{"id":17126,"date":"2019-02-06T07:08:51","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T07:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/?p=17126"},"modified":"2019-02-07T04:44:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T04:44:13","slug":"20190206","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/20190206\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward&#8217;s talk on Sawaki Kodo&#8217;s &#8220;To you&#8230;&#8221;, February 7th 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VDvZCQhprD8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>3. To you who are totally exhausted from fighting with your spouse<\/b><\/p>\n<p>When you\u2019re fighting with your husband or wife, you don\u2019t 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.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEqual 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.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhatever you\u2019re thinking, the thoughts that come into your head right now won\u2019t be there in a thousand years.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe question isn\u2019t who\u2019s right. You\u2019re simply seeing things from different points of view.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\n\u201cNo one built this wheel of suffering for you, but you\u2019re the one who spins it and you\u2019re the one who rides it.\u201d [Footnote: traditional saying]<br \/>\nYou don\u2019t realize this because you\u2019re caught in the framework of your own personal ideas.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe actions of one and the same person can save a life and can provoke anger. It\u2019s the same sun that sets on New Year\u2019s Eve and that rises on New Year\u2019s Day.<br \/>\n<i>When you open your eyes and recognize the Dharma body,<br \/>\nyou see that no single thing really exists. [Sh\u014dd\u014dka]<\/i><br \/>\nEven a good-for-nothing recognizes that all things are one when he wakes up to his good-for-nothing nature.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nStop trying to be something special \u2013 and just be what you are. Hold fire. Just sit!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt all begins when we say, \u201cI\u201d. Everything that follows is illusion.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone imagines that their ego is something unchangeable, some immovable center-point which everything revolves around. There once was a man who said, \u201cLook, everyone is dying except me!\u201d He\u2019s been dead for a long time now.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nFollowing the law of causality, ignorance suddenly rears its ugly head.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nBlindness means that we don\u2019t understand the way things are. If we don\u2019t understand things, the best thing would be to stay calm. But no, instead of this we stomp around like a bull in a china shop. That\u2019s what makes everything complicated.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\n\u201cI was just thinking that things were going better for me, when I fell into a depression again. Oh, my mind is really sick!\u201d<br \/>\nThe question is only: what can you do now with this mind of yours?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nLife is one big contradiction: \u201cHave you seen what he\u2019s done?\u201d When all the while you would have loved to have done it yourself!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nLife isn\u2019t so easy. Sometimes there\u2019s war and the sky is on fire, sometimes you take an afternoon nap by the stove. Sometimes you work the whole night through, sometimes you get drunk with friends.<br \/>\nIn the buddha-dharma it is a question of how you can give direction to this life according to the buddha\u2019s teaching.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou\u2019re in love with each other? But not for your whole life. There was a couple who loved each other so much that they attempted suicide together in order to be united in death. One of the two survived and shortly afterwards fell in love all over again.<br \/>\nHumans are truly pitiful.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nBeauty is no guaranty for a happy life. One woman is so adored by men that she\u2019s already had three children who don\u2019t know who their fathers are.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEverybody talks about marrying for love, but isn\u2019t it really just marrying for sex? In the end isn\u2019t it really only about a penis and a vagina? Why doesn\u2019t anybody simply say that he\u2019s fallen in love with a vagina?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nTake a look sometime at the face of a dog who\u2019s just had sex. He just stares into space with strangely empty eyes. It\u2019s exactly the same with people \u2013 in the beginning they work themselves up into a frenzy, and in the end there\u2019s nothing at all.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nA man who understands nothing marries a woman who understands nothing, and everyone says, \u201cCongratulations!\u201d<br \/>\nNow that\u2019s something I cannot understand.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nFamily is the place where parents and children, husband and wife simultaneously all get on each other\u2019s nerves.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen a child is defiant, the parents curse, \u201cYou don\u2019t understand anything!\u201d But what are the parents like? Isn\u2019t it also true that they don\u2019t understand anything either? Everyone is lost in ignorance.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone is talking about education, but what are we being educated to be? Ordinary citizens, that\u2019s all.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe bull is proud of his nose-ring. And with the pack saddle of desire strapped to his back, he lets himself be led around by the nose and moos too.<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s strange is that people are happy to put up with the same thing. People who can\u2019t stay still in the face of pleasure, anger, sorrow and satisfaction are like mutts who can\u2019t keep from yapping.<br \/>\nWhen the waves of pleasure, anger, sorrow and satisfaction have quieted down, there\u2019s nothing really left to do.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWherever you look, you see how all living beings haggle over the same goods.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEven funnier than watching the monkeys at the zoo is observing these humans on the loose.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/76Y97rBXCyk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>4. To you who have just begun brooding over life<\/b><\/p>\n<p>What a shame to have been born a human being and to spend your whole life worrying. You should reach the point where you can be happy to have been born a human.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nBirth, old age, sickness and death \u2013 we can\u2019t fool around with these ultimate facts.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nReality: getting a handle on this must be our goal. Don\u2019t get stuck in categories.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt\u2019s strange that not a single person seriously considers his own life. For ages, we\u2019ve been carrying around something uncooked. And we comfort ourselves with the fact that it\u2019s the same for the others too. That\u2019s what I call group stupidity: thinking that we just have to be like the others.<br \/>\nSatori means creating your own life. It means waking up from group stupidity.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn a part of Manchuria, the carts are pulled by huge dogs.<br \/>\nThe driver hangs a piece of meat in front of the dog\u2019s nose, and the dog runs like crazy to try to get at it. But of course he can\u2019t. He\u2019s only thrown his meat after the cart has finally reached its destination. Then in a single gulp, he swallows it down.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s exactly the same with people and their pay checks. Until the end of the month they run after the salary hanging in front of their noses. Once the salary is paid, they gulp it down, and they\u2019re already off: running after the next payday.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nNobody can see further than the end of their nose. Everyone believes that their life somehow has meaning, but they\u2019re really no different from swallows: the males gather food, the females sit on the eggs.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nMost people aren\u2019t following any clear approach to life. They get by with makeshift methods, like rubbing lotion on a cramped shoulder. [Footnote: i.e. treating the symptoms and not going to the root of the problem.]<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe question is: why are you straining your forehead so much?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIf you aren\u2019t careful, you\u2019ll spend your whole life doing nothing besides waiting for your ordinary-person hopes to someday be fulfilled.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn the world, people are always saying, \u201cI want to do this, I want to do that.\u201d<br \/>\nBut then when they actually do it, there isn\u2019t anything to it at all.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou read the advice column in the newspaper: just be careful that you don\u2019t end up there with your little problem too!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nNo matter how you look at it, everything in the world revolves around food and sex.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nImagine some chicks have found an earthworm and are now fighting over it. That\u2019s exactly how human society looks.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nLike an avalanche growing as it falls into the valley, the suffering beings of the six worlds become more and more deeply entangled in their illusions.<br \/>\nZazen means putting an end to this.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeople in the world only understand what\u2019s \u201cuseful\u201d. And where has that brought us? Nowhere!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe fight between the cat and the horse over the definition of happiness has apparently never come to an end. So don\u2019t believe what the fortune tellers say: how you need to live your life isn\u2019t fixed!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt\u2019s said that some people are trapped by their money. What is it they do with their money anyway?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe satisfaction everyone in the world looks for is followed by dissatisfaction.<br \/>\nThe happiness that the world talks about gives way to unhappiness.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIllusion means not having any direction in life. And since those lacking direction gather in groups, it\u2019s natural that there are hooligans who beat each other up. And it also isn\u2019t any wonder when wars break out for no reason at all.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nHumans make an intelligent face while groping around in the dark.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen you get used to this strange world of impermanence, it seems completely normal to you. And although actually it\u2019s obvious that survival in this impermanent world is more difficult than zazen, it seems to you to be the other way around: as if zazen were harder than life!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve gotten used to this life: only because of this do we find it normal.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYour body is like a pimple.<br \/>\n[Footnote: What is meant here is that our body, which we often identify with ourselves, isn\u2019t something substantial, but has grown at random, isn\u2019t of any importance, and won\u2019t be missed when it disappears again.]<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEven a beggar laughs, even a jackpot winner sooner or later cries again. Money isn\u2019t what it\u2019s all about.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEverything useful is illusory. No matter how special they seem, useful things are illusory.<br \/>\nThings which are good for nothing [mui], however, aren\u2019t so artificial. Nothing can be gained from them.<br \/>\nEverything is relative. Even the most important thing in the world is only relative. What is beyond all this is the absolute.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt\u2019s no small matter to be born into this world as a human being.<br \/>\nSo what a shame it would be if you went crazy and ended up in an asylum; or if you constantly complained about having no money; or if you lost your mind because you\u2019d just fallen in love, and then were completely overcome with grief because she left you. And so on and so forth . . .<br \/>\nNow that you\u2019ve been born as a human being, you should lead a life which is truly worth living.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nBuddhism teaches us that it\u2019s a joy to be born into this world as a human being.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSamadhi means asking yourself the question: \u201cHow to live?\u201d<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone believes that satisfaction doesn\u2019t mean anything more than laying on the couch or dozing in a hot spring.<br \/>\nNo: satisfaction means being suffused with joy, tranquility and happiness. Only when you\u2019ve fully arrived in the present instant will you experience true joy, tranquility and happiness.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOrdinary people are blown around the six worlds by their desires. And for them there is only love or hate, profit or loss, good or bad, victory or loss.<br \/>\nBut in the end, we have to realize that none of that is good for anything. And so in the end we come to the practice of zazen: simply practicing what isn\u2019t good for anything.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\n\u201cOrdinary person\u201d is the expression for someone who gropes around in the dark, led astray by confusion. What is this confusion really? In the end it doesn\u2019t have any substance. That\u2019s why being led astray by confusion is like playing tug of war with the clouds.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s nothing final about winning or losing. Nevertheless, you cry with joy when you win and cry with pain when you lose \u2013 how stupid!<br \/>\nThis substancelessness, beyond winning and losing, is the true form of all phenomena.<br \/>\nA buddha is someone who untangles the confused.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nA person who understands things is a person who doesn\u2019t let himself be misled by his personal fabrications and karma. People who don\u2019t understand things are constantly looking for distraction: sometimes they fall in love, sometimes they get drunk, sometimes they dedicate themselves to reading, sometimes they do their sport. But they do all of this only half-heartedly, in order to somehow deceive themselves.<br \/>\nSpending our daily lives fooling ourselves in this half-hearted way is what\u2019s called \u201clife in the floating world\u201d. That means that our wobbly legs are carrying us off-track.<br \/>\nAll the nations of the world are stupefied with boredom, that\u2019s why they say, \u201cRight, left, march in step!\u201d And the children are fighting over their toys again.<br \/>\nPeople wheeze from exhaustion their whole life long, without even knowing what they\u2019re wearing themselves out for: it only seems to them as if they had a goal. In truth, there\u2019s absolutely nothing there: only our grave awaits us.<br \/>\nWe can only be at peace when we understand things as they are. When we understand things, we see the universe with a single glance, and the seam between ourselves and the universe vanishes.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWe were born within non-thinking [fushiry\u014d].<br \/>\n[footnote: This means not only that we were all born as babies without much thinking, but that the whole process of life-and-death is one of fushiry\u014d.]<br \/>\n<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWe were simply born and we will simply die. And you ask about the meaning of life. You ask what zazen is good for. Whereby you\u2019d have no right to complain if you had died already last year. Isn\u2019t it clear from the start that life is good for nothing? It is simply coming and going, that\u2019s all. Your problem is that there\u2019s something in you that just can\u2019t accept that.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nScientists observe insects in a terrarium eating their food or each other, mating or chirping away. In the same way, we are \u2013 in everything we do \u2013 under the eye of reality.<br \/>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3. To you who are totally exhausted from fighting with your spouse When you\u2019re fighting with your husband or wife, you don\u2019t 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. ** 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. ** Whatever you\u2019re thinking, the thoughts that come into your head right now won\u2019t be there in a thousand years. ** The question isn\u2019t who\u2019s right. You\u2019re simply seeing things from different points of view. ** \u201cNo one built this wheel of suffering for you, but you\u2019re the one who spins it and you\u2019re the one who rides it.\u201d [Footnote: traditional saying] You don\u2019t realize this because you\u2019re caught in the framework of your own personal ideas. ** The actions of one and the same person can save a life and can provoke anger. It\u2019s the same sun that sets on New Year\u2019s Eve and that rises on New Year\u2019s Day. When you open your eyes and recognize the Dharma body, you see that no single thing really exists. [Sh\u014dd\u014dka] Even a good-for-nothing recognizes that all things are one when he wakes up to his good-for-nothing nature. ** Stop trying to be something special \u2013 and just be what you are. Hold fire. Just sit! ** It all begins when we say, \u201cI\u201d. Everything that follows is illusion. ** Everyone imagines that their ego is something unchangeable, some immovable center-point which everything revolves around. There once was a man who said, \u201cLook, everyone is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17126"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17142,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17126\/revisions\/17142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}