{"id":17144,"date":"2019-02-12T05:23:41","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T05:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/?p=17144"},"modified":"2019-02-12T06:31:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T06:31:36","slug":"20190212","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/20190212\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenkyo&#8217;s talk on Sawaki Kodo&#8217;s &#8220;To you&#8230;&#8221;, February 12th 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/csaOyrZppMM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>8. To you who are sobbing because somebody\u2019s put one over on you <\/b><\/p>\n<p>At some point you\u2019ve got to slap yourself in the face and seriously ask yourself: is your personal gain or loss really worth this overwhelming joy and suffering?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSooner or later everyone starts thinking of nothing besides themselves.<br \/>\nYou say, \u201cThat was good!\u201d But what was good? It was only good for you personally, that\u2019s all.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhy is it that we humans are so wiped out?<br \/>\nIt is the constant effort to gain a little advantage that wipes us out.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIllusion means being unstable. Illusion means being controlled by the situation.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nA person with big desires is easily fooled. Even the greatest conman can\u2019t profit from a person with no desires.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nBuddhism means no self, nothing to gain. You must be one with the universe and all living beings.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nNon-self means not turning your back on people.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAll beings are mistaken: we see as happiness that which leads to unhappiness, and weep over an unhappiness which isn\u2019t unhappiness at all.<br \/>\nWe all know the child whose tears suddenly turn into laughter when you give him a cookie. What we living beings call happiness isn\u2019t much more than that.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWe often say, \u201cI saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears!\u201d We act as if this was the firmest foundation there is, but these eyes and ears are not to be trusted at all. Everyone is deceived by their eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind.<br \/>\nEveryone talks about happiness and unhappiness, yet what you hold to be happiness and unhappiness is only a thought, in reality there is actually nothing at all.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nDon\u2019t let yourself be misled by personal gain and loss.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAll beings are wandering around, having entirely lost their composure. The buddha-dharma means displaying a composed posture.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt\u2019s clear that in the human world there are also exceptional situations. It\u2019s just that humans\u2019 weakness is making an exceptionally big deal out of an exceptional situation. They make a bigger fuss than is really necessary.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThere are some who cheat on the preparatory exam, so they have to cheat on the real exam as well, otherwise they won\u2019t pass. They go so far with their stupidity that I almost owe them my respect. But actually if you think about it, you find the same sort of stupidity everywhere in this world.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt\u2019s difficult to drink in moderation. That\u2019s because it\u2019s the wine itself that drinks the wine. It\u2019s exactly the same with the illusions in the world.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nTake a hundred thousand possibilities, line them up and compare them: they all lead down a dead end. This way leads down a dead-end, that way leads down a dead end. Whatever direction you go in, you are stuck.<br \/>\nNow simply throw out everything that would lead down a dead-end. What\u2019s left?<br \/>\n<i>A man of great leisure, beyond learning and doing.<\/i> [Sh\u014dd\u014dka]<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dGKLbJlc_U8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>33. To you who are out of your mind trying so hard to attain peace of mind<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The buddha-dharma is immeasurable and unlimited. How could it ever have been made to fit into your categories.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nNo matter what you are grasping for, it&#8217;s limited.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn any case, only things for ordinary people can be grasped. Grasping for money, clinging to health, being attached to position and title, grasping for satori \u2013 everything you grasp only becomes the property of an ordinary person.<br \/>\nLetting go of ordinary people\u2019s property \u2013 that\u2019s what it means to be a buddha.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen peace of mind only means your personal satisfaction, then it\u2019s got nothing to do with the buddha-dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe buddha-dharma teaches limitlessness. That which is measureless has to be accepted without complaint.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe buddha-dharma is of limitless breadth. But when you try to hold it still, you\u2019ve lost it.<br \/>\nWe\u2019re not talking here about dried cod. Living fish have no fixed form.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen you try to grasp the buddha-dharma, you only end up constipated.<br \/>\nYou mustn&#8217;t limit it either. The buddha-dharma is beyond all limits.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s said, \u201cPraise the Buddha who transcends all things!\u201d So don\u2019t look around as if you\u2019re hung up on something.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe expression \u201ceasy practice\u201d [Footnote: <i>Igy\u014d<\/i>, an expression from Nagarajuna used by Pure Land Buddhism] doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s easy for someone who\u2019s still on this side. \u201cThe strength of the other\u201d [Footnote: <i>Tariki<\/i>, also a Pure Land term] refers to that which goes beyond you as an individual.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\n<i>\u201cOnly a buddha and a buddha can penetrate it completely.\u201d<\/i> [Lotus Sutra]<br \/>\nA person who isn\u2019t a buddha himself can\u2019t accept the buddha-dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou lack peace of mind because you\u2019re running after an idea of total peace of mind. That\u2019s backwards.<br \/>\nBe attentive to your mind in each moment, no matter how unpeaceful it might seem to be. Great peace of mind is realized only in the practice within this unpeaceful mind. It arises out of the interplay between peaceful and unpeaceful mind.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nA peace of mind that is totally at peace would be nothing more than something ready made. Real peace of mind only exists within unpeaceful mind.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen dissatisfaction is finally accepted as dissatisfaction, peace of mind reigns.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the mind of a person who had been deaf to criticism when he finally listens to others talking about his mistakes.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the mind of a person who, naked and begging for his life, suddenly dies peacefully.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the mind of a person who has suddenly lost the beggar who had been pulling at his sleeve, relentlessly following him around everywhere,.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the mind after the flood in which the make-up of piety has washed away.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThere isn\u2019t any world in which everything\u2019s right. And still everyone is wandering around in search of it. But what good does it do to wander around endlessly or to cry yourself to sleep in desperation?<br \/>\nThat\u2019s backwards. It\u2019s a matter of sitting immovably in the world and not wandering around.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeace of mind means not running after anything.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWords like \u201carriving\u201d or \u201csatori\u201d shouldn&#8217;t refer to intellectual understanding. They mean being unmoved, no matter what happens. In life and in death.<br \/>\nMany believe peace of mind means freeing themselves from suffering in order to always be happy. That\u2019s mistaken. However great our suffering may be, the answer isn\u2019t to thrash around with your hands and feet. It\u2019s to stay calm.<br \/>\nIf you want to observe the state of a person who doesn\u2019t have any peace of mind, look at a mouse in a trap. It thrashes around with all of its might, a man sees it and throws it to the cat for food, and the cat eats it with pleasure. This is how you can understand that thrashing around with your hands and feet is a waste of energy.<br \/>\nInstead, sit peacefully in zazen.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nHow could a human being ever have peace of mind? The real question is what you&#8217;re doing with this human life. What you&#8217;re doing with this stinking sack of flesh, that\u2019s the issue.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn the buddha-dharma, the ordinary person and buddha aren\u2019t two different creatures.<br \/>\nPeace of mind isn\u2019t about sitting there like a bump on a log.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe buddha-dharma is realized through practice, it\u2019s put into effect by the body. That means that zazen is all about the correct tension and placement of muscles and ligaments.<br \/>\nPractice means to practice an approach to life with zazen as the measure.<br \/>\nWherever this practice is found, peace of mind is fully actualized. The practice is our comportment in every aspect of our lives.<br \/>\n<i>Only when you pull on the cord in the deep autumn fog with all of your heart<br \/>\ndoes the bell sound in the rice paddy on the mountain.<\/i><br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou call Buddha\u2019s name and want to go to paradise as well \u2013 what a waste of effort!<br \/>\nCalling Buddha\u2019s name is already going to paradise. It isn\u2019t necessary to produce superfluous thoughts on top of that. You don\u2019t have to call out Buddha\u2019s name and in addition make an effort to get into nirvana (Nirvana?!).<br \/>\nTokuhon writes \u201cnamu amida butsu [I take refuge in Amithaba Buddha] \u2013 simply saying it is enough.\u201d<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s essential is simply to do what we do \u2013 whether we attain peace of mind or not. This goes for reciting \u201cnamu amida butsu\u201d as well.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XgIyODCUguI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>11. To you who wants to strengthen your hara with zazen<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough zazen you strengthen your hara\u201d [Footnote: A center of energy in the lower abdomen].<br \/>\nKnowing that this hara isn\u2019t worth a damn is real hara and real zazen.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSome people want to strengthen their hara with zazen so that they will be able to scare the bill-collector away with a roar. But they don\u2019t need zazen for that, they just have to drink sake like real men.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThere are books around like \u201cZen and the Art of Cultivating Your Hara\u201d. This hara culture is just about making yourself numb.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSome try to become thick-skinned through zazen.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nDeveloping real hara means putting aside your personal attitudes.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIf it\u2019s even the slightest bit personalized, it isn\u2019t pure, unadulterated zazen.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve got to practice genuine, pure zazen, without mixing it with gymnastics or satori or anything. When we bring in our personal ideas \u2013 even only a little bit \u2013 it\u2019s no longer the buddha-dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn a word, Buddhism is non-self [muga]. Non-self means that \u201cI\u201d am not a separate subject. When \u201cI\u201d am not a separate subject, then I fill the entire universe. That I fill the entire universe is what\u2019s meant by \u201call things manifest the truth\u201d.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn true dharma there&#8217;s nothing to gain.<br \/>\nIn false dharma there&#8217;s something to gain.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIf you practice zazen when you are overwhelmed by feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow and contentment, these feelings will haunt your zazen like a terrible ghost.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nDon\u2019t bring anything with you into zazen: not the buddha-dharma, not firearms \u2013 and especially not your wife! [Footnote: This is a word-play in Japanese: the buddha-dharma is <i>bupp\u014d<\/i>, firearms is <i>tepp\u014d<\/i>, and wife is <i>ny\u014db\u014d<\/i>.]<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe way of buddha means that there is nothing to seek, nothing to find [mushogu-mushotoku]. If there\u2019s something to find, no matter how much we practice, it\u2019s got nothing to do with the buddha-dharma. If there\u2019s nothing to find [mushotoku], that\u2019s the buddha-dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhatever it is you\u2019re trying to grasp, even if you get it, sooner or later you\u2019ll lose it again.<br \/>\nTrue wealth is not grasping for anything. It\u2019s shining our light inwards and reflecting upon ourselves. When we take a step back, we see that there\u2019s nothing to grasp, nothing to run after and nothing to run away from. The form of reality doesn\u2019t arise and doesn\u2019t pass, it\u2019s neither pure nor impure, it neither increases nor decreases.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nA monk, Yakuzan, is practicing zazen and his teacher, Master Sekit\u014d, asks him, \u201cWhat are you doing there?\u201d<br \/>\n\u2013 I\u2019m not doing anything at all.<br \/>\n\u2013 If you\u2019re not doing anything at all, does that mean that you\u2019re just passing the time?<br \/>\n\u2013 If I were passing the time, than I\u2019d be doing something, but I\u2019m not even doing that.<br \/>\n\u2013 You say you\u2019re doing nothing. What is it that you\u2019re not doing?<br \/>\n\u2013 Even a thousand wise men couldn\u2019t name it.<br \/>\nNothing is as still and noble as this zazen that even a thousand wise men couldn\u2019t name, the zazen which Yakuzan practiced and Master Sekit\u014d praised.<br \/>\nThese days there are some masters who you can sit with for a week, and for a nice sum of money you\u2019re guaranteed a kensh\u014d experience. It\u2019s obvious that anything like that has nothing to do with Yakuzan\u2019s zazen which even a thousand wise men couldn\u2019t name. Sitting and practicing that which even a thousand wise men couldn\u2019t call by name means simply sitting, shikantaza.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThese days there\u2019s a lot of talk about zazen. The question is simply: what are they trying to do with their zazen? Some toil away to cultivate their hara, to become stronger personalities, to get satori and so on and so forth. The little monks even call koan training a \u201cguessing game\u201d.<br \/>\nAll this is nothing more than buddha-dharma from the point of view of ordinary people. But the buddha-dharma isn\u2019t a dharma for ordinary people. We\u2019ve got to observe the buddha-dharma with the eyes of the buddha-dharma. That\u2019s why it is so rare that zazen itself truly practices zazen.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSome people want to use zazen to become better people. Zazen for them is nothing more than make-up.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThis isn\u2019t an educational institution here! What we are trying to do is to become a blank slate. Here there\u2019s nothing to gain. Here\u2019s a place where you have to let go of all illusion and wisdom.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe buddha-dharma isn\u2019t about making average people into special people.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nZazen takes place when you stop elbowing the others to get ahead.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou go swimming every morning in cold water? So what: a goldfish does that all the time.<br \/>\nYou\u2019ve quit smoking? Yeah, so\u2026? A cat doesn\u2019t smoke either.<br \/>\nHowever proud you are of how well you run after this and run away from that, it\u2019s nothing more than wandering around in the world of impermanence.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou can\u2019t talk anyone into doing zazen \u2013 and you can\u2019t talk them out of it either!<br \/>\n[footnote: a literal translation would be : \u201cZazen does not elevate you, and it doesn\u2019t lower you either!\u201d And yet another reading would be: \u201cZazen doesn\u2019t praise you, and it doesn\u2019t scold you either.\u201d]<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nTrue religion is seeing the world as it is, free of all fabrications.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEverything is good as it is. We don\u2019t need to fool around with it.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone believes they have to add something to their zazen or nembutsu.<br \/>\nWe don\u2019t need to add anything.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nHowever unusual and mystical your experiences may be, they won\u2019t last your whole life long. Sooner or later they\u2019ll fade away.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOrdinary people really go for miracles and magic. They love hocus-pocus.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOrdinary people by nature don\u2019t like practice, they only want satori. They want to earn money without working. That\u2019s why they form lines at lottery windows. And they don\u2019t want the true dharma, but they swarm towards the new sects that promise heaven on earth.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou get stuck on satori, you get stuck on money, you get stuck on position and name, you get stuck on sex. Not getting stuck is what\u2019s meant by the buddha-dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nZazen is a mature posture, a mature attitude, not a childish one.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>8. To you who are sobbing because somebody\u2019s put one over on you At some point you\u2019ve got to slap yourself in the face and seriously ask yourself: is your personal gain or loss really worth this overwhelming joy and suffering? ** Sooner or later everyone starts thinking of nothing besides themselves. You say, \u201cThat was good!\u201d But what was good? It was only good for you personally, that\u2019s all. ** Why is it that we humans are so wiped out? It is the constant effort to gain a little advantage that wipes us out. ** Illusion means being unstable. Illusion means being controlled by the situation. ** A person with big desires is easily fooled. Even the greatest conman can\u2019t profit from a person with no desires. ** Buddhism means no self, nothing to gain. You must be one with the universe and all living beings. ** Non-self means not turning your back on people. ** All beings are mistaken: we see as happiness that which leads to unhappiness, and weep over an unhappiness which isn\u2019t unhappiness at all. We all know the child whose tears suddenly turn into laughter when you give him a cookie. What we living beings call happiness isn\u2019t much more than that. ** We often say, \u201cI saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears!\u201d We act as if this was the firmest foundation there is, but these eyes and ears are not to be trusted at all. Everyone is deceived by their eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Everyone talks about happiness and unhappiness, yet what you hold to be happiness and unhappiness is only a thought, in reality there is actually nothing [&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-17144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17144","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=17144"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17158,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17144\/revisions\/17158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}