zen316

If you have certain ideas about zazen it is very difficult to know zazen as it is, right in the midst of transiency. There is no way to escape constant change. So, how can I be one with zazen as it is? How can I show the truth of impermanence? I must be I as I really am. This is not just a problem for human beings. A pine tree must be alive as a pine tree. That is all it has to do. Pine tree, bamboo, lake, winter, all show impermanence constantly. Pine tree must be pine tree as it is when the pine tree exists. Winter must be winter as it is when winter comes. Snow must be snow as it is. Only when the pine tree becomes the pine tree as it is, can it show impermanence, which is called nature. This is why we notice how beautiful the pine tree is. When the pine tree is the pine tree as it is, the pine tree really exists with everything else in nature—pebbles, lake, river, sky—this is really the way the pine tree becomes the pine tree as it is. This is the practical aspect of impermanence.

When we sit, two flavors are there. One is very sharp, cutting through delusions, suffering, pain and any emotion like a sharp sword. This is called wisdom. But within wisdom there must be compassion. That compassion is to see human life for the long run. Compassion is not. something we try to create; we cannot do it. Compassion comes from the measure of our practice, which we have accumulated for a long, long time. It naturally happens. Katagiri Roshi

The issues of the mind all boil down to two minds: one that likes to do good, and one that likes to do evil. One mind, but there’s two of it. Sometimes an inclination to do good takes hold of us, and so we want to do good. This is called being possessed by skillfulness. Sometimes an inclination to do evil takes hold of us, and so we want to do evil. This is called being possessed by unskillfulness. In this way, our mind is kept always unsettled and unsure. So the Buddha taught us to develop our awareness in order to know what’s good and worthwhile, and what’s evil and worthless. If unawareness obscures our mind, we can’t see anything clearly, just as when haze obscures our eyesight. If our knowledge gets really far up away from the world, we’ll have even less chance of seeing anything, just as a person who goes up high in an airplane and then looks down below won’t be able to see houses or other objects as clearly as when he’s standing on the ground. The higher he goes, the more everyt

And when you have perfect  composure in your practice. you include everything. You are not  just you. You are the whole world or the whole cosmos. and you  are a Buddha. So when you sit. you are an ordinary human. and  you are Buddha. Before you sit. you may stick to the idea that you are ordinary. So when you sit you are not the same being as  you arc before you sit. Do you understand?  You may say that it is not possible to be ordinary and holy.  When you think this way, your understanding is one-sided. In  Japanese, we call someone who understands things from just one  side a Itllllbtlll-ktlll. "someone who carries a board on his shoul- der." Because you carry a big board on your shoulder, you can- not see the other side. You think you are just an ordinary human,  but if you take the board off, you wiu understand, "Oh, I am  Buddha, too. How can I be both Buddha and an ordinary  human? It is amazing!" That is enlightenment.  When you experience enlightenment, you