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22. To you who wish you could lead a happier life

“Rest awhile and everything will be fine.”
We simply need to take a short break. Being buddha means taking a short break from being a human. Being buddha doesn’t mean working your way up as a human.
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What makes Ryōkan so refreshing is that he doesn’t fondle things.
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In everything, people follow their feelings of joy, anger, sadness and comfort. But that’s something different from everyday mind. Everyday mind means cease-fire. Without preferences, without animosity, without winner and loser, without good and evil, without joy and pain – that’s everyday mind.
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“What sort of person stands on the ground where there’s neither coming nor going?”
Kyūhō answered, “The stone sheep versus the stone tiger: sooner or later they’ll get tired of staring each other in the eyes.” The stone sheep won’t flinch. The stone tiger won’t jump out of hunger. That’s the point – encountering things beyond thinking.
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What do we have when we truly have a grip on things as they are? Beyond-thinking. Beyond-thinking doesn’t allow itself to be thought. No matter if you think so or not: things are simply as they are.
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“All things are empty” means there’s nothing we can run into, because nothing is really happening. We only think something’s happening because we are intoxicated by something.
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Nothing is ever happening, no matter what seems to be going on – that’s the natural condition. Illusion means losing this natural condition.
Normally we don’t recognize this natural condition. Normally we cover it with something else, so it’s not natural anymore.
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The buddha-dharma means the normal condition. Yet in the world everything is unnatural. Domineering, succumbing and discussing everything to death are unnatural.
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What’s […]

20. To you who like to hear ghost stories

People often ask me if ghosts really exist. Somebody who racks their brains over something like that is what I call a ghost.
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It’s said that the dead appear as ghosts, but that’s only true as long as you have the living. When the living are dead, they won’t see any more ghosts. In Yogacara philosophy, ghosts are the tools of the living.
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One person says he saw a ghost, someone else learned of somebody’s death in a dream. What’s all this besides individual scenes in the theatre of transmigration.
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Isn’t everything a hallucination? It’s only because we don’t recognize this hallucination as a hallucination that we wander around in life and death.
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Everyone is dreaming. The problem is simply the differences between the individual dreams.
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When you are dreaming, it isn’t clear to you that you’re dreaming. If somebody hits you in the face, it hurts. But this pain is also only in the dream.
One dream keeps another company, that’s why even a dream doesn’t recognize the other as a dream.
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Some underpants are hanging to dry on a branch. Somebody sees them and thinks they’ve seen a ghost. Maybe you’re thinking that something like that hardly ever happens in reality, but when we think, “I need money”, “I want to become minister”, “I want to get ahead” – aren’t we all taking a pair of underpants for a ghost?
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Everyone is talking about “reality”, but this is only a dream. It’s nothing more than the reality inside a dream. Good!
When people are talking about revolution and war, we think that something really special is going on, but what is it besides struggling inside a dream? […]

3. To you who are totally exhausted from fighting with your spouse

When you’re fighting with your husband or wife, you don’t realize that the argument is about an illusion. But in zazen, you recognize illusion as illusion. This is why it is important to look at life with the eyes of zazen.
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Equal rights are only an issue when a couple fights. When men and women are getting on well with one another, no one talks about equal rights.
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Whatever you’re thinking, the thoughts that come into your head right now won’t be there in a thousand years.
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The question isn’t who’s right. You’re simply seeing things from different points of view.
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“No one built this wheel of suffering for you, but you’re the one who spins it and you’re the one who rides it.” [Footnote: traditional saying]
You don’t realize this because you’re caught in the framework of your own personal ideas.
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The actions of one and the same person can save a life and can provoke anger. It’s the same sun that sets on New Year’s Eve and that rises on New Year’s Day.
When you open your eyes and recognize the Dharma body,
you see that no single thing really exists. [Shōdōka]
Even a good-for-nothing recognizes that all things are one when he wakes up to his good-for-nothing nature.
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Stop trying to be something special – and just be what you are. Hold fire. Just sit!
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It all begins when we say, “I”. Everything that follows is illusion.
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Everyone imagines that their ego is something unchangeable, some immovable center-point which everything revolves around. There once was a man who said, “Look, everyone is dying except me!” He’s been dead for a long time now.
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Following […]

16. To you who are impressed by scientific and cultural progress

We mustn’t forget that today’s science and culture have only developed out of the lowest levels of consciousness.
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Everybody is talking about culture, but what is it besides a refinement of our illusions?
However much we iron out our drives, from a Buddhist standpoint, it’s got nothing to do with progress or civilization.
Everyone is talking these days about progress, but I wonder in which direction we’re actually progressing.
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Everybody is talking about culture, but what kind of culture is it really? Lewd music, erotic dancing, pornographic literature – completely barbaric.
We stir up our own illusions and then complain about today’s youth and ask, “Who’s responsible for education these days?”
Faith means clarity and purity. It means settling down.
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Everyone is talking about art, but what is it really? Men and women glued to each other. What is it besides stimulation for our sexual desires?
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No animal is as dishonest as a human being. Humans eat their party snacks and dance in a circle; they do scientific research and drop hydrogen bombs on each other.
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When you observe insects in a tank, you see how they bite into each other and hold on with all their might. It must be amusing to observe from another corner of the universe how humans stock up on atomic and hydrogen bombs.
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Acting clever while at the same time being the biggest idiots – that’s human fate.
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People love it when things are complicated. Though things are complicated enough – even when we try to keep them as simple as possible – there are still some who make an effort to be especially complicated in everything […]

他人の目がすごく気になるあなたへ
1. To you who can’t stop worrying about how others see you

屁ひとつだって、人と貸し借りできんやないか。人人みな「自己」を生きねばならない。お前とわしとどちらが器量がいいか悪いかそんなこと比べてみんかてええ。
You can’t even trade a single fart with the next guy. Each and every one of us has to live out his own life. Don’t waste time thinking about who’s most talented.
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目が、オレはカシコィのだげれど、位が低いとも思わず、眉はオレは役なしだげれど、位が高いと思わぬ。仏法の生活とは、この不知の活動である。
山だからというて高いと思わず、海だとて広いとも深いとも思わず、一切合財、不知の活動じゃ。
野鳥自啼花自笑、不干岩下坐禅人・野鳥は坐禅している人に、ひとついい声を聞かしてやろうと思って鳴くわけでもなく、花も人に美しく思ってもらおうと思って咲くのではない。坐禅人も、悟りをひらくために坐禅しているのではない。
みなただ自分が自分を自分しているのである。
The eyes don’t say, “Sure we’re lower, but we see more.”
The eyebrows don’t reply, “Sure we don’t see anything, but we are higher up.”
Living out the buddha-dharma means fulfilling your function completely without knowing that you’re doing it. A mountain doesn’t know it’s tall. The sea doesn’t know it’s wide and deep. Each and every thing in the universe is active without knowing it.
The bird’s singing and the flower’s laughter appear naturally,
completely independent from the person sitting in zazen at the foot of the cliff.
The bird doesn’t sing in honor of the person in zazen. The flower doesn’t blossom to amaze the person with her beauty. In exactly the same way, the person doesn’t sit in zazen in order to get satori. Every single being simply realizes the self, through the self, for the self.
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宗教とは何ものにもダマサレヌ真新しの自己に生きることである。
Religion means living your own life, completely fresh and new, without being taken in by anyone.
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オイ、どっちゃ向いとるんじゃ。藪にらみみたいな目をして。お前自身のこっちゃ。
Hey! What are you looking at? Don’t you see that it’s about you?
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ケツの穴だからというて卑下せんでもいい。足だからというてストライキやらんでもいい。頭が一番エライというのでもない。ヘソが元祖だというていばらんでもいい。
総理大臣が一番エライと思うておるからオカシイ。目の代わりを鼻ではできぬ。耳の代わりを口ではできぬ。みな天上天下唯我独尊である。
The asshole doesn’t need to be ashamed of being the asshole. The feet don’t have any reason to go on strike just because they’re only feet. The head isn’t the most important of all, and the navel doesn’t need to imagine he’s the father of all things.
It’s strange though that people look at the prime minister as an especially important person. The nose can’t replace the eyes, and the mouth can’t replace […]