and clear; no matter what
ideas or life plans we have held to this time, they all dissolve
at this moment. We must realize that ultimate place, that very
essence of our existence; we have to directly encounter that
which actually lives through us. For this, all of our life within
society must be cut off, separated from totally; only facing in
the inner direction of our True Mind, we continually cut subtly and
refine.

We do not go anywhere during this time. Because social rules

must be observed when we go outside, in order to realize our
true nature directly, we do not leave the place where we are doing
sesshin. Even if during this time there is takuhatsu, or going into
the community for alms gathering, people of practice wear deep
hats that come down low, blocking their line of vision. By putting our
line of sight at the feet of the person in front of us, we work
energetically, even while walking, on directly encountering the

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true energy that lives through all of us. During the time that I
was training at Shofukuji monastery in Kobe, President Kennedy
was assassinated. A month later, without having heard any news of
this, I saw a piece of newspaper lying in a gutter ion which the
terrible news was written; only then did I know of the tragic
incident. Dojos are for the purpose of doing this - to completely cut
oneself off from the outside world, and for the first time to even in
the slightest way directly encounter that clear True Mind.

'[And] no one speaks unnecessarily.' Given clear-cut purpose,

people during sesshin do not chatter and gossip idly; they are
there for the sole purpose of clarifying that most important
matter, putting their lives on the line for this. Talk of rules,
directions, of corrections is allowed, but if we indulge in
unnecessary conversation, then it is the same as completely
letting go of our minds true source.

Hakuin Zenji then continues: 'Practice is carried with a spirit of

dauntless, indomitable courage.' This is how he puts it. This is the
fulcrum of practice; the central most important quality of practice is
that we do it bravely, without wavering. We cannot do it with a
week heart, full of hesitation; nor can we do it while being
concerned with what is to the left or to the right, or with what
others are doing or thinking, with our physical problems or how we
feel about things, or how insecure we might feel - if we pay
attention to each and every thing that comes along, there is no
way we can possibly encounter that true source of mind, cut that
root of life and death, or clarify the essence of what is really to
exist. Our training is not a scholarly study. We are not sitting to
absorb philosophical information. If we wanted to do that we
could go to college. We are not doing this for information, but
to separate from that dualistically oriented mind. We have to
completely throw all of that away, or we cannot encounter
directly that true root our life energy.

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Everybody is always being deluded by the superficial shadow of this
matter, believing that the shadow is the genuine thing. When it is our
very mind that is giving birth to the whole world, we falsely think
that it is the world that moves us. This is the great confusing
source of so much delusion. But if we want to actually see that
place from which all life energy comes, we have cut off all external
connection, cut away worlds that concern us - at least once, cut
them all cleanly away. Then, not holding a single concern within -
not having a single trace of anything remaining whatsoever in our
minds - we are able to become totally pure and clear. We
have to cut subtly and refinedly to this place, to become pure
and clear to this degree, or it will ends up being a big waste of
time.

In recent years there was a man in village near here who craved a
stone image of Fudo the Immovable. He enshrined it beside a
waterfall in the mountains of Yoshiwara.

Next, Hakuin gives an excellent example of someone who

determinedly realized the pure and clear state of mind. At the
time of Hakuin, when he lived in the town of Hara at Shoinji, there
was a town a slight distance away called Okitsu; farther beyond
that was an area called Iihara, where, in a small village, there
lived a well-known man named Heshiro. He was rich and
educated and was one of the responsible men of the town. In fact,
he held responsibility for the whole town. In the mountain behind
the town was a waterfall; at the spot where the falling water met
the water in the pool below, people of the town wanted to
place a statue of Fudomyo - the guardian god who is firm and
unmoved, expressing anger at dualism and extraneous thinking.
When Heshiro heard that, he offered the money to have the
statue carved. There was to be a celebration at the unveiling of
the statue, which was then to be placed at the foot of the waterfall.
Everyone in the town was invited; they were eating and drinking
sake in honor of the day, and all of the guests were having

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a good time, when suddenly Heshiro was struck by something.
As he looked up and down at the waterfall - as the water fell into
the pool below and as foam rose - he saw many bubbles coming
and going. He did not have any particular intention of looking at
these bubbles, but suddenly he became aware of something.

One day, as he watching the water tumbling down the Cliffside, his
gaze fixed on the bubbles that formed in the pool at the foot the
falls. Some moved over the water for a foot or so before
disappearing, some for two or three feet, and some continued
floating two or three yards. Watching their progress, the mans past
karma enabled him to perceive the impermanence of worldly
existence.

When he looked at those bubbles he noticed that, while some

flowed along for two or three meters before bursting, others would
go on for ten or twenty meters. These bubbles were all born and
flowed on and then disappeared. As he watched this happening,
Heshiro thought, 'This is very interesting! While they are all born
together, some pop and disappear right away and some flow on
many meters.' The very same bubbles born at the same time. This
suddenly made him think of something else: 'The realization shook
him the marrow of his being. He now found it impossible to find
peace within himself.'

He realized that the exact same thing was true for all humans: We
are all born with the same great birth cry, but there are some
who die in birth, some who die at age three or five, some who
die just after reaching adulthood - in the prime of their lives - and
some who reach a ripe old age of eighty or ninety years. The
lives of humans are the same as these bubbles. We are all born
the same, but we never know when we are going to die. Seeing it
like this, he was suddenly struck by the fact that everybody
eventually dies; in spite of all of our differences, we will all
burst and disappear! 'The impact of this realization made him feels
the worthlessness of just living, just spending his days without

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understanding the mystery of life.' He then was struck again: Wait!
That means I am going to die, too! It is true for me, too! I am going
to die! For first time he had seen his own death in front of him, and
he could not sit still, knowing that he would also die. But he had no
idea when. Everyone knows this in their heads, but how few
actually understand this from the very marrow of their bones -
no one applies this fact to the deep knowing of their own eventual
death. No, this is not something that we can easily understand and
accept even we try to do so.

In the Diamond Sutra it says: 'Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting
world: a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; a flash of lighting in a
summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.' All is
empty, and if we do not see this as something that relates to
ourselves, we will become continually deluded by shadows and
by reflections, by this fleeting world. 'Thus shall ye think of all
this fleeting world.' If we do not look closely at this we will never
see the true, actual essence of it. The Buddha said this
himself. People who enter training come in many different form
and varieties. They have their own personalities, which they want
to improve; they have a life they want to live correctly; they come
with many problems. But they must all understand the fleeting
transience of all things, this impermanence of all things always
passing along - that in all things there is nothing that can be
depended upon. We must see this, know it as the ultimate first
point before we enter training, or in the middle of the training we
will quit, when exception. This has been said from ancient times.

Heshiro of Iihara felt this deeply and directly - it became his

very own problem, clearly relating to himself. He became suddenly
very insecure and anxious. Shotoku Taishi in the seventh century
also said, 'All things in this world are nothing but a dream, a
fantasy!' It is all shadows, nothing is true, unless we can directly
touch this very True Mind at its source, in every instant, that
true Source of life energy. If we do not realize this, then,

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everything is false; everything is shadow given forth around that
truth - merely that. Heshiro of Iihara became very anxious. He
could not possibly eat delicious food and drink sake if he did not
know how long he would be alive. No matter what he thought or
did it felt meaningless. This is the ripening of true karmic
conditions - when we know and feel deeply that we have to train
right now and cannot do anything else.

Some years ago there was a woman who died of cancer

named Atsuko Chiba. In he autobiography she wrote that if any
person goes through an experience of coming close to dying,
afterward their way of life become simpler. They understand that
we cannot know if we will be alive tomorrow or not. Social
success, material comfort, or the sense that there is something
that has to be done - al this becomes meaningless. One thinks
about what one has been born to do, or what one wants to do in
the time one has left. In this way she wrote, and it is truly just
like this. Heshiro became deeply insecure. What meaning was
there to any of it? He made excuses to leave the celebration
early to go home. As he walked alone down the mountain, he
thought about what he had to do to express this realization in the
rest of his life/ how was he going to live it? This is what he
contemplated as he walked down that mountain, and just as he
was thinking about this he passed in front of a house from which
he could hear the sound of a sutra being chanted inside.

He chanced to hear a man recite a passage from the Dharma

Words of Priest Takusui: 'Courageous beings attain Buddhahood
in a single instant of thought; lax and indolent beings take three
long kalpas to attain Nirvana.'

This was very mysterious. Here he had just been wondering how to
live his life in the best possible way, and these words came into
his ears - these words from the sayings of Master Takusui.
'Courageous beings attain Buddhahood in a single instant of

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thought' - everyone who really puts their lives on the line with true
bravery, everyone who does this wholeheartedly and with
everything they have, will without fail find the resolution to their
problem. 'Lax and indolent beings take three long kalpas to attain
Nirvana.' However, someone who does this while keeping another
world going at the same time - living a social life, just putting a little
time aside for practice - will never taste the true flavor of that
subtle ultimate place of being on the razors edge. If we are going
to do it, it has to be done all in one fell swoop. To carry it along
limply for many attempts of years has no meaning and will only be
a total waste of time, never bringing us to a deep, clear resolution or
enabling us to find true understanding. If you are going to do it, do
it totally and completely - this is what the sutra was saying.
Heshiro saw that was how it had to be done and made up his mind
to do it.

A great, burning determination rose in him. He entered the

bathing room and shut door behind him. Sitting down, he
straightened his spine, clenched his fists, opened his eye wide,
and began doing zazen with great determination.

To be able to respond in this way, for his firm determination to be

brought forth so totally, was not a result of that one brief realization
at the waterfall. He must have had some preparation, some
ground already settled. Although he worked in society, at the same
time he had deep in his mind a question that he had to clarify. In
his everyday life there must have been some basis for this to be
able to happen. Because of this he was able to grab hold of this
chance and with it establish this firm and solid immovable
determination.

This determination was transformed into the energy of an instant

with which he was able to make the decision to totally change
his life. The problem and the important point is this: Humans
all have a life plan, believing that they should live this way and

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do these things that way; but to put everything that have,
everything there is, into this one nen, this one moment, is what
makes the difference between whether one can do this or not.
He did this. 'He entered the bathing room and shut the door
behind him.' He went into the guest bathroom, which
ordinarily no one would use. He locked the door tightly; he made
his spine tall and straight - although he never had any instruction on
how to do zazen he imitated what he had seen. He straightened
his back and gripped his fists and opened both eyes wide,
looking straight ahead, at a spot on the floor a meter or a meter
and half in front of him. He opened his eye so wide that light could
fill them - it has to be like that or we will lose to pain and
distraction. He did pure zazen, not letting anything distract him or
concern him, nothing added on, not doing it to stabilize his life or
to become happier or to improve the quality of his mind, not for
any of that, just putting everything he had into it, no matter what
came along - there was only this zazen, nothing else existed.
He was determined to do it this way and to keep going.

Delusory thoughts flew thick and fast through his mind. The
obstructions of the demon realms rose up to confuse him. But
because he threw himself body and soul into the great Dharma
battle, he finally severed life at the roots and entered into the
formless realm of deep Samadhi.

Of course, just sitting not as easy as it sounds. All kinds of

thoughts come up, all kinds of sayings, all kinds of delusions and
ideas. All kinds of problems are always coming to interrupt zazen,
one after another the thoughts come out: we question whether
what we are doing is doing any good, or how long do we have to
do it, or if we are doing it right, or whether it is really going to work
or not. Or we think about all the other things we still have to do,
about whether it is really necessary for our legs to hurt this much,
about how nothing will come of tomorrow if we only do this. All
these things and more. Then, if our mind becomes quiet, we

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start enjoying the fact that we are feeling good. Our body may
feel like its floating in air or being pulled into the ground; all kinds
of strange sensations may intrude. As they come up, one after
another, we have to just cut and throw away, cut and throw away,
on and on and on and on and doing this we go deeper and
deeper.

For this we also have the excellent tools susokkan and the koan.
Just trying to be peaceful and quiet by itself will not bring about
Samadhi. 'Delusory thoughts flew thick and fast through his mind.
The obstructions of the demon realms rose up to confuse him. But
because he threw himself body and soul into the great Dharma
battle, he finally severed life at the roots and entered into the
formless realm of deep samadhi.'

MU MU mu mu mu mu sometimes using power,

sometimes intensively using our ki, pouring everything we have
totally into it. And at that point Will we retreat? Will we continue
refining? This is the ultimate point. We cannot retreat here; we
have to take just one step further. To take it on through to its final
place requires the 'straightforward bravery' about which Hakuin
always teaches us. He is teaching this from his own experience - to
break through this place only straightforward bravery will work.
Anybody can do the kind of zazen that looks peaceful and
comfortable. There are lots of people all over the world who love
to do zazen. But ninety-nine percent of them are not doing real
zazen. They are sitting to become happier and to feel good.
There is no real zazen there. Doing zazen begins when you
become unable to know where to go and what to expect. Then, for
the first time, you can take the straightforward bravery and
pierce through. This experience is the only way to get that ticket to
pass through the gate.

'He finally severed life at the roots and entered into the formless
realm of deep Samadhi.'

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This is the most important point. Most people think that if they sit
quietly their bodies and thoughts will disappear, but it does not work
like that. It is not that easy. If it were that easy you could sleep or
take drugs and do it. If you could just vaguely and lackadaisically
sit on the cushion, doing nothing, and lose track of everything,
then anybody would be able to do it. To really cut through the very
root of life and death, to really get rid of that small self, one must
experience and go beyond the limits of that small self. If we do not
cross that boundary, we cannot taste the true flavor of this
experience. To actually experience losing track of the zendo
and of the people around us, to lose all my sense of bodies - if we
cannot experience that we cannot pass the barrier. But Heshiro did
just that.

At first light, hearing the sparrows around outside the building, he

found that body had completely disappeared. Suddenly he saw his
eyeballs pop from their sockets and fall to the ground. He felt pain
of his fingernails gouging into the palms of his hands, and
realized his eyes were back in their proper place. He rose from
his cushion and began to walk about. He continued to practice in the
same manner for three nights. On the third night, when daybreak
came and he got up to wash his face, he noticed that the
trees in the garden were now somehow totally different. He
consulted the priest of a nearby temple about it, but the priest was
unable to provide any answers.

He had lost track of his body, but he had no idea how he had
done it or what happened. Somehow it had become morning. The
birds were singing in the garden. 'Chirp, chirp - chirp, chirp,' he
heard the sparrows, but for some reason it felt as if were chirping
inside his own abdomen. His whole body had become the sparrow.
It was so incomprehensible! So mysterious! He felt the birds voices
with his whole body, but there was no body - only the chirp of the
birds! There was nothing he could do about it. It was as if his
eyes were stuck to the ground; he had opened them wide when he
sat, and that was all that was left of his body. How strange!

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Only a consciousness was remaining. After a while he returned to
his usual way of seeing things. He could feel his body again.
When his tightly gripped fists were loosened, he could feel the pain
again his fingernails had been digging in, and he could feel the
pain in his legs. He came back to normal and moved his body; he
could finally stand up. 'How strange that was! Ive never felt
anything like this before! It is really hard to understand! But it feels so
good! So clear and fresh. This is interesting; Ill do it again!'

On the spot he started again. And while cutting and throwing

away, cutting and throwing away over and over again, he again
lost track of everything. His body again disappeared, the scenery
all around him again disappeared. Again he did not know what that
happened, but he lost track of it all completely, and again there
was the morning dawning. This went on for three days and
three whole nights! On the morning of the third day, as he went
to wash his face after getting up from sitting, he looked at the
garden and said, 'This is very funny! Very strange! Whats
happening here! The whole garden is shining! Ive never seen the
garden like this and Ive been looking at it every single day! Ive
never seen it look this beautiful before! How weird! The trees are
shining! The leaves are shining! Everything in the whole garden is
shining - even the rocks are shining! This is really interesting - Ive
never seen it look like this before!'

Heshiro went to tell the local Zen priest about this unusual
experience. He described it to the priest and asked him what he
thought or knew about it. He asked the priest what it meant. But
the priest said he had never had such experience himself; he
had never passed through that barrier; he did not understand, so
he could not tell Heshiro anything about it. 'The kind of sitting you
have just done and that kind of experience Ive never done it!
Thats a pretty amazing experience youve had! Hakuin Zenji lives
in Hara at Shoinji Temple and he had deep experiences likes
this. He had really experienced that enlightenment of the Buddha.

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You should ask him about it - hell know what to tell you - thats the
best idea.' This is what the priest told Heshiro, so Heshiro decided
to go and see Hakuin while his experience was still fresh and alive in
him.

He then decided to come and see me [Hakuin]. He set out for

Shoinji in palanquin. Upon reaching the high pass at Satta, the
splendid prospect of the ocean at Koura came into view far below.
At that instant he knew beyond any doubt that what he had
grasped was the truth: plants and trees and the great earth all
attain Buddhahood. Proceeding to my temple, he passed through
the fires of my forge, and subsequently penetrated a number of koan
barriers.

Heshiro called a carriage and hurriedly left to go to Shoinji. The

mountain road was steep, and they stopped frequently to rest.
After leaving Okitsu and passing through Yuigahama, at the top
of a steep hill a place where one could look out and see Mount
Fuji clearly on a ridge, with the lake called Tagaura in full view
just below. At that place, with that beautiful scenery so clearly
visible, he noticed, 'Ive passed through here many times before, but
it has never looked like this!' It was so beautiful and wonderful it
was if he was seeing it for the first time. 'It is so beautiful!
Ive heard about this somewhere before - when the Buddha
attained enlightenment he said: 'How wondrous! How wondrous!
All being beings, without exception, are endowed from the origin
with the same bright, clear mind to which I have just been
awakened! How Incredible! The trees, the birds, the grasses!
They are all shining - everything is full of this life energy -
the True Nature is illuminating and shining through everything!'
He had heard that the Buddha had spoken thus when he
realized his deep enlightenment. 'I know Ive heard that and this
is just like that! Lets hurry up here! I want someone to hear
about this and tell me what this experience is about!'

He again hurried and proceeded to Hakuins temple. When he

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arrived there, he was invited in and described his experience to
Hakuin. Hakuin said: 'It is a deep experience, but not yet
complete.' At that point Hakuin questioned on two or three of
the patriarchs koans. He answered them precisely and on the
spot, as if they were his very own question and he had already the
answers himself. Hakuin confirmed, 'This is the real thing, not
just a one-shot momentary glimpse! This is not just some
abnormal state of mind - this is the real thing.' That is what
Hakuin said in affirmation.

He was an ordinary man, with no prior knowledge of Zen practice

whatever. Yet in just two or three short nights he achieved a
realization. The great victory he gained in the struggle against
delusory thought was the result of courageous determination and
single-minded resolve.

This Heshiro was just a normal person; he had never studied

Buddhism, but just worked every day of his life at a job. Yet
in three days of totally determined sitting he had broken
through and resolved the Great Matter. Bravely and
straightforwardly cutting through and throwing away every single
extraneous thought and delusion that arose - without stopping - he
was not led astray by anything that came along.

This is Zen. It is not a scholarly study or some kind of special

knowledge. It is only facing directly that source from which our life
energy arises, clarifying completely that root of our very being
alive. Only this one moment. To do this requires straightforward
bravery - and only that. There is only one way in which it can be
done: You must cut it all and throw it all away, continually doing that
and only that. That is what it is about. If not that, what will you do
when you die? Complaining will not work then. You have to
make that determined effort now. You have to die, whether you
want to or not.

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The great victory he gained in the struggle against delusory
thought was the result of courageous determination and single-
minded resolve. How can you, full-fledged Zen monks, fail to
generate this same fierce and dauntless spirit?

Hakuin says to all of us: 'Why dont you do it? What are you
waiting will never get you anywhere - even if you spend your
whole life at it, you will only be chasing shadows!'

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Enlightenment
The essential point of any religion must be whether or not one
has a true, deep, and actual experience of the Original Nature. As
Kanzan Egen said in his final words, 'I ask that you work only
on the Great Matter.' This is beyond any need for explanation.
We can still partake today of the 'rice,' the essence of the
Buddhadharma, because every single patriarch, with clear
purpose and fiery determination, thoroughly chewed and digested
this rice of the Buddhadharma so as to feed and raise others in
the truth. It is deep compassion that has kept this rice feeding us to
today.

Religious people of today have a legitimate concern about the lack

of true essence in their religions. We have become more and more
confused in our search for this essence and do too many things,
always looking externally. We must look inside and not become
self-important and proud. Kanzan, knowing that what he said was
already an overstatement, an unnecessary explanation of an
unstatable truth, said, 'I ask that you work only on the Great
Matter.' The Buddha and Bodhidharma taught the same thing.
From this same enlightenment experience came all the teachings of
Dharma.

Todays young people look for satisfaction in sex and, when they
are a little older, in fame and money, but when these things have
been obtained, what is left? We have simply become older and
we find ourselves in a meaningless state. If there is no living
function for religion in our lives, then religion becomes useless.
Sex, fame, and money may bring us pleasure, but it is only
pleasure of the moment. Such pleasure is transient and always
fades away. True religion is also of this moment, but it has a
changeless form extending from the past through the future, an
absolute center unchanged by external occurrences. For people to
have times of temporal enjoyment is fine, but if that changeless

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root, that experience of clear mind, is not also realized, then, as we
age. We begin to feel more and more that our life is already
over. This happens because we live in a world of pleasure
instead of a world of each days joy beyond temporal pleasure.

No matter what path you follow to reach the place of truth, the
place you arrive at is the same. When people are totally
committed to their religious practice, they no longer need to be
chauvinistic about it. All that is necessary is to dig into that basic
question, to reach that deepest essence, and humbly accept Grace.
This path is not about searching for information but about reaching
for those answers and knowledge that are not limited by such
names as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. When
one will still need to hang on to a sect, then one has only a
shadow of the real thing, a mere reflection of a religion that does not
constitute a true and deep understanding of it. The true
understanding takes place prior to the teaching of any religion. We
must reach that place of true humanity, that place where we can
truly realize that the life energy of every single person has exactly
this very same root. This state of mind is beyond explanation and
teaching with words and phrases. It cannot be spoken about; it can
only be realized through each persons individual experience.

For those who have realized this place, there is nothing more to
search for externally, or to find in another religion. All people in
society need to realize this true human nature - not Buddha, or
God, or that self that yearns for sex, fame, and money, but that
which would naturally be respected by anyone who come in
contact with it. Directly feeling the great depth and clarity of this
true human nature, we bow not only to God and to Buddha but to
that holy human quality that does not come from a life spent napping
and yawning. To say 'that person can do but I cannot' is indulgent
and comes from not looking at things in the right way and living in
accord with that way.

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When you can clarify and realize your own deepest essence, that
is what will give you a clear understanding of the essence of
others. Here is the central, most important point and the truth
of what is being done in the practice of Zen. If we train only for
ourselves, for our own improvement, for our own enlightenment, for
our own awakening, then our training energy will not continue with
the same momentum. And why is this? It is because in thinking
only of ourselves we are cutting up and dividing the total life
energy.

When we have made a vow that burns intensely within us, when
we feel more deeply than anything else that we must train and
work for all beings, then no matter what occurs it will not obstruct
us. But when our vow waves and weakens, even a small matter will
become a great obstruction. For this reason, above everything else,
first and foremost, people of the Way must raise a great
determined vow. We vow that no matter what happens we will work
until we realize the truth that we must enter Samadhi. If we do
not hold this vow firmly, it will not do. It will not work if we vow with
only a lukewarm commitment; our vow must be absolutely clear.
If that vow comes as an egoistic expression, it will not work
either, because the ego is only for what is good for itself. For one
brief period of time such as a vow may bring energy, but that
energy will always fade away. Because an egoistic idea is one that
ultimately concerns only the ego, it puts society aside and has no
regard for lifes true source. This total life energy has to be
clarified; if you are doing it only for your own small self-expression
of it, it is useless. Only because your life energy and that of all
people come from exactly the same source does this have any
meaning.

The ultimate reality of Buddhadharma can never be actualized

without the deepest vow - one that needs patience,
perseverance, and endurance. And what is that mind, that vow?
To not have a conceited mind is different from having a firmly

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committed mind, from having the determination to continue until
the truth is understood. You cannot run away from reality.
What is everyone really suffering from? There are many
economic and political problems in the world today, but more
basic is the suffering of the mind that has nothing to believe in,
the continually anxious mind. Today, people do not believe in
God and do not know where to turn. How easily men and women
come together and then when they do not like each other
anymore. It may be OK for them, but what about their children,
many of whom do not even know who their parents are? What
can they grow up believing? Knowing nobody thought about their
birth and their life, how can they believe in anything? If
everybody looks out only for his or her own pleasure and
ignores the great problems such self-centeredness cause in
society where will that take us in the future? This is not
somebody elses problem.

Today, elementary school children are victims of drug dealers.

Young children are being kidnapped and raped. What has
happened to the basic standards of human beings? If we do
not realize the True Mind within ourselves, then who will? If
we can think in terms of realizing this True Mind, then how can
we worry about something so small as our own hunger or our own
aches and pains? If we can think like this then we will certainly
realize the fulfillment of our path. Our training must be done in
this way or there is no meaning in whatsoever. When we know
what we must do for all humanity, without falling back one step,
then we can continue and fulfill our purpose. This must be our
firmest vow. If one of us realizes the True mind, it is for all beings
in the Ten Directions. You must realize it to this point without
fail!

If we cannot attain kensho, if we do not experience

enlightenment, it is because we have not yet made that firm
commitment. It is because we have not yet with total, deep

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determination taken that sharp stance that will enable us to cut
through everything that comes along. By always moving
according to our surroundings - the day-to-day conditions,
preconceived time limits, and the circumstance in which we find
ourselves - we lose our resolve, we do not make the efforts
necessary to take our practice to completion. And because we
do not make our determination totally firm, we give up the middle -
that is why we do not experience kensho. If we have true bravery
and take our practice to its final point, it will work - no matter who it
is that is doing it. There is not single person in the world for
whom enlightenment is impossible; if we sincerely put our lives on
the line, each and every one of us can realize it. Anyone can
encounter True Mind.

Where this idea of enlightenment often becomes a problem is

when everyone reads the writings of both the old and the
present-day masters and they take this one experience and place
it in a conceptual framework. They just pluck out the idea of this
excellent or seemingly magical experience and think, 'Thats
what I want.' What is overlooked are the years of practice and,
behind that one experience, that years of very plain learning and of
cutting through everything and anything that comes along before
that clarified state of mind is experienced. Today, people take drugs
to induce the very same states of mind that a person can reach in
the midst of deep meditation. But to use drugs to reach such
states of mind is like riding a helicopter to the top of mountain.
When you reach the top of the mountain you can see the
scenery. But you will not know the essence one experiences in the
process in the walking up the mountain one footstep at a time; you
do not know how to reach the top of the mountain on your own.
Looking at it from the point of view of the Buddha, taking drugs to
change ones state of mind has no meaning. If the experience
one must know to reach that state of mind are not passed
through, then what us the value of realizing the sate of mind? The
scenery may look the same from top of that mountain, but those

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who have not climbed the mountain for themselves have lost
the chance to understand those things about themselves that are in
fact the main point of the process. People want to go straight
to the mountain top, they want to go for this one special
occasion of kensho without looking at the step-by-step process that
comes before it. They decide that kensho is what they are going
after, and that is what the entire process is about. This is why
enlightenment is viewed as such an extraordinary part of the
process, rather than being properly looked at as just the next step
in a long, ongoing process.

Someone who is learning archery goes through a similar

process. At the beginning one faces the target, puts an arrow in
the bow, and shoots, but one hardly ever hits the target, let alone
the bulls-eye. By doing it over and over, repeating the same
process again and again, learning and perfecting the form, one
improves very slightly and is able to begin to understand the best
way to go about hitting the target. As one practices in this way,
the arrow begins to hit the target more frequently. This is
ripening, this is becoming accustomed to the way it is done, is
something that occurs naturally over time. Without being self-
consciously aware of what we are doing, we learn to be more
skillful. Yet in this midst of learning we are unaware of the entire
process.

Practice is the same. Doing the susokkan practice, you wonder

what meaning there could be in counting numbers. What is
this thing called breathing? Even though it belongs to you, you
do not understand it. And even when you begin to understand how
to go about it, you cannot do it in a satisfactory way; you just
cannot do the breathing in the way you want to. Yet eventually,
little by little, you begin to understand how to do it. That breath
that you did restlessly and in so much confusion become more
and more settled and clear. You can develop a taut fulfilled state
of mind. Your mind becomes deeper and deeper in quality. In

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this way you continue, vowing always that you will non stop until
you have attained the very final realization.

And when the sosukkan has thoroughly deepened - both the

breath and the mind - you can settle into your koan directly and
with everything you have. If it is not done in this way, the counting
of the breaths is only empty repetition, or the koan is only a
mechanical questioning. But if you can reach this point, then
by using the koan as a sword for cutting off all thoughts,
you can continue unceasingly from morning to night and from
night until morning, doing it over and over until you do not know
where you are or even what you were just doing, with no self-
conscious awareness remaining, becoming totally involved in that
One. You do not even feel your own body. When your mind is truly
clear the pain in your legs goes away.

Your breath, your counting even - they also disappear. Only the
clearest mind, with not the smallest speck of awareness in it,
remains.

This ultimate place of awareness is what is called Samadhi. In the

Buddhas experience this place has to be passed through. We let go
of all the random thoughts that clutter our minds. We gather our
intense focus and cut through all passing conditioning, the
dualism and unnecessary information, until there is no place for
it to remain. Eventually we become completely serene and
tranquil, with no more sense of a body or of a self.

Joshu called this state of mind Mu because that is all there was to be
said - not because there is some meaning in the word, but because
this state of mind could not be expressed in any other words.
But this state of mind continually deepens until finally even this
Mu disappears. That is also a place we have to pass through.
Until then we become vague, then sharp, then vague; our inner
essence becomes strong, it fades, it comes back again, but we

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cannot throw our hands up in despair and quit and retreat at this
point.

We have to realize this essence all the way to that tranquil

place of no awareness of seeing or hearing, of quiet serenity. But
first we have to know that Great Death, that place of no internal
and external differentiation. Yet this is still not it. We have then to
see that which has created the universe, or we have not
experienced the true Buddhadharma. We have to die to the place
from which the universe was born. And if we realize this, then we
are reborn - our purified consciousness is reborn. As Mumon Ekai
says, then suddenly that tranquil place erupts in a way to
shutter the heavens and make the earth tremble. We are once
more reborn; the mountains are reborn, the stars are reborn, the
rivers are reborn, the people around us are reborn. Our whole mind
is this universe and full of wonder, full of joy. When the Buddha
saw the morning he was full of this same wonder and joy.
When Hakuin heard the sound of the morning bell ringing, he had
the same feeling, and when Kyogen heard the tile hit the bamboo
he also, in full awe and wonder, heard the joy of this sound.
They all experienced this deep wonder. And where that is clear,
there is nothing to be afraid of. There is no concept of God or
Buddha, there are no patriarchs to be in awe, no words to be
played around with.

If you can continue with your deep vow, never lessening your
intensity and not giving up, putting everything you have into it,
then all of your desires, delusions, and attachments, one after
another, will fall away. From within your deepest mind you can
experience for yourself the original Nature. You can encounter
the deepest source of Zen and Buddhism; from your own
experience you can see that true essence in every aspect, arising
from your own life energy and revealed before you. You can
understand how your life energy, just as it is, is expanding
throughout the universe. You can tell that there is not even the

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slightest difference between your life energy and that of others.
You can know clearly for yourself, not just conceptually, that
everyone share the same life energy that everyones energy
comes from the same root.

This experience is something that is available to everyone. This

Original Nature can be realized if you can just let go of everything.
To conceptualize about that is meaningless. While still in our
world you must hold on to nothing - nothing a single thing -
but let go of your attachments to possession, every pain,
every plan, every mental thing, all of your self-centered
opinions, separating yourself from all decoration. When you can
truly become that state of mind, this is in itself an astonishing
experience, full of great wonder. There is a great joy in this,
and it will fill you with gratitude when you realize it for the first
time.

This is something that cannot be explained in words. It is like the air

around us. Who remembers to be thankful for the air we breathe?
We all take it for granted. No one notices the air or thinks to say
thank-you to it, but whether we notice it or not, it is always there.
Those who do notice know the joy of always being supported by it;
they know gratitude and joy with each breath. When one
approaches the experience of enlightenment every day will remain
filled with dissatisfaction and suffering, because one cannot
experience this joy merely by thinking about it.

If one truly awakens, then those long years of effort and work
result in awakening to the true deepest Original Nature. The
moment we know this is realized completely. In this very moment, in
this one instant, at this time. All of the attachments that have
obstructed our mind until that moment - the delusions, the opinions
that things had to be like this or like that, the dualistic ideas of the
past - all of it falls away in that one moment, disappearing
completely. This awakening comes both suddenly and not

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suddenly. For those who can throw it all away, throw everything
away, it happens every day. For those who cannot, no matter how
many things, how many concepts, how many methods they
accumulate, it will not occur. This process is about how we can
live our everyday lives, and it is about what we hold important. It is
about what we can let go of, how we can feel the joy of having
nothing at all, of returning to the Original Nature. This is what will
bring us to awakening. It has to be done by each and every
person, and done totally. Especially in todays society - in
which we are constantly overwhelmed with external stimulation -
this stance of cutting totally to the roots of our problems and
resolving them exactly where we are right now is very important. If
we do not do this, it will be impossible to awaken, to
understand directly the true value of being human, to have that
true, deep, and actual experience of Original Nature.

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Work and Society
In todays society, with its increasingly sophisticated uses of
technology, everything is being organized by computers. We
communicate with each other through computers and receive
information through computers. Our lives are being programmed
by computers, and we are feeling secure about it. When we are
unwell, we go to the doctor; receiving medicine, we feel
comforted. In human relationships as well, we are all seeking
kindness and comfort; we are searching for some essence of
security amid the turbulence and complexity of the world in which we
live.

This is how insecure this era is, causing people to look for safety in
everything they do. To put it a different way: separated from
reality. Our thoughts are constantly running ahead of our actions
in this present moment. Within all daikon radishes, growing leafy
vegetables, raking the garden, pulling up weeds. Doing this, the
truth is realized in all things. The living pulse of live that unites
all things is realized in this. Zen is about sweating with your
entire body and moving all your limbs and every part of yourself,
no matter what you are doing. Even when you find yourself in the
most difficult and painful circumstance, to be unswerving and always
raising this state of mind is Zen.

Rinzai Zenji taught us this especially when, at the end of the Tang
dynasty, he himself was living in times of great economic
confusion and rebellion in all of the various local religions.
Everywhere temples were being demolished, statues of the
Buddha were being destroyed, and sutra books were being
burned. People of religion were forced to leave their posts;
bribes and treachery in government were rampant. There was
nothing whatsoever in the political establishments or in society in
which one could find something to believe. God and Buddha,
which should have brought refuge and something to believe in,

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were lost in the chaos, along with that to which everyone should
be awakened: that True Person of No Rank within this lump
of red flash, that bag that will bleed if it is cut into, from
morning until night that physical body we are always spending
time with. That True Person of No Rank - beyond description or
measure, the only one throughout the heavens and earth, just one
human - isnt this where that true quality of being human is? That
which has no rank and measure among humans - isnt this
where that can be found? To awaken to this mind is what Rinzai
taught.

Zen teaches labor first, but it is not just any old work or
samu. Samu, everyone working together, is the basis of living Zen.
And in that, what has to be realized is the most human quality that
unites all people. If there is not an actual awakening to this, then the
way of Zen becomes nothing but labor alone and that which has to
be taught will lose its life. Within that labor there must be a
polishing of this and a developing of the human being. This is
where the essence of Zen must be fond and be at WORK.
Dogen Zenji went to China at the age of twenty-four. At the age of
twenty-eight, he put aside his training in China and returned to
Japan. Upon his return, when asked what he had learned, he
said, 'Only this: In the morning the sun rises without thinking
from the East; in the same way, our eyes are horizontal in our
face. This I realized clearly. No one is exempt from this. Empty-
handed I went and empty-handed I returned; there was no single
word of Dharma spoken. The sun rises in the morning in the east,
the moon sets in the west, the rooster crows at the break of
dawn, and every four years a leap year comes.'

Dogen Zenji did not bring home any special statue of the Buddha
to pray to and treasure; he did not bring home any special
sutra book to read and treasure; he did not bring back any
special item of great cultural value. He came home truly empty-
handed. 'I am alive right there.' This clear realization of his life

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energy, just this understanding, was what he had been able to
experience deeply. this same life energy rises as the sun in the east
morning; and in the evening it rises again in the east as the moon,
and as the sun it sets in the west. Every four years another
leap year comes around. This actual truth is all there is; anything
besides this, anything with a fancy name like the Buddhadharma -
'I know nothing about it.' Dogen Zenji spoke like this, spoke about
the natural, obvious way things are, about things just as they are.

Just as it is, our being alive right here, right now, at this very
moment - we can receive this truth, the natural, obvious
understanding of what that is. There is nothing besides that to be
called a 'Buddhadharma.' If we do not know the actual life
energy, alive and vivid in this very moment, we will never find
something called Buddhadharma. The Dharma is not about
reasoning and intellect. The Buddhas Dharma is about life and how
we live it. Separated from what is alive and living, there is no
Dharma, it has no meaning. For a man there must be this mans
purpose of life; for woman, this womans purpose. While we are
all equal as human beings, we each have our own individual life
to live, own individual qualities of how to live. Parents have their
own particular way of understanding things; children have their
own responsibility to live as children. People have to act in the
way that is most appropriate and natural for their situation.
Schoolteachers have their own way of looking at life and how
things should be done. For students, there is a student-like way of
living, with the creative and intensive efforts that go along with
learning in the best possible way. The obvious and natural way of
things is Buddhadharma. Obvious and natural things being done
in a natural way - aside from that there is no Dharma.

During the Edo period, in the area of Kyushu called Hakata,

there was a priest named Sengai. When some people asked this
priest to write in calligraphy some words of felicitation for the New
Year, he wrote:

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 Parents die
Children die
Grandchildren die

The people for whom he had written this responded, 'This

isnt a very congratulatory message for the New Year! Talking
about dying is not very felicitous.' Priest Sengai replied with a
cook look, 'What do you mean it is congratulatory? What is more
felicitous - the parents die, the children die, then later the
grandchildren die - what could be more natural and congratulatory
than this? That it does not happen in the opposite is the most
felicitous thing!' This is how he explained it. The way of nature are
all expressed in just this natural, obvious way, and by seeing
and accepting things in this way, mankinds base is laid.

However, in todays world, more and more this natural and

simple way of seeing and being is disappearing. Dogen Zenji
said that the rooster crows, signaling the breaking of dawn, but
today we rarely have a chance to hear the crowing of a rooster.
Useless a male bird is raised for some unusual reason, no one
needs a rooster. We use eggs in our daily life, but the eggs are
born from chickens who are raised on shelves, one hundred, two
hundred, one thousand, ten thousand of them lined up, fed, and
kept alive just to provide us with eggs. The world of chicken that
was known by our parents or grandparents - when everybody
had a chicken coop near the house, with the rooster and the
hens running around the garden together cackling, and the
children listen to this sound while they gathered eggs - this is
something we seldom see anymore.

In those days, every egg that was laid without exception could
become a chick. Today, the eggs that chickens lay do not
become chicks; chickens have become nothing more than egg-
laying machines. According to the needs of society, they merely
lay the eggs. Those chickens who cannot lay eggs anymore are

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killed; they are machines, no longer something natural. For those
of us who receive those eggs, it is as if our naturalness as humans
has also disappeared. We no longer see cows, goats, and chickens
raised among trees and grass. This natural and simple world has
been replaced by the culture of technology and the convenience of
living comfortably. One after another the things of nature are
disappearing from view.

Perhaps the most famous of Zens traditional texts is the Ten

Oxherding Pictures. The ox, in India, is considered to be a holy
living being; a servant of God, it is held in great reverence by both
Hindu and Buddhists. Today we think of the ox or the cow as
something to eat or the source of milk. But in the olden days the ox
served as our very hands: the garden was tilled and planted and
dug by this silent ox; without it the crops could not be planted. We
did not forget that the ox was an animal, but it was also friend
and lived under our roof, and was taken good care of so it
would not become sick. People fed the ox before they ate
themselves and gave it a clean place to live. It was precious could
be depended upon. When the industrial revolution began,
machines took over the jobs of the oxen, and the oxen that
required so much care disappeared - and with them all those things
we learned from them. Machines will not teach us to have a caring
mind. The ox that did our work so patiently taught us to know that
place in ourselves. To live like the ox, to not be superficial and
shallow but to quietly do our work with depth and patience -
how many of us have oxen around to learn this from?

Kanzan Egen said, 'The Original Mind is great and round, why
do we fall into delusion and darkness?' Everyone has the same
mind as the Buddha and a clear Buddha Nature form birth. Yet if
this is so, why do we become so deluded and confused? This is
challenge given in Kanzans question. As a boy, Dogen Zenji went
to Mount Hiei to study, but with this very question he was brought
to a point of intense doubt. 'The Original Mind is great and round,

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why do we fall into delusion and darkness?' From the origin we
are all Buddhas, so why did we begin to be deluded? Such
questions Dogen asked, but no one could answer him. Very
near Hiei lived a priest, Eisai Zenji, who had just come back
from China. Dogen was told that while in China, Eisai Zenji had
practiced Zen, and he would understand. So Dogen offered himself
to the path of Zen.

Our original and true mind, our Original Nature and true Self just as
it is, is, in Buddhism, called the great round mirrorlike mind. Our
original mind has no shape and no form - the all-embracing mind
is like a mirror embracing the entire universe, in which all sorts
of shapes and forms are reflected. Rinzai Zenji teaches with
clarity about how a mirror reflects what comes in front of it exactly
and then retains no trace of anything after it is gone. The everyday
practice of Rinzai Zenji is in this state of mind that leaves not a
single bit of clutter behind. This is his clear mind and the Original
Nature of each and every one of us: to enter fire without being
burned, to enter water without drowning, to fall into hell and yet be
as if we are playing gladly. Not being attached to anything we see,
and not being deluded by that which we hear - to live so that no
matter what world we find ourselves in it is as if we are sightseeing
- this state of mind is that of Rinzai.

This is the Zen of Rinzai. At the same time, the Rinzai-roku, his
collected writings, also teaches us a way of living our daily lives:
to not add on a second or third nen, or associative thought, to
the first nen. To do this is worth more than ten years of
pilgrimage, he tells us. When those nen arise, simply do not add
any associative thoughts to them. If you are angry, just leave it at
that. If you are happy, just leave it at that. If you are sad, just leave
it at that. No matter how much we have, we always want more.
This greedy love that always wants more but will not let go of
what it already has, all of this attachment, has to be cut,
otherwise our live are painful. Once we cut this need for

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attachment we can know peace of mind for the first time. We
spend so much time with thoughts of our children and our
bodies - this must be cut though, or we will never be liberated. All
our thoughts must be thrown away - those lingering wisps of
thoughts that are always flying back and forth - we must get rid of
them and awaken to that true and clear mind with which we are all
endowed. This is our guide to the liberation of our mind.

Getting rid of our thoughts is not about forcing ourselves not to

think. We should not waste our efforts worrying 'I shouldnt think
this' and 'I mustnt think that.' It just means when you are energy,
cut it away; when you are happy, cut it away; when you are sad,
cut it away - again and again. If you can live so that you are not
stopped by any of your thoughts or start adding further associations
to them, it will be of more value than even ten years of pilgrimage.
Every day of living will be free from attachments and
obstructions. If we can live in the practice of this freedom it will
have more value than years of zazen in the zendo. The deepest
and most profound teaching of Zen is here: the way of life that
holds onto nothing at all.

In the Ten Oxherding Pictures this clear mind - that which we have
always had - is symbolized by the ox. These pictures begin at the
point when the Bodhisattva mind has been awakened, and with
the help of the Buddhas teaching we are able to let go of our
thoughts, even those we have so carefully gathered. We can
then see that minds rot is our own true source; as this becomes
clearer and clearer, we are seeing the oxs footprints. We dig and
dig to where there is nothing at all within our minds, reaching that
place of caring for the ox. We think this is our clear mind,
but we still become caught by the expressions of others and by
what we hear and see. This mind must always be shepherded to
keep it settles and centered. As we become able to tend it
easily, it becomes the mind of riding the ox home. As we see
and hear and live in our daily life in an innocent state of mind, we

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can be with the ox in its original state and be at home. Yet there is
still a need for the ox. Eventually, however, we do not even
need to ox; there is no need to even think about aligning our
state of mind - this will occur naturally. There is no longer any
self or ox to keep track of. The realization of this is that source
of the mind of God and Buddha, but this is not yet absolute. From
here we must go back into the world. If we stop here we will be
ignoring the suffering of the world and just protecting our own
happiness. This is why the tenth picture is necessary - where we
feel it all with our clear mind.

This is that place of Kanzans koan: 'The Original Mind is great

and round, why do we fall into darkness and delusion?' From that
empty mind we see and hear and move and walk and feel with
our whole bodies. We cannot separate ourselves from that reality;
we are sentient beings, but whether we are deluded by and attached
to this reality or not is what is important. Those who have let go of
the small ego cannot be deluded anymore by the world. They lose
their attachment to it. While remaining in the same world there is an
enormous difference - between heaven and earth they change from
the world of attachment to the world of reality. But this is still not
complete. We need to go and work hard with those people who
are suffering and join them in their situations and experience
their state of mind, yet we need to keep ourselves from being
caught by any situation and attached to it. This is that state of
mind of entering into the marketplace with open hands, of
returning to where we started - though it is not really where we
started at all.

It may seem as if we have become fools, but it is only that

we are not attached to things. We are entering the world of lose
relationships between men and women but we are not attached to
it - we remain wide open and fee unattached. That place has to
be realized or it is not the real world of the Buddhadharma; if
there is even a speck of a small self it becomes an attachment,

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and is not a way of liberating others. We have to always work
creatively and intensively on how to let go of ourselves. All of our
hate and resentment centering on our own small self have to be
forgotten and thrown away, along with all those thoughts that we
find difficult and uncomfortable. We have to let go and see the world
exactly as it is. With new eyes we have to always see the truth of
all things. And to do this these eyes have to be open. If
everyones eyes are open to this way of seeing, then how bright the
world will become. We can easily blame other for our problems,
bring up other peoples faults, and worry about our mistakes,
clinging to our thoughts about them. Zen is not about being
irresponsible and ignoring things; it is about not being becoming
caught by the things we hold in our mind, about being able to
remain unattached, about seeing clearly and beginning again and
letting go of the mind that lingers on something over and over
again. If we could all forgive and see each another with an
open heart, see the mistakes we make ourselves, humbly and
deeply looking at our own behavior, then how wonderful our lives
together could be.

To see every single day, every meeting person and thing, and
everything we do as fresh - this is the religious and spiritual
way of life. This i s not something that can be done
instantaneously. The world of the mind cannot be realized in an
instant. This is the mind we are endowed with for our entire life;
to clarify and keep it right is what we have this life for, and to
sincerely and wholeheartedly do this is our responsibility for our
entire life. This is what we need to do, the way the ox keeps his
efforts going until the job is done.

If we are not careful we begin to think of our zazen and our life in
society as two separate things. When we return to our usual place
of living, our state of mind of zazen is left behind; it fades away.
We see our friends and go into town, and our state of mind of
zazen disappears. That is not meaning of true zazen. No matter

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how much we talk to friends and no matter where we go or what
we do, within that functioning our mind must always find the place
to which it can return. That place of no stain whatsoever must
always be worked on creatively and inventively. This essence not
be let go of, or it is not true zazen.

For most of us the tiredness of our mind is much greater than the
tiredness of our physical body. The tiredness of our body will be
relieved if we rest, but even when we rest the tiredness of our
mind does not go away. When we suffer from the heaviness of a
'self' - an attachment and opinion based on being stuck on the idea
of a self - we crush many things in the world. It is as if we are
running around all day adding clutter to our minds. And if by doing
zazen we become heavier and darker, then we have a mistaken
way of looking at it, we are chasing something far away. Zazen is
not for making dark and miserable but for realizing that there is
nothing far away to be chased after. We must instead trow
away what is unnecessary in every days work. The more we do
this the brighter and clearer and fresher we should become.

To do zazen for a long time is to look brighter and easier. The

point is not to do koans and think about things in a difficult way.
Koans are made to be unsolvable intellectually. All koans are the
same in this. We just shave everything away with the koan,
leaving nothing at all behind. And with susokkan as well, we
shave it all away with that. We think about how good our zazen is
today, and how well our susokkna is going, but what if it is bad
tomorrow? What happens then? We do koans to get rid of
extraneous thoughts, but we can get rid of that clutter without
doing koans as well. And if we do that we all come out at the same
place. It is that same place that Bodhidharma pointed out when he
said, 'Nothing holy, only emptiness.' We can do this by eating
with no sense of our selves, by looking forward to what is for
supper and finding it delicious, no matter what it is.

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If in our minds we are truly bright and pure, completely empty
and clear, then in this world there is nothing to be caught
on. We can work and function freely and openly and be bright
with that joy which is the brilliance of the radiant mind. From all
parts of us great radiance will shine forth. Even though we give up
the joy of wearing beautiful clothing, or savoring empty mind, even
a patched cotton robe, just as it is, is a luxurious garment. Even
oats and rice, with rice bran pickles - even what might seem such a
small, plain meal - will become a great feast of a hundred flavors. In
this way we receive and experience everything that comes to us.

Takuan Zenji was a famous Japanese Zen master. He had a

disciple who wrote a famous text on the world of kendo and the
use of the sword. In this text, Fudochishinmyoroku, he described
the techniques of the master of kendo. The first words of this
title, fu do, mean 'not to move.' But this does not mean to be like a
stone, to be stuck, to be tight, to be so hard that one could not be
pushed; it means to be free and agile, completely flexible at all
times. In that sense the mind is unmoved.

Takuan told his disciple, 'You are a master of the sword. You
must, then when you practice, be careful of the following.
You must not follow the activity of your mind. You must not
follow the activity of your body. You must not try to win; you
must not try to lose. You must open your mind completely.'
Opening yourself up to the heavens and earth completely,
letting go all the thoughts in your mind, standing in front of your
opponent, before he moves, you see it, you move there. Before he
acts, you block and move. This is the way of kendo master, and
Takuan Zenji knew this. This mind is not moved by form, by outside
activities; wide and clear, in each it is renewed. In each moment not
allowing consciousness to arise at all: this is the state of mind of the
kendo master. This is state of mind zazen.

We are always trying to find something by which to help ourselves,

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to make us feel secure for a while. In the modern world we
have learned many techniques for gathering information and
knowledge. We think it is our responsibility to learn these
things; learning this and gathering that makes us feel we have
done our job in the world. But doesnt our insecurity continue all of
the technology, all of the information? Whatever our efforts are, at
work and at home, no matter how much we keep learning and
how many efforts we keep making, this place of insecurity seems
to go on; in fact, it often seems to be growing.

Knowing the not-knowing mind - fudochi, the mind that is

moving at all, with no knowledge running through it, no thoughts of
self, letting go of each thing that comes into our senses, each
thing that come into our eyes and ears, letting it go, that mind
without stain, uncovered and clear - this our true responsibility.
This is what necessary today. Susokkan is a fine way to work. Mu
is a good way to work. Standing, sitting, chanting, eating - from
morning until night, from night until morning - we continue until
only that final place is left, only the Mu, struggling, continuing,
going on, throwing away all self-con-consciousness, all the thing
we are caught on, all the shadows, until a vast, experience state
of mind - not the mind of the zendo but the mind of the Buddha,
the mind of Bodhidharma, the mind of all the gods, the mind of
the whole universe - is present and sitting with us. This is the point
of our practice. This is our responsibility.

Doing Mu we do not work with word Mu. It is the life that

manifests that word with which we work. And if we know that place,
whether we move our feel or our hands, whether we say 'Hello' or
'Good Morning,' it all becomes that Mu. Using all our senses,
completely in vivid training, everything we perceive is Mu.
Whether it is the tree in the garden, the garbage bucket, the rake - it
all becomes Mu. Thinking about this, feeling that we have done it, is
fascination, indulgence, intoxication only. Zen has to be alive,
in the present, in every moment and every breath, or it is a

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waste of precious time.

If we realize this place of no shadow and no small self - that mind

with no clutter at all - this is the very source of the countless
Buddhas, the original source of all people and the truth of the
universe. The truth of Buddha and Bodhidharma and all the
patriarchs must all be this one Truth. In this Truth there is no birth
and no death. If we awaken to our true deep mind, that place
where we have no idea of self or attachment to small self, we will
be able to taste the flavor of the Buddhas mind and
Bodhidharmas mind directly. When we can taste directly we will
know that place of no birth and no death from our own experience.
And if we can experience that place of no birth and no death for
ourselves, then everything that we encounter with our eyes and
ears will be seen as the truth itself. We do not see yesterdays
flower or moon or stars or sun or tree or mountains or wall or
people; we see each thing as it is for first time.

When we can keep our egoistic wishes from ruling us, we can then
use our wide-open inner eyes to clearly see the suffering and
confusion in society. In this way, instead of shutting ourselves
up in our own small world and settle up boundaries to protect
our own selves, we will be able to look wholeheartedly at the
confused minds of those in society and know that we must do
something to help them, that we do something to liberate them. We
will know that this is our very own problem, and that our
problems are societys problems as well. We will be able to see in
details, and we will no longer push aside the problems of
society to pursue our own individual wishes. We will then want
to work among the people of society, liberating each other. We
must put all of our efforts into doing this, vowing deeply within
our minds that not a single being will be left behind, all will
be liberated through our efforts, and that this work will be done
without regret for any of the energy used for it.

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In society we cannot stop our work, our lives with our families.
To give these things up in order to only practice zazen, to only
train, would not be fulfilling the responsibilities that we have taken
on in the world. If we take our training this far, until only that
which is the consciousness of the whole universe remains, vast
and wide, until there is no self, here our responsibilities are
completely fulfilled. When we let go of all the shadows, when our
thoughts are completely cleared away, our true social
responsibilities is taken care of. When we go to work, we take
care of our responsibilities there. At home, with our family, we
take care of our obligations there, too. This work we do with our
consciousness, and it is our obligation, but if we are seeing with
the eyes of the Buddha, then a whole new way of working and a
whole new world will be open to us.

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Kobe, January 1995
The year 1995 began peacefully. Then, on the morning of the
seventeenth of January, in and around the city of Kobe,
Japan, there was a severe earthquake, a great shift. At dawn in
the chill wintertime, before most people were up and around, in
one brief second the earthquake struck. It was experienced by
everybody at exactly the same time, happening so suddenly that
there was no time for anyone to form any dualistic idea about it.

At the hour of five-forty in the morning - at Sogenji the

morning sutra service and finished and morning sanzen had just
begun - there came a violent shaking such as we had never
experienced before. Okayama is a full hour from Kobe by the
bullet train, yet even so, this violent tremor, which continued over
and over and again, this great shaking, could be felt. The
vibration was so strong it seemed as if all the buildings would
surely be destroyed. Fortunately, the area around Okayama was
mostly undamaged; the earthquake had no great effect in this area.

In the morning news the disaster did not seem to be so

enormous, but by the time the evening news was broadcast it was
clear what a terrible crisis this was. With each report the news
was worse and worse as more and more devastation became
apparent, more than four thousand people had died. There were
twenty-three people training at Sogenji at this time. They had
come from all over the world, and they continued their daily
zazen practice. The next morning, however, no one was able to just
sit still comfortably, knowing of the suffering in Kobe. So for the
people who had gone through so much in the disaster, for the
dead and for those suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake,
we chanted a sutra in the morning service in the hondo. Just
chanting a vow, did not seem sufficient. We wanted also to
offer the people of the city of Okayama a chance to realize what
we had offered in the sutra service that morning. For this we

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did takuhatsu in the downtown area of Okayama. On a frost-fallen
morning of icy coldness, everyone went out to do takuhatsu with
wholehearted energy. We gathered quite a large amount of money
and gave it to the local newspaper, which was collecting donations
for the victims of the earthquake. We asked that the money be used
where it was most needed.

As the news of the earthquake spread around the world, the

families, friends, and acquaintance of the people training at
Sogenji began calling and sending faxes. The depth with which
everyone expressed their concern and caring was very moving.
We deeply appreciated all of these expressions of concern and
support. People who knew how close Kobe and Okayama are were
worried there might have been some damage at Sogenji;
fortunately, there was no damage.

The next morning, the third day after the earthquake - because we
were in the middle of sesshin - everyone continued with their
zazen. But with the deep karmic connection I have with Kobe, I
felt that there must be something more that could be done to help.
We decided to go to Shofukuji monastery, where I had trained, and
to other temples in the demolished city to see how our friends there
were doing and what we could do to help. We filled two cars with
as much food as possible - vegetables, bread, cheese, better, and
other supplies - and sought whatever advice was available on how
to enter the disaster area. Because regular cars were not being
allowed into the city and its surrounding area, we applied to the
Prefectural government and received special permission and
stickers designating our cars as emergency supply vehicles. With
this preparation complete, we left for Kobe. There were many police
barriers, but we were able to pass through them easily with special
permission.

When we saw what remained of the areas where the earthquake had
actually struck, we became physically ill. One could only

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wonder at how violently the city and had been shaken to be
so completely and totally destroyed. At the temple of Shofukuji,
which stands on a stone foundation at the foot of the mountain, the
mountain gate had been destroyed, and tiles from the great of
hondo had fallen off in large numbers. For even such a sturdy
and solidly built building to be so shaken, it had to have been
an excessive, intense shock.

The monks were very grateful for the vegetables and supplies,
and just as one would except of them as monks in training they
were continuing with their daily samu, along with their zazen. They
were working on cleaning up the debris and destruction throughout
the surrounding areas.

There were mountains of rubble everywhere, making it barely

possible for a car to get through. As we went our way to where the
earthquake had hit the hardest, we saw large and eighty-story
buildings that had been leveled - flattened without even a shadow
remaining. The destruction was worse than that from the bombing
of war. The original Japanese building material was wood,
although recently other materials are more frequently used.

While many of the newer buildings had not budged, the

older wooden buildings had become piles of garbage, mountains
of debris. I was thinking that even in Japan - this country of
earthquake - this was the worst earthquake ever. Thanks to
science and modern technology some buildings did not budge an
inch, but four thousand people had still died, and it was said that
they were the people who lived in the wooden homes that were so
easily destroyed. Most were still in their futons when they died.
Then, too, the majority of those who died in the earthquake were
the elderly. Most of their houses had been built without
foundations, as had always been the practice, so that the houses
were just sitting on the ground. In this kind of extreme earthquake
it was as if the buildings were raised up into the air and then

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smashed down to the earth.

An acquaintance of mine whose disciple is training with us at

Sogenji is a priest in Kobe. After the war he rebuilt a temple little
by little from inexpensive wood. While teaching school he put all of
his salary into rebuilding the temple. He also used all of his pension
fund, encouraging the members of this congregation to support
the building of the temple with their donations. He had rebuilt a
fine hondo and other temple buildings, and the work was truly
splendid. This seventy-plus-years-old priest often said, 'This is my
lifes work. Thankfully my vow has been fulfilled, and today I am so
lucky to have been able to see it completed in this way.' When we
went to visit this temple only the roof was still up. That building was
this mans lifes work, and it had all been wasted and come to
nothing in matter of seconds. How pitiful and how sad. The
hondo was still standing, but the building around it had been
completely destroyed, and another nearby had also been
demolished. Roofs had fallen, and posts and beams were
overturned and broken and fallen down. All that remained were
mountains of rubble.

There was no electricity in the city, no water, no food, and many

people had no clothing or place to live. Shelter was provided in
the local schools or public halls that were still standing, but there
was no familiar home for the people to return to. We saw people
dragging posts and beams that could no longer be used for building
using them to make fires to keep warm; seeing these adults and
their vacant faces was enough to make one feel the tragedy
directly. In this earthquake-prone country, is this one of the given
destinies of people?

What has been the progress of Japan as we look at it, fifty years
after the Second World War? This is also something I thought
about. In the new era we have seemingly made progress in
superficial form, but in this one instant of the earthquake that

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superficial form was destroyed, demolished. This is how it seems
now. How transient. As the ancients said, 'Things of the world are
transient and passing, only the clear mind of true meaning.'
What should we hold as our goal and our refuge in life? In todays
world where is that something in which we can take refuge,
and in which we can find meaning?

Originally, religion was for the purpose of enabling us to realize

the True Source of the human mind. Today, religion is formalized
and ritualized, like a school education; what should be clarification
of our True Source is now only a collecting and selling of
information. So we have to ask, what should we be learning and
discovering and understanding? What happens to us, finally? At
the end of this life, how is it? At the end of this life, how is it? This
True Essence has become vague and unclear, and this is our
minds greatest loss of integrity. I think this is also todays greatest
problem.

We currently have a culture making rapid progress in technology

and great stride in material development. The scholastic and
academic aspects of life have also been deeply researched with
the achievement of high levels of understanding. Still, we have lost
track of that very source, the actual root of it all, and when it comes
to this kind of massive, total destruction, all of our possibilities for
refuge suddenly disappear. And this is true not only in great
catastrophe like this violent earthquake. If we look at the
conditions in the past of the world today - in Bosnia, in Sarajevo,
in Rwanda, and elsewhere in Africa - all over the world we can
find conflict and disaster, back to back. Within these circumstances
people are without refuge. With a murky, melancholy, and hopeless
state of mind they can find little hope for a bright future or positive
world, only a sad and lonely life. The state of mind that seventy-
year-old priest from that rebuilt temple was probably one of not
wanting to do anything at all. All the fruits of his efforts had vanished
before his very eyes.

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During the war, those who were able to stay alive watched their
homes and warm hearts abruptly vanish. They were suddenly
parted form beloved family members. Of course they could no
longer believe or trust in anything then, either.

In the old days in China there was a priest named Master Tozan.
A monk asked him, 'How can we escape from this severe heat
and cold?' This is not just a question about severe heat and
cold. It is a question about the very reality we are always facing
- a melancholy and difficult reality, a reality that is full of
suffering. People are sick and in pain; people have lost their homes
in disasters and wars and have nothing in which to believe any
longer and are suffering in their despair. For those whose beliefs
have all been destroyed, their refuge in the material world has
been shown to be empty and meaningless. This kind of pain is
always occurring all around us.

Master Tozan answered the monk, 'You have to go where there

is no hot and no cold!'
The monk continued, 'Where is that place where there is no hot
or cold? Where is that true place of refuge for the mind?'

The priest answered, 'When it is hot, become that heat completely!'

When it is cold, become one with that cold - completely and
totally! When it is painful, become that pain completely and
totally, and when you are miserable become that misery totally
and completely! In the very midst of that, go beyond of all
thoughts you hold in your mind, let go of all ideas of good or bad
or gain or loss - let go of all these thoughts - and from there grasp
that place of your very own vivid life energy! That which
directly experiences that ouch - feel that life energy directly, grasp
the life energy that feels that pain and sorrow.' More important
than finding a way out of pain and suffering, or trying to find
a place where there is no pain or suffering, is to go directly
to that place where the pain and suffering are being

144
experienced, to go to where you feel that pain and that
sadness directly and totally. Touch that life energy directly and with
your own experience. Use that actual direct experience which you
have grasped as your base, and stand up strong and firm. This is
how the master answered the monk.

In Japan of today, with its technological progress, the children

have been taken over by computer games, losing all sense of how
to enjoy themselves form within. In this time of crisis in Kobe, when
the father had lost his place of work and the mother had no
kitchen in which to prepare meals, with vacant expressions they
made a fire with debris wood to keep warm under the chilly winter
sky. With nothing but a small, warming fire, they sat near it. The
mother and father who had always been too busy and had had to
turn their backs on their children were now nearby, and the children
were enjoying this and playing wholeheartedly and with abandon
in close proximity. For them there was joy on that day, because
they could be close to their mother and father. Of course, they
were sorry to have lost their computer games and their own
rooms, but they had all survived and their mother and father were
there beside them, and that meant more than any object or toy to
them. The sorrow of having lost their things and had been largely
replaced the joy of their parents presence. To see the
children around those adults, happily lost in their playing, was a
reminder of the joy of the moment. The children had actually
grasped this idea and were giving life to each moment. We all own
and have things, and thats fine but even without a house, or food,
or things, or with just few old clothes, if we can be directly in touch
with what it means to be alive, then there is nothing stronger. It is
when we look for something perfect and complete outside
ourselves that our life becomes busy and crowed and meaningless,
and our inner world becomes diluted and flat.

In the midst of seeing catastrophe I felt that I had to return to

Kobe again and again, to join with the people there in cleaning up

145
after this great ordeal and to give them, even a little at a time, the
help to start over again - to begin again and return to their life
energy. I pray that they will be able to awaken to this new
awareness. Buddhism is not something special. It is just being able
to feel things directly with our own life energy.

In modern times Shiki Masaoka brought back to life the

Japanese poetry style of haiku. He practiced a lot of zazen and
was thoroughly acquainted with the world of Zen. In his later
years, when he was serious ill with tuberculosis, his whole
body was in great pain, and he lived in a great misery as his
body filled with pus and phlegm. He left behind poems written about
that time in his life. Shiki Masaoka wrote from his own
experience, saying that he had always thought that Zen was
something that would enable you to die laughing, but as he was
struggling with the pain of his illness he finally realized that this
way of looking at things had been a mistake. In Zen, no matter
how difficult a time of suffering we may be going through, we dig in
and go through the experiencing of it. This is how he had come to
see it. This is Shiki Masaokas own experience and deep
understanding, directly grasped and then expressed in poem:

The ground plant is blossoming;

the phlegm is stuck, caught.
Is this the Buddha?

Shiki Masaoka, in the midst of his pain, lived it to the end. This way
of doing it was his Zen. This is not something to be understood or
not understood. All people who live, every one of us, will experience
our minds True Origin.

Not limited by the name of God or Buddha, our actual life energy
and the way we realize it and live our lives is the true religion.

For those who have lived through this or any other

catastrophe, and for those who are in great pain right now, from

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within that experience use your tanden as the very base for
everything throughout the heavens and earth. With both hand
stretched outward, experience the joy of being alive! In this is Zen
- the true quality of being human alive. I pray for everyones most
excellent quality of life.

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Questions and Answers
Q: How in Zen training can you be touched by life? How do you
gain that tender heart of compassion?

People who seriously enter Zen training are all aiming toward
a particular goal, the future possibility of enlightenment. They
have felt a need to do something in the world, and they want to
learn how to go about doing it. So people who are trying to be
compassionate, trying to be in moment, trying to be loving, trying to
be in the present without looking for something outside themselves
come to Zen training because they have felt the need to be able to
develop in certain way. They have found that their ability to feel
love and compassion has been frustrated because they do not
know that source of the mind that allows one to fully express these
things. Zen teaching aims toward that particular goal of reaching
enlightenment, assuming that those working toward that goal
have already felt the desire, the heart of compassion.

People come to Sogenji to go one step further in the development

of those qualities of love and compassion. Having already felt those
things as necessary but not knowing how to go about expressing
them, they come for the particular kind of teaching that I offer.
They want those things, but no matter how much they have
tried, they have not been able to find them. Now, what about
that experience of the mind, where these things are supposed to
come from? How can you have a direct encounter with that
place when you do not know what it is or how to express it? It is
like having an itch on your foot but being able to scratch only
outside of your shoes. What do you do when you want to be more
compassionate, want to be here i n the present, when you want
to be able to express that tenderheartedness you feel, but just
cannot do it? How do you go about learning how?

What I teach is that which I know from direct experience, that which

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I know the way to realizing. People reach a point in their
efforts to directly realize the Original Mind where they feel need
for more ki training, more energy training. They try to be
compassionate, but they find that is not so easy because their
ego gets in the ways, or they try to be in the moment, but there
is something preventing them from being able to live in that way.
To be able to work on the things that make it difficult for us to
experience that true compassion, we have the agenda at Sogenji,
what I have learned and am teaching there in specifics.

Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama, for example, often talk in
terms of compassion when they address large groups of people
who need constant reminding, as do the people at Sogenji, that we
need to be compassionate, we need to be present, and we need to
work from the heart. This is what we are all working toward, and
working for. But I am pretty sure that when Dalai Lama and Thich
Nhat Hanh are talking with their own monks, they teach them
more specifically and in a more severe, direct way. Their approach
to people in general, to those who are looking for an open way
to go about living their lives and learn about inner practices, is to
present the need for compassion as one of most important basics.

Yet when push comes to shove, when you just do not know how to
go bout realizing the place where this compassion, this heart, this
presence come from, then you need a more severe of tool,
and that is what Zen training offers, what these teachings are
about. One monk who was deeply training at Sogenji left to care
for a friend who was dying of AIDS. After this friend died, the
monk stayed to help another AIDS patient, and then another. His
third AIDS patient went completely crazy - he actually had to be
taken to a mental hospital. The monk could not handle it. He
had had all of this training, and all of this preparation, and yet
he found himself in a situation where he could not hold on to that
Mu, that center. Because he realized he had not trained enough,
he had not dug in far enough to develop fully that compassion,

149
heart, and presence, he returned to do sesshin, just to regain a
little bit of that essence of training. He had worked so hard for the
three years he was at Sogenji, yet he had not been able to dig
deep enough to know the place that would have supplied those
things when he needed them the most.

Q: But how does that ki and energy of Zen training all of a sudden
open into compassion?

The place where this becomes a problem is in the difference

between people who have understood what kensho is - and I am
not saying who have actually experience it - and those who
think it is some rainbow- colored supernatural experience.
People tend to take all of these words - enlightenments,
compassion, love, tender heart of sadness - into their brains
and conceptualize them. So instead of realizing what it is they
are actually feeling, they lay another expression on the situation,
thinking that is what they should be feeling. They think they should
be loving - therefore they will be loving, no matter what they are
actually feeling. They may be angry and furious, but they will try
to be loving, because they know they should be loving. Even if
they are not feeling compassionate, they will say, 'I should be
compassionate, so I will try to be compassionate.'

But unless your love and compassion arise naturally from a clarified
state of mind, you are only repressing a state of mind that is the
opposite of what you are making yourself feel. Eventually you are
going to suffer the consequences for this. The feelings that are
being repressed are merely being camouflaged by those feelings
you think you should feel; they will not go away just because it
is the popular conception that love, tenderheartedness, and
compassion are the emotions to have. That is why this experience
of the clear mind is so important. When the clear mind is
realized, when theses feeling of love and compassion are coming
forth, naturally, and spontaneously out of a clear mind, then they

150
are not something that is chosen. Love rather than hate,
compassion rather than narrow-mindedness, will evolve naturally
from a state of clarity, which brings forth the wisdom to express
those things, in the moment. With that experience of a clear mind,
there will not be even a thought about whether this is compassion,
whether this is love, whether this is tenderheartedness. That
clarified mind, from which these things come forth naturally, must
be realized and reached before we can begin expressing those
emotions truly.

It is frequently the case that even while people are expressing

what they imagine to be compassion, even while they are doing
what they imagine to be the right thing, at the same time they are
ignoring and repressing other feelings that they think they should
not have. The monk working with AIDS patients says that when
people who are terminally ill are nearing the end of their lives, those
helping them are the ones to whom they are the nearest and the
nastiest. The people who are giving the patients the most, the
ones who we think should be able to express their true love, are hit
by them, threatened by them, so angry and frustrated do the
terminally ill become at their own inability to control their lives. It is
in such ways that all these repressed feeling will eventually manifest
themselves.

Unless you realize this clarified place, you will be acting from a
conception of what compassion is rather than from true
compassion. So, again, we come back to what people need to
know: How do you go about realizing the clear mind that is within
all of us? It has to be truly encountered and expressed all of
the time, not just in one experience that solves your problems for
the rest of your life, but by knowing where to return to, how you
can reach that clarified mind. Then, as constantly as you are able,
you can stay in that clear mind, capable of naturally expressing
a true compassion.

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That is why, when I teach, I am addressing people who have
realized that this training is not about a dualistic idea of 'being
compassionate or not being compassionate,' but about going to
that place where there is not even a dualistic sense of 'I am
now compassionate' or 'I am now not compassionate,' of
reaching the place from which that state of mind comes forth of its
own.

Q: What is the Zen definition of suffering? How can I as a

nurse help someone who is suffering?

Suffering can be divided into physical suffering and psychological

suffering. Physical suffering can be described and defined with
medical terms, but psychological suffering cannot, because it is
subjective for each person. Caregivers can listen to someone talk
about his or her suffering, but they cannot know that suffering for
themselves because, depending on the person, the description of
pain and suffering can be so different each of us.

From the origin - in the Buddha Nature or clear mind - there is no

such thing as suffering. The mirror that reflects the flames of the fire
does not get hot. Our origin Mind is just like that. Like a clear
mirror it does not experience any pain or emotion; it only reflects it
back. The mirror is always clear. Those people who understand
this and experience pain from the point of view of its being a
'divine grace,' or who hold some other internal view that relieves
their suffering, are close to the experience of the clear heat, and
their experience of pain is much less severe. They are closer to
that mirror state - but this, of course, is something that cannot be
measured, in the same way that you cannot measure the
beauty of a flower.

What is important, however, and what connects the experience of

the nurse and that of the patient, is the matter of subjective
opinion. A person who sees a flower and can think only about its

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red color is seeing only one side of the flower, thinking of it as a
red thing and not seeing its other aspects. When we listen to a
person, if we are not 'zero' ourselves we hear according to our
own opinions rather than truly listening to what the other person
is saying. If, as the patient, we speak from the experience of the
pain and are not in clear-mind state, then we will experience that
physical pain as suffering.

The only way to truly alleviate the suffering is to help the person
realize that source from which all things - including suffering - arise.
Any other ways of relieving suffering, with medications or material
gifts, are just stopgaps and will not provide true relief. The only
way to provide actual relief is to allow a person to be able to
clarify and realize directly that source from which the suffering
comes - to realize that which is prior to the suffering. That which
brings us closer to that original source, that which enables us to
realize it, is what is necessary to really see the suffering and know
its root and therein its relief.

Q: How would you define spiritual caregiving?

The whole point of spiritual caregiving is that you cannot give it.
What you can do - for yourself and for other person - is to take
away as much as possible. But there is nothing that can be
given. When everything is taken away that the person is caught on,
then he or she is closest to zero and the clear mind; the pain is
no longer held on to, and neither is the person attached to
things that bring pain and suffering with them. So to spiritually
give is to be able to take away everything that keeps a person
(whether oneself or another) from being zero, from being empty -
whatever that is.

Q: In this world that is looking for the extraordinary, for advances

in every area, how do we be extraordinary in Zen?

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The idea of the extraordinary comes from the American dream. We
are at a time in the history of human being when people can
choose among an enormous range of possibilities when deciding
how to live their lives. They think about what they would like,
and they believe that once they have obtained enough material
possessions, their lives will be without problems. In fact, this is a
time of great problems in terms of our state of mind, because
people have come to see enlightenment as just one more thing to
be obtained. They decide that they want this particular part of what
is called Zen without knowing the means to go about realizing it.

The teachings of the Buddha have an amazing width and breadth.

Form his very first teachings to his very last, he was offering
expedient means for all varieties of people to be able to realize the
ultimate part of the path. People were looking at many different
ways to go about gaining the experience that the Buddha had.

In the same way, there are those today who have understood
that enlightenment is not something extraordinary, who have seen
that there is a long process involved. But there are also people
who have just seen this excellent little framed jewel of an
experience and said, 'I want that, please.' They think enlightenment
is some extraordinary thing, and they want the results of the
process without looking at what it takes to realize the process itself.
This must be seen as a problem, when just that one aspect is
looked at as opposed to be the whole of the training.

In the world today there are people who do not have the
wherewithal even to be able to read about enlightenment in books.
If you ask people in parts of the world what they want more than
anything else, they will say, 'I want a potato and cabbage for my
soup tomorrow.' What you would teach them about their state off
mind is quite different from what you would teach a person
who has read the whole of the Lotus Sutra and said, 'I want
this wonderful experience.'

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That is why the Buddhas teachings cover such a broad
expanse. In the Lotus Sutra he was saying, 'Accept everything,
accept even your difficult places, accept all of it.' For someone
who already has a satisfying life, and all the material comforts one
needs, that may be possible. Even so, the idea of accepting
everything all too often becomes a conceptual understanding of
acceptance only - so that one ends up gritting ones teeth and
saying, 'I accept this, I accept this.' Yet even when we are not yet
able to have the state of mind that actually accepts everything,
at least we may know we need more to move toward it.

Those people who want a potato for tomorrows soup could not
care less about accepting anything that come along, or a bout
the question of what their state of mind is - all they want is
potato. They have no interest whatsoever in understanding their
mind. The spiritual needs of the people on this planet vary widely.
If we look at the people of America or the West who have
satisfied their material need, what is their greatest problem? It is a
problem of their state of mind. Now that they have satisfied their
physical needs, how do they go about satisfying the spiritual needs?

When one reads about enlightenment but is not actually going

through the process of experiencing it, one cannot understand
what the process takes what is required. But the first step is to
know that one actually wants to do this; then one can learn what
needs to be done to go about experiencing it for oneself. At first,
everyone will do it in a dualistic way, saying, 'Im going to become
compassionate,' and then acting in terms of what they think
compassion is saying, 'Im going to become loving,' and then
acting in terms of what they think being loving is. When you do
that, you find it does not work. So this kind of misguided curiosity
becomes a guided curiosity, taking you along to the place where
you truly can understand the teachings of the Buddha.

This whole thing has to be seen as a spectrum of needs for

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different people. You cannot teach people who are just beginning
about these extraordinary things without also teaching the whole
process that leads to their realization. By wanting these things,
but not what they have to go through to realize them, they
actually begin to follow the Path.

Q: When somebody realizes their Buddha Nature, that clear mind is

that the same as realizing what might be called Christ
consciousness in Christianity? Do all of the different spiritual
traditions serve as inductions to the same higher place, or do
they serve as inductions to different higher places?

The word that is used in Buddhism is Dharma. The way the

universe works is that that which is prior to all of our ideas of
things is something that only reflects back, that cannot itself be
reflected. This is the state of mind we speak of as realizing your
Buddha Nature, or your Christ consciousness, for example.
Because of the nature of that place, all of these experiences have
to be the same. There is only one truth. There is only one particular
experience, and when you are within that place of clear-
seeing, in that place that reflects back but cannot been seen,
because that place has no differentiation and dualism, there cannot
be any such differences as those between religious names or
descriptions. That experience is the same in every single
religion, and in every case the experience is beyond
description. That experience beyond description, that experience
that cannot be explained in a way that is particular to any one
religions expression of it, the essence that is the same in each
religion.

Without a canvas there cannot be painting, and without a

screen a film cannot be shown. But that canvas on which there is
no painting, that screen on which nothing is being shown, or that
chalkboard on which nothing is written - that is the state of mind
we are talking about here. Once something is named, expressed,

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described, it is like putting paint on a canvas, or projecting a
film on the screen, or writing words on the chalkboard. What we
are talking about is all prior to that.

When you are in that state of mind, whether you want to name it
after you have experienced, there is no possibility of awareness
of a descriptive way to look at it, because everything is without
a dualistic sense at that time. There are tools that can be
described - for example, prayer or susokkan or koan work - and
those tools are part of a process that leads to that state of mind,
but when that state of mind is realized, then even though we
have a physical body we are no longer aware of any sense of it. We
may be sitting in a room, but we are no longer aware of our
surroundings. We have lost track of all those distinctions and
dualistic ways of looking at thing. It is not that they do not exist in
some sense, but what is being aware is the mind that has been
described as being like a mirror, the mind that reflects back but is
empty of anything itself, the mind of zero. These are all, again,
descriptions, but this is what is being talked about as that basic
bottom line in which there is no sense of any dualism perception of
things as relative to each other.

Q: But if I have lost track of the room and of my body, how am I

supposed to walk around during the day? How do I do my job if I
have made my mind empty of all awareness? How do I participate in
my life in this state of mind?

It is not like that exactly. This is something that is very difficult to

understand with the rational mind, but it is something I am
asked about all the time. What I have described is true of that
actual encountering of the Buddha Nature or the Christ
consciousness, which then leads us to be able to let go of that
attachment to an ego. When we experience the essence of
this Buddha Nature, when we see that we are this clear mind,
then we are in fact able much more easily to move through our

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day. When we experience this place in which we are free from
any egoistic delusion, we do not all of a sudden lose all of our
previous experience. We still have our brain cells, and we retain
all of the things we have learned; in that sense we do not
become babies that are like blank slates. Everything we have
learned, everything we have experienced is still available to us, but
we now have the choice of whether or not we want to view the world
through an egoistic filter. In talking about this, we can use the
analog of a lens, which can be cleansed when it becomes dirty.

When we know that we have a clear vision, we can still use our
ego, but at the same time we can also choose to be free from it.
Because we are no longer attached to it, we can use it
appropriately. We can also be free to experience things directly
without that attachment to a small self, without the
intellectualized, egoistic filter through which we so often view
things.

In the same way, people frequently ask, 'If you are looking at
things in that way, if you have gotten rid of your self, then isnt
it hard to know how to go about doing the things you need to
do to live in the world?' In fact, quite the opposite is true.

When one is no longer attached to and concerned with the small

self, one realizes from the same place that we realize the
Buddha Nature or the Christ consciousness that something else
is living through us is able to function. When the ego is affixed
to something we see only a very narrow view; when that
something is let go of, there is a great wisdom, a greater view;
when that something is let go of, a greater wisdom, a greater
awareness, a greater ability to function is able to live through us
and to be present at each and every moment. It takes time to learn
how to let go of that ego, but once we have experienced that place
of freedom from it, we feel less threatened by the prospect of
letting go of it and allowing that greater awareness to work

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through our lives. When we can let go of that ego at any
given moment, rather than being without the ability to function,
we are full of a much greater wisdom. We are able to move and
act and behave in a richer way because we are no longer caught
by some idea of how things should be. This emptiness is not
something that you can conceptualize; it is a state of being empty of
ego, but being full of what can come through when that ego has
been let go of.

Q: Is there such a thing as reincarnation or transmigration of souls?

Buddhism is not a religion with an outside power. In a

religion with an outside power you are guaranteed that you will go
to heaven in the next life if you follow the guidance of God, the
Absolute, or go to hell if you do not. Buddhism does not have this
heaven and hell. It attributes creation of things not to a god but to
cause and effect. Everything has a cause. Wherever you go,
whatever difficulties you face, there is a cause for it. Through
these cause, karmic connections are formed. Due to various
causes your mother and father had the karmic connection to get
married, and from this source your own birth. There is no relation to
a god here.

From the point of view of science, life was born on this

planet several billions years ago; about one million years ago,
through the course of long journey, humankind as we know it
was born from that life. Since then human life has continually
been reproducing new life up to the present day. That is the
scientific view; although science is not the same as Buddhism,
this view also proceeds from cause to effect. Everything manifest
because of cause and effect. Nothing is brought forth by a god.
If you believe that God determines your next life, choosing who
goes to heaven and who goes to hell, then it become Gods
decision.

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This idea of the incarnation and the problem of a next life arise in
peoples minds when they ask about what they see in this
present life: Why is this person that way? How can that person be
so awful? When you start to think about it, it seems that each
persons personality must come from something they have done in
the past or in some other life. This is natural. This person is born to
a rich family, that one to a poor family. This person is intelligent,
that one is foolish. There are many such things we can see.
Everybody wants to be the one born in the rich family and happy;
nobody wants to be unlucky one. So when you analyze it, you
come to the conclusion that it is because of past difficulties that
one is born into difficult circumstances. When we look at our
ancestors, things seem to have been handed down from each
parent to the next child for many generations, so it is natural to
assume the existence of that kind of cause and effect from past
lives. There is nothing mysterious about that. Also, it is natural
to think that because there seems to be future, there must also
have been a past, and vice versa. We live in this natural flow of life
continuously appearing.

That is not to say that there is anything like a soul. When we

think in the terms of this one individual body, we all know that it
will die. It is clear to everyone that everything that is born will die.
In Buddhism we are not talking about a tiny little soul and whether
it is going to be born in another body. We are viewing life from the
vast flow of life itself. If you look at life from this larger perspective,
everyone has the same life. Everyone is part of that same vast
power. One form dies away, but the universal life keeps moving.

Being born, existing, destroyed, dying, and then being born

anew, this is how it works; life is one great wave of
universal existence, a vast continuous flow of life, not just one
small individual physical body. The mind has only a tiny pinhole
view of this overall view flow. When it asks 'Will I be born as a pig
or monkey next time?' it is thinking in terms of a separate form,

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of being reincarnated in another small separate form. It is not like
that. The difference between a pig and a monkey is irrelevant
within this immense universal flow. Everything is a part of the
same life, and those specific forms are just concrete manifestations
of that large flow.

We often hear in Buddhism about that wheel of death and birth. In

fact, this was already a teaching being given in India before the
birth of the Buddha. When we talk about this wheel, what is being
referred to is this continuing flow of life. In ancient India, this
wheel of birth and death had six different stages that continually
followed each other in a cycle, repeating themselves. These six
worlds or stages were the realm of hell, the realm of hungry ghosts,
the realm of angry gods, the realm of animals, the realm of the
heavenly beings.

We hear especially in Tibetan Buddhism about reincarnation,

about the cycle of rebirth, and about these six realms, and we
often wonder how this works and what it means. But what I think
the Buddha was teaching was that it is only a matter of whether in
every single moment we are functioning from that clear mind or
not. This clear mind is not something that we must wait until our
next life to be able to experience, depending on how we live this
life; whether we live every moment from this awakened state of
mind or whether we cloud it over is what the Buddha was
talking about. It is not taught any place in the sutras that we will
have a next life; these six realms are not something that we will
experience when we are reborn in another life. They could apply
to different parts of society; they could apply to different aspects
of current life; they could apply to our various states of mind.

People often think: 'I cant believe what this person say'; 'I cant
trust this person who is sitting next to me', 'I cant believe in this
person who believes in this person who lives next door to me'; 'I
cant really trust that person down the street, I really dont believe

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what they say' - there is no hell more horrible than not being able to
believe in our fellow human beings or even in people whom we
know well. And then there are times when, without knowing why,
we become irritated and upset and angry, when for no reason at
all deep feelings of irritation arise and we hurt someones
feeling and make them feel bad, with no control over what we
are doing - these are the feelings of the angry guardians.
Sometimes, even though we have everything we need, even
though we have enough to eat, we want more, we just have to
have more; we are not really hungry, we not really need
anything, we just want more - this kind of greediness is the realm
of the hungry ghost. Sometimes we do something about which we
are embarrassed, about which we become so deeply ashamed,
that we are unable to tell anybody about it - this is world of
animals. Sometimes we truly reflect on and regret the things we
have done, reviewing our behavior and working to change
ourselves, thinking, 'I just really should not have done that' or 'I
wish I had not said that' - this is the world of humans. And
sometimes we forget ourselves completely while enjoying the
pleasures of music, or sports, or some wonderful pastime in which
we are so happy that we become absorbed in it totally - this is the
world of heavenly beings.

When one sees clearly into ones own mind, one sees that the
world of the hell things, the hungry ghosts, the angry gods, the
animals, humans, and heavenly beings are all based within oneself
- that we are the vehicle. But the self-conscious ego is very heavy
and this is always pushing us to the right and to the left. It is
easy to believe that when this small ego dies, this self-conscious
self, then there all will become nothing more, that life will end.
But such a way of seeing things is just not accurate.

Nothing will truly disappear; nothing real will die. The flow of the
universe just as it is, vast and infinite - this continuity is the
substance of our true body. From our own experience of clarity

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and serenity we can recognize this as ourselves. Of course, the
self-conscious ego manifest in many different forms, one after the
other. These, however, are all contained in and moving within
the great womb of universe. In reality there is not even an actual
ego to be reborn. It is because people think there is a separate
self that they believe in reincarnation. They think they are moving
through these different worlds of animals, humans, heavenly
beings, and so on. Bu the universal self is not such a tiny limited
thing. It is vast spaciousness, infinite expansiveness - this is what
we are!

All the problems we find in society arise because people

believe in the actual existence of this separate self. The idea of
rebirth is tool for helping us to let go of this concept of a separate
self. It can be used for liberating people from this limited
conception of life rather than for creating worry about what will
happen in the future or as an excuse for not taking responsibility
for ones present life condition.

You can spend a lot of time thinking a bout why this happened and
why that person is that way, but that is useless and has nothing to
do with Buddhism. Rather, the idea of rebirth can be used to teach
us to let go of our limitations in this present life - not in order to
have a better life next time around but as a way of seeing that
the concept of life itself as a small separate ego with all these
troubles has nothing to do with the vast spaciousness of the flow
of the universe. Calculating and worrying about problems and
what kind of family you might be born into is all deluded and self-
centered concern that can last only for space of this lifetime. Within
the vastness and immensity of the universe it is all the same.
From that vast spaciousness life is born within that great life. It
is obvious that individual forms do come forth and die away, but we
do not live in our own small world. Rather, we live within the
circulating energy of all of humanity.

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Buddhism demands that you go beyond such limiting concepts as
thing that your small self alone is universe. It is only one bit of the
scenery. Wake up to this rich expansiveness, this bounteous flow -
the world of zazen! When you let go of that tiny separate self-
concept you will be able for the first time to know the small self as
one of the manifestations of the entire universe - only one bit of the
scenery. By letting go of this concept of a separate self and
allowing all extraneous things to drop away, you can for the first
time understand this individual physical self as the immensity and
expansiveness of the universe itself. You can know there is no birth
and no death.

When I say that there is no birth and no death I do not mean that
there is no physical birth and no physical death, but rather that
living and dying take place within the flow of the universe. We can
understand this state of mind through our own experience and
have no fear. This does not mean that we will lose all fear of
dying or that we will not feel lonely at being separated from
those who have died; rather, it means that, although we are
separated, we know we will meet again in some form. We will
meet in a different way, thus realizing reunion in the grand sense.

Q: The Buddha teaches that everyone is equal, that we are

all already perfect just as we are, yet the way of life of the
monastery is built on fairly rigid system of hierarchy. How can you
explain that?

One has to be careful to look at this question of equality from the

point of view of it essence, not from the point of view of its form -
that is, in terms of an inner equality rather than in term of an
outer appearance or external approach to equality. When we look
at the idea of equality from the point of view of outer appearances
or material possessions, we end up with something like
communism, where everything is judged in terms of its equality in a
material sense. In fact, even when by outward appearances all of

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the material factors seem to be equal, the inner part of it, peoples
minds and inner workings, will never actually be equal. It is not
possible for people in a physical sense ever to be totally equal.

What the Buddha was teaching was an equality of the clear

nature in all people, that which is within all of those external,
physical differences. If we try to apply this concept in an external
rather than an internal context, we end up with what in
Japanese is called 'poison equality,' where things appear to be
treated with equality, but in fact that is not what is going on. From
the outside it might seem that people are being treated equally,
but their inner essence, the way they function inwardly, is not
being given consideration.

What the Buddha was talking about was being able to see that all
things are equal from the inside and that all of us have the same
Buddha Nature - that no matter how we appear to be from the
outside, there is a part of all of us that is exactly the same. The
monastery attempts to put into action what the Buddha taught, to
function in terms of the very excellent way of looking at this that
Buddha had. The 'poison equality,' in which things are
superficially looked at as equal but in fact are inwardly not at all
equal, can be avoided by having the person who has, for even one
second or one day, moved in the direction of clarifying his or her
true nature be considered a senior. The person who was even one
moment ahead of someone else, not considering age or anything
else, would be the one who was the senior, and the people who
came after that person would be the juniors - that is how this
hierarchy of the monastery was born.

Unfortunately, we do not all have the wisdom of the Buddha.

Although ideally this is a very good system, problems occur when it
comes to putting it into a monastery. The people who are
participating in this system are still in training, and they are not to
express the same state of mind continually. They start thinking that

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it is because of their egoistic self that they are first, rather than
because of their vow to realize their True Nature. In the monastery
one frequently sees examples of people who are able for a
moment to reach this way of seeing that the Buddha expressed,
but soon they want to protect their position, they want to protect
their egoistic personality, and they express their senior, unclear
place and begin bossing people around.

It should be the position of the senior monks sometimes to

teach, sometimes to support from below, sometimes to correct, to
do many different things to help those who come after them,
sharing what they have learned first. But instead, the way they go
about doing it becomes egoistic itself, with the senior monks
pressing down on those who are below them, unable to treat them
in an equal way because their own egos and their own personalities
still have not developed to the place where they can do things i n
the way the Buddha envisioned when he formulated this system in
the first place. This happens frequently, even to extent that a
senior monk might become physically violent in his interactions
with a junior monk. This is a mistake. This is not right. This is
something about which we can only be ashamed. This is not
how the system should be used, but it happens because not
everyone who is in training is able to maintain this realized
state of mind all the time.

It is very difficult for people to know what really is true

kindness. One example is keisaku, or the sick used in the zendo.
Those who are used to being hit with it are thankful for it and
understand the kindness of the keisaku when it is used to help
them get rid of thoughts, or wake up, or come out of a drowsy
zazen. But those who not understand will think that those who do
zazen using the keisaku are nothing but violent gangsters hitting
each other with sticks. In facts, I hear many jokes to that effect.
People who do not understand this kindness and how it works
could look at the keisaku and legitimately see it as wrong. And

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that is also true of much behavior in the monastery. With the
keisaku, for example, it is taught that what is most important is the
mind with which it is given and received; the bowing and the
carefulness with which the keisaku is given and received are
for the purpose of maintaining a compassionate frame of mind.

We can truly think that we are doing things for other people. Yet
over and over, although we intend to act in the right way
when we speak to our juniors, when we take care of our sangha
and the people around us, we find that even though we are acting
with that intention we are unable to keep the ego from influencing
our actions because we are not yet all realized people. For that
reason, and from the olden days when the Buddha was teaching
his sangha, there developed a practice that was still observed
until the Middle Ages in Japan, although it is not formally
practiced anymore. The word for this practice in Japanese
could be translated as 'confessional repentance,' but it does
not have the sense of medieval penitence that comes with the
English translation. Rather, the practice is a process of
reviewing your behavior, of looking at what you have done
and seeing whether the ego was involved, whether you were
acting with a clear mind. This is not something to do once a year
or once a month or once a week; everything single day you should
review your behavior, truly examining it to see if during that day you
were acting from a clear mind or in an ego-driven way.

In the old days, once a year there would be a public ceremony of

repentance or reviewing of behavior. In addition, at the end of each
training periods, there would be an official, formal process or
repentance. But the formal process was less important than for
each and every member of the sangha to do this daily review of
behavior as a practice. As far as I know, in Zen training today it is
not practised, but it is a practice that would be helpful - especially
to address this very problem of people dealing unskillfully with
those who are above or below them. Once way to avoid such

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problems would be for everyone, no matter where they are in the
hierarchy, to have the practice of reviewing their behavior to see
if their actions are coming from the right state of mind.

There is specific way of going about this reviewing of behavior. In

fact, there is a sutra that goes with it, which uses the word
repentance I use that word in English for want of a better
translation.

Zange zange rokkon zaisho Metsu jo bonno metsu jo gosho Namu

Shakamuni Butsu Zange zange rokkan zaisho Metsu jo bonno
metsu jo gosho Namu shoso Daruma Daishi Zange zange rokkon
zaisho Metsu jo bonno metsu jo gosho Amu sange sanzen shobutsu
Zange zange rokkon zai sho Metsu jo bonno metsu jo gosho

An easily chantable English translation is:

Review! Repent! The stains of the six senses!

Transient, and cut! The selfish desires.
Transient and cut! The ancient twisted karma.
Honor to the Buddha! Honor to Bodhidharma!
Honor to the infinite Buddhas, past, present, and future.

The start of that sutra could be more fully translated as 'Review,

repent, with all the roots of the six senses, see deeply into the
faults or sins that they have brought forth.' As the sutra is chanted,
we look carefully at each of six senses - eyes, ears, nose, tongue,
body, mind - in turn. For example, with our tongue we often
say things that are not true and arise from an egoistic need. In
speaking, even though we may not intend to, we often say things
that offend other people. So we look carefully at how we have
used our tongue in order to see how our behavior has been
manifested. The sixth sense is our mind. Often we intend to do
something that is kind, but when that intention comes from an
egoistic place we can be deceiving ourselves about how we treat
people. We think our actions are going to be clear, but we express

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ourselves in a way that is far different from what we intended. We
end up deceiving not only ourselves but also others when we act
from an unclear or deluded state of mind, or when words we
speak reflect our egoistic needs instead of our clear mind.

In the same way we review each of the six senses to see to this
meticulous degree how our behavior actually appears to others.
Thus the first of this sutra is 'Review! Repent! The stains of the six
senses.' Then it directs you to cut away desires and cut away
deep karma. Finally you offer 'honor to the Buddha,' 'honor to
Bodhidharma,' and 'honor to the infinite Buddhas, past present,
and future.' By repeating this sutra over and over and carefully
looking into your behavior, you come to a place - it is the same
place you reach in zazen - where your mind is completely
clear and transparent. You see only the scenery immediately in
front of you, with nothing distracting you from that direct
perception. This state of mind in itself is Samadhi. We often
have a difficult time entering this state because we have an idea
what Samadhi is and we try to reach for that idea. But, in fact, this
repentance or reviewing of behavior is in itself clarifying zazen and
can provide and entrance into this state of absolute attention
and clear awareness.

I am often asked why in or busy lives we should take the time to sit
zazen everyone has so much to do, and they think they cannot
take time from their daily activities to just sit. But by taking this time
we can in fact clarify what it is we are actually doing during all
those busy hours. Zazen is the process of being able to see
ourselves. When we attain a stable and well-aligned mind, we
can for the first time see clearly what we are doing, and we will no
longer make the same mistake. For the reason, repentance is a
very important practice to teach.

People who sit for zazen trying to become something, not letting
go of the things they are holding on to but trying to obtain or attain

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a certain state of mind, move further and further away from what
this clarifying of mind, this repentance, can do. When we try to
find some sate of mind that we have experienced before, or we
have an idea about what our state of mind should be and
strive to attain that goal, our sitting becomes more and more
cumbersome; when we cannot reach the state of mind we think
we should be attaining, the weight of the ego becomes heavier
and heavier. This process I am describing - of clarifying our
behavior - is a way of emptying rather than of putting on. I try
always to bring this into my teaching because people are often
unaware of this way of practicing. I feel that much of the behavior
that creates problems in the monastery comes from the lack of this
type of practice, from people doing their practice without ever
reviewing their behavior or looking carefully at how the
behavior is reflecting their zazen. We have a great gift from
society to be able to spend so much time doing zazen, but zazen
also allows us the opportunity to look at our behavior and clearly
see how we are manifesting our practice. If we do not use it for
that, we are wasting an excellent chance and will be endlessly
doing a form of dead-end, closed-circuit zazen that exists only as an
idea of something we think we are tying to pursue. We will never be
able to attain a state of clear awareness and function in the world
with that actual clear mind.

If you do zazen, do your sesshin, without also clarifying your

actions and reviewing your behavior in the way I have just
described, you are never going to find a clear path to awareness
and enlightenment and realize your true nature. That is true for
everybody. You can practice forever, but without this particular
part of it, your practice will not open up into that realization.

The last line of the sutra of repentance talks of honoring all the
Budhhas of the past, present, and future. Although the words refer
to 'the infinite Buddhas,' they actually include all things: all the
rocks, the stars, the sun, the earth, the water, everything; to all

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the myriad things, you are also repenting, to everything that
exists you bow down and prostrate in repentance and in review
of your behavior. I find this very important practice, and I do tit
myself every day, particularly at nighttime when I am doing yaza,
or late-night sitting after the regular bedtime. During the first
part of my yaza I do this part of my zazen, and then I find my clear
mind to be relieved. Of course, there has to be an intent behind
this reviewing of your behavior - it is not just an empty repetitive
chanting - but as you do this practice, then from that practice of
repentance will come this vast wide- open mind, and then you sit
in that. For everybody to make a practice of doing this once a day
is a very good idea.

Q: How is it possible to tell a true teacher from a false one?

More than eleven hundred years ago in China, in the ninth

century, lived Obaku Zenji. When a monk asked Obaku Zenji this
very question, he replied, 'All over China there are monasteries
full of thousand of monks, and everywhere these monks are
asking this question. Why are they just licking the fart gas of the
ancients like that? What are they doing taking on the dregs of the
remnant of learning in such a way?'

The student asked further, 'Are you saying that even though
there are thousands all over China who are practicing Zen,
there is not one single person who is valid among those teaching
them?'

To which Obaku answer answered, 'In this forest of many, many

Zen monks, there is not one true teacher.' What he was saying to
this monk is that no matter where you look, to even think you can
find a true teacher is an absurd idea.

When the monk continue pressing his question, Obaku said,

'There will never be a time when there is no Zen. Zen is

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always and everyway, but there is not one true teacher.' What he
was saying is that this true teacher does not have a specific
form. If you believe the priests everywhere who say, ' I am a
teacher,' if you believe there is someone who is actually as
enlightened and as deeply awakened as the Buddha, you are
making a big mistake. Zen is not about looking outside yourself for
that person; it is about finding that teacher where you are and in
everything around you. To think in terms of finding a person who is
saying 'I am a true teacher,' 'I am deeply enlightened,' is a great
mistake; what needs to be done is to see the real thing right in
front of you.

It is important that we understand the kindness of Obaku in

answering his monk this way. We spend so much time saying,
'Well, this teacher said these words,' 'That teacher said those
words,' and 'This wonderful thing was said by that person.' What
a great mistake that is can be seen if we look at the teachings
of the Buddha. Never once does the Buddha say, 'And this
person says' or 'And that persons says.' The idea that there is
something to treasure outside ourselves - that is not within our
own experience of this true, clear mind - is a mistake. When we
look outside ourselves all we find is words and people. That is
why Obaku said, 'In all this great country of China there is no true
master.'

That which has to be realized is not something outside ourselves

or something that we can understand from someone elses
word. It is the experience itself that is valid; that someone elses
words have been used to describe the experience is not the point.
In fact, this level of awareness is beyond any form, beyond any
words, and beyond calling it the teaching of the Buddha. At this
point even that form or that personality or that historical personage
of the Buddha is no longer necessary. The Buddha himself said to
his disciples, at the end of his life, that they should take refuge in
nothing outside themselves - he told them to look only into their own

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clear mind for refuge, only to the Dharma for refuge. Only to
these should they look for wisdom and comfort when he was
gone. To go beyond all conceptions of a teacher and experience
that place where there is no longer any need for or any lingering
idea of Buddha is what Obaku was pointing his student to
when he gave him this very kind answer.

It is to this degree that we must realize the True Mind that

connects each and every one of us - not the ego, but that clear mind
that unites all people and all beings. Please, we must each take
responsibility for realizing this truth for ourselves. For the doing of
this I offer these words, asking you to taste deeply their flavor.

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Glossary
Bodhidharma : The twenty-eight patriarch in line from the
Buddha and the first patriarch of Zen. For more on his life and
teachings, see the chapter 'Bodhidharmas Outline of Practice.'

Bodhisattva vow : Each and every person is endowed from

birth with Buddha Nature. But 'Buddha Nature,' or 'Pure Mind,' is
only a borrowed name for what cannot be described in words.
Buddha Nature is about awakening to the wisdom with which
we are originally endowed and the taking that wisdom into
society. In this wisdom there are two entwined facets: (1)
While always deepening our clear mind, (2) we bring liberation to all
beings. We seek truth always and with the light of that truth we
return to society to spread and share it. We all already have
Buddha Nature from birth; to manifest it is to give life to the
Bodhisattva vow. Although it is not possible to know the full
light of this wisdom without awakening, compassion is possible
in this very moment. That mind of wanting to do anything that
one can for the pain of society can be known and acted on in this
very moment. To always think of society and offer ourselves
completely is our responsibility. Through the doing of this we
will be able to move beyond the things we are caught on
and to clarify our minds with the wisdom that arises through
functioning. It must work in this way or there can be no true
liberation of all things.

Buddhadharma : See Dharma.

Dharma : In the object world of material reality there is scientific

truth, such as 1 + 1 = 2. This truth cannot be disproved by
anyone. The Dharma, or Buddhadharma, is the law of the Mind
that no one can bend. Because the Buddha awakened to these
rules are called the Buddhadharma. But even if the Buddha had
not awakened to them, the Dharma would still be the

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Dharma. As Rinzai say, the True Mind has no form and extend
in all ten directions; our mind has no from or substance, yet it
extends throughout the universe and embraces all without
exception. All peoples minds, when they encounter the true root,
experience the same essence and realize that we are all
embraced in this with no exception. The law of clear minds
as defined by the sixth patriarch is (1) While having a nen (mind
moment), not to be caught on any nen. This means having no
attachment to anything that we see, hear, taste, or feel. (2) While
working and functioning, not to be caught on any external object
or event. Forgetting ourselves in our work or activity we encounter
objects and people but are not caught on each other and every
detail. In the same way that water fits into a vessel, we have no
separate or fixed idea of who we are. (3)With nothing before
birth and nothing after birth, the mind is always new. In this very
moment and place the mind is always unhampered, not fixed or
moved around. The simple clear mind works like this, and this is
Dharma, which cannot be defined in hard, fast words.

Dojo : Most commonly, dojo refers to a place where one can join a
teacher and according to his teaching dig deep within and
clarify the essence of Zen. In Japan, each Zen training dojo is
affiliated with a headquarters temple that is then responsible for it.
Nevertheless, as it is written in the Vimalakirti Sutra, a dojo is not
necessarily a formal location but rather refers to the minds true
clarification of this essence. All people of training can be working to
clarify this essence wherever they go; it does not require a
system or prescribed building. Three people and a true teacher
supporting and polishing each other are a dojo.

Hondo : The traditional layout of a Zen temple had a butsuden

where the statue of the Buddha was honored, sutras were read,
and the footprints of the ancients were studied. In the butsuden,
the statue of the Buddha was placed centrally, where prostrations
could be made to it. Separately, there was a hato, where a

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teacher with the same awakening experience as the Buddha
taught the Dharma. The mountain gate, or main gate of the temple,
was in front of these two buildings. Later, the functions of the
butsuden and the hato were combined into one building, known as
the hondo.

Kalpa : An infinitely long period.

Kanji : The Chinese character that make up a significant

portion of the Japanese written language.

Kendo : Japanese style fencing.

Kensho : Enlightenment; the awakening to ones true nature, prior to

ego. In our original clear and pure mind there is not a speck
of dualism or any impurity. To awaken to this true original quality
of the mind is to experience kensho.

Ki : A universal force that constitutes and moves all things. As

we take in food and water and oxygen our energy is deepened, and
our common living essence increase. According to the ways of
Eastern medicine, ones respiration fills one with ki, and with this
living energy one can touch and effect many things. When we do
zazen, using our tanden breath, we revitalize not only own bodies
but the people and world around us.

Koan : Specific words and experiences of the ancients that

cannot be understood by logic or rational thought. The word koan
originally referred to a case that established a legal precedent. In
Zen, however, a koan is not a case that deals with past and
future, good and bad; rather, it allows us to clarify the truth by
cutting through all of these concepts. If we cannot pass through
the patriarchs gates, our path will be obstructed by dualistic
concepts such as good ad bad, past and future; we will be
nothing more than a blown weed caught by words describing
someone elses experience. And what is this passage of the
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patriarchs? As it is said in the Mumonkan, people who want to
clarify this Great Matter must focus on Joshus Mu single-
minded determination, and then we can not only meet the
living Joshu but also can walk hand-in-hand with the ancients, see
with their eyes and hearing with their ears.

Mumon : See Mumonkan.

Mumonkan : A collection of forty-eight koans complied by Mumon

Ekai (Wu- men Hui-kai ; 1183-1260) The title is of translates in
English as The Gateless Gate.

Nen : The mind of right now; a single mind instant without

any added association; that which is brought forth and moves in
accordance with the world of this moment of this moment but in
which there is no past experience or memory or thinking about
this or that. Even when our essence is strong, if we are
entertaining extraneous thoughts we cannot see things clearly.
We use susokkan or koans to focus our minds into a state of
oneness. When we encounter each and every thing with no
extraneous thinking and with sharp focus, that which is realized is
pure nen. Taking it one step further, if our focus is clear and
sharp, when something is over and finished, nothing of it remains
or lingers to be dragged along to next moment.

Rohatsu osesshin : The most intense one-week sesshin of

the year, in which people of training make one great determined
effort to let go of all external matters. Ro is a Japanese word for
December, and hatsu is the Japanese word for eighth. It was on
the eighth of December that the Buddha is said to have seen the
morning star shining and awakened to his True Nature. From
ancient times this has been considered the sesshin in which one
must lose ones life completely; only after doing this sesshin is
one considered to be a true person of training. It is impossible to
count how many have realized their True Nature through the

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opportunity of the Rohatsu osesshin.

Samadhi : If someone wants to play the piano well, he or she

needs to forget the fingers, forget the music, and forget the keys;
forgetting all of that, a person can then become the music
completely. This is Samadhi. Likewise, people who play a sport, or
people who are artists, have to let go of their own small-minded
opinions and let them larger Mind move through them. While
having and working with a material object, to be able to let go of
all concepts, and to also let go of ones own smaller self so that
one can function freely, is samadhi.

Samu : In a Zen dojo it is said, 'First is samu, second is

zazen, third is reading the sutra.' Samu is physical work, but it
is also zazen in action. Samu has a spiritual emphasis and is
more than just physical work to the extent that through it you can
give life to your Buddha Nature. When Dogen Zenji was in China
he met an elderly tenzo, or cook, who was drying shiitake
mushrooms in the extreme heat. This was such a torturous task
that Dogen asked the tenzo why he hadnt asked one of the many
younger monks to do the work for him. The elderly tenzo
answered, 'They are not me.' It is easy to ask someone else to
complete a task, but only you can see your own True Nature
to fulfill your work. Here is samus deepest meaning. When
Obakus teacher, Hyakujo Ekai, gave us the rules of the dojo,
he said that all people should do samu equally. Even when he
was very elderly, Kyakujo continued to work in the garden every
day. His monks were so worried about him that they begged him not
to work, and finally one of the young monks hid his tools. When
Hyakujo found his tools gone he went into his room and would
not come out even for meals. When asked if he was ill, he replied
with the famous words, 'A day of no work is a day of no food.'
Through samu, as long as we can move we can offer our lives to
society. Samu is not conceptual work; it is an actualization of the
essence of Zen.

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Sanzen : The process of encountering a true teacher so that
ones ego attachment can be removed and the state of mind of
the Buddha and the patriarchs can be realized. It is also called
the great furnace or the great anvil. This is because, like any
excellent cutting tool, ones Buddha Nature has to be forged over
and over in a very hot flame and then pounded again and again to
remove all the impurities. Sanzen is not a process of vague
discussion or of analyzing ones personality. To get rid of the
impurities in our mind we must work on and over until we finally
realize directly our pure clear mind.

Satori : The Japanese term for the experience of enlightenment.

The terms kensho and satori have almost exactly the same
meaning and are often used interchangeably. See Kensho.

Sesshin : One week of continuous zazen with breaks only for sutras,
eating, and sleeping. Sesshin allows one to spend seven days
deepening ones inner being, gathering the mind in order to
encounter and touch True Mind. See the chapter 'Sesshin.'

Susokkan : when we are born, we are naturally in samadhi with

our breathing, and from the time of our birth until our death we are
never apart from our breathing. In accordance with this Samadhi of
breathing, by doing susokkan we focus on our life energy exactly
as it is - letting go of our attachment to knowledge, past
experience, and other decorations that obscure our essence. We do
not just watch our breath, however, but rather exhale complete and
let go of extraneous thoughts and deepen to the point where we
know the state of mind beyond separation into outside and inside.
We go to where our breath is that of the whole universe and we
become one with all of the life. This is the true essence of
sosukkan, which is explained in more detail in the chapter 'Zazen.'

Takuhatsu : The traditional Buddhist alms rounds, sometimes

called 'begging' in English. It is said that one cannot do

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takuhatsu with a proud mind; one must become humble. To be
able to receive and give with an enemy mind, with no ego
attachment rising, is the point of practice of takuhatsu.

Tanden : The point in the body considered by Eastern medicine

to be the physiological, psychic, and spiritual center of the body.
In Japanese, tan means elixir, that is, life energy; den means rice
field or to raise abundantly. With the tanden we abundantly give rise
to life energy. From our tanden we vibrantly bring forth ki that can
affect even the atmosphere around, and we can then offer this
energy of revitalization to many people. For more on the
tanden, see the chapter 'Zazen.'

Transmission of the Lamp : Among the earliest surviving

histories of Zen Buddhism, the Transmission of the Lamp was
compiled in 1004 by Tao-yuan.

Zazen : Meditation; sitting in which one cuts all connections with

the external world and lets go of all concerns within. See the chapter
'Zazen.'

Zendo : The meditation hall in which monks live and people practice
zazen.

Zenji : An ordained man.

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