Teisho October 2 (1992)

by Harada Tangen Roshi, Bukkoku-Ji

This important sesshin, each of you sitting here with all your might, your efforts proportionate to your aim. So you are breaking your bones. If you examine the way that you are practicing now, I think that you will become aware that your efforts are still mild. You won’t be satisfied to practice this mildly to stop here, and so you probably will be able, upon reflection, to pour yourself even more wholly into yourtantei. You are able to practice this tantei. To do this one doing, with all your might.

The great roots of belief, it’s belief in the great dharma. To believe in dharma. We’ve just chanted the founder’s Hotsuganmon. You chanted once, just this once. Newly, freshly. Your chanting is just this one chanting. Mu. In this wholehearted fresh chanting, the Hotsuganmon comes alive. Chanting in this way, you will be moved by the life of the Hotsuganmon. In this life, and all lives to come, may we be able to hear the true dharma. Even just this one line. If you can hear even this one line. Existence, all existence is the union of countless aeons of all existence. The beginning is beginning. The world isn’t just this planet Earth, right? Just recently a space ship was taken up to orbit the Earth, taken up just a bit above the Earth, mind you. Those aboard could look down on this Earth from that little distance away, and someone said, one astronaut said, the space is vast, and it’s completely dark, black. There are bright forms, but no twinkling. Remark to the vastness. Looking at the Earth this way, how precious, how under-appreciated, how warm. This is the chance to see and to appreciate life in all its vitality. Deeply. This astronaut spoke with the spirit of seeing the Earth itself as one mother of life. 
All things are in complete harmony, all things are friendly. As the sees deepen inwardly, as the mountains of the earth, this deepens to greenness. Lively, shiny, bright green. In its essence all being is in harmony.

Getting along, working together, mutually helping, protecting, covering each other. Everything, everyone doing its best, being itself. Together with all beings. This abundance that we are blessed with, this reality can’t be expressed. But how wonderful to be able to deeply, right to your bones, appreciate this blessing, which is our Earth. I wish everybody could have the chance to go up to space and look at this being Earth. And be able to see how wonderful we’ve got it. Be able to see how wonderful is our world, how superb, and how beyond complains. But unfortunately, most unfortunately, those who can see this preciousness are few and far between. 

And even if we had a chance to go up in a spaceship and look and be odd, for once, as soon as we land on Earth, we proceed to separate and divide again. It should be that there is no separation, no distance, but we divide and separate everything one by one by one. We set ourselves over and apart from others. And with this attitude it just can’t help to be that we get the feeling that if it’s going well for me, then that’s all I can really be concerned about. I, me, me, mine is the sculptor of this world of opposition. Holding on to this me, holding tightly, we create our cramped world. Of course there really is no such thing as I, me, mine. You are actually the universe. You are now, as you sit here receiving all of life. Great, great life. And you are responsible for the world. You can’t help it answer to this great wonder. In accordance with everything, you practice each doing as it is to be done. One doing, one wholeness doing. Everything is me. But because we don’t understand this, we don’t perceive that everything is me, we all are going about creating separation. While in reality there is no such thing as separation anywhere. If there were, I’d like to see it.

I me, mine, what is it? What’s behind this notion? How do you answer if you are faced with questions about this me? Is I, me, mine big? Is it little? Not big, not little. Is it intelligent, stupid? Not intelligent, not stupid. Your false assumptions about self are constant, so they seem very hard and solid. You really forget who is creating this notion. And you have a constant feeling that there is such a beast as I, me. I am always talking to you about this misconception of self, this misunderstanding, this mistake, false impression. You clutch to it so tightly, to this false impression. This clinging to a notion of self, this is the creator of pain and suffering. Suffering starts with the notion of self. And there is not so much as a hair’s breadth of a self. It’s right what you are saying, really. 
Really, it’s right. Because everything is you. Happening just as it’s supposed to happen. Being, just being. It’s not hot, not cold. The heat and the cold cease with the autumnal equinox, it’s been said. Up until recently, you repeated it over and over. It’s hot, boy it’s hot, isn’t it? With the autumnal equinox, suddenly, it’s no longer hot. Yesterday evening a sound of the little wind blowing through the bamboo outside my door. Somebody good with words composed this song for us. Yesterday evening, a sound of the little wind blowing through the bamboo outside my door. The feeling of early autumn. Always together, embraced in the all, nurtured by all, thanks to everything, this true emptiness, wonderful existence.

There is no possibility of grasping this all, because there is no solidity. The all means all, nothing left out. This is true emptiness. In true emptiness, everything can be revealed. True emptiness, absolute emptiness is not separate from wonderful existence. The absolute and the relative, one. One breath. This one breath. This truth, this one truth. It can’t be thought of, it can’t be imagined, can’t be expressed. No matter how intelligent you might be, you cannot understand this with your head. The discriminating intellect does not begin to reach.

But on a little trip, just a bit away from the Earth, you’ve got the opportunity, or somebody has got the opportunity, to suddenly appreciate, even though it’s just through human emotions. Suddenly the chance to appreciate what we’ve got. This Earth. So I suppose an astronaut’s view of life must suddenly change. It’s interesting. Living here on this Earth, lost in questions of this and that. Delusion vs. satori, good vs. bad, all caught up in this and that. Caught up in discrimination and opposition here on Earth. Maybe you can go into space, get a chance to go into space, and suddenly you can wonder at yourself for having always been so distracted. Must seem that you’ve waked up. 
You could come to see this, to appreciate this, even through artificial means, like the astronauts. True, here, now, you are doing this one doing. This one tantei. Please practice just as I’ve shown you to practice. Although I am asking you always to please practice just as you’ve been shown, if you could just do it. If you would just accept this and practice this way. But so few people do it. It’s habit. You proceed your own way in your own style and then somewhere along the way you come up with something, some notion, some way of thinking that you begin to rely on, you stick to. This is so common, you don’t know you are doing it. But it’s quite obvious in everything you do. But you are caught up. It’s obvious in the way you raise and lower your hand. Don’t cling to your own judgements, to your own notions. In so doing, doing so your world instantly becomes me. 

Grasp something and it will soon seem that that thing is so important. Let go. Become like a blank sheet of paper, empty. I tell it to you like this right from the beginning, but you hang in there wanting to be hung-up, right? Empty, not grasping. It’s not a question of being a few kilometers or some kilometers above the Earth.

Empty, not grasping. You can see the world like it is. Unstuck. For millions and millions of miles. Your habit of creating opposition – cut it! With this one tantei, this one doing. Cut. And you will be able to say, “Of course, the world is this big, this free, this precious.” You can know this for yourself. You can be reborn to the world as it is. You can. Ultimately, together with the great Earth, with all beings we attain Buddhahood. Ultimately, together with the great Earth, with all beings we attain Buddhahood. OK, together with all beings. YES! Yes. You can see it like it is for yourself.
What a new world is this OK. This resounding, accepting YES. What is it, this which is not OK? This which is not YES? What is this which is troublesome? What is all of our pain and our dissatisfaction? What is it? You can see eight clear causes of suffering. First, birth, aging, sickness, death. The reality of birth, aging, death, and sickness is always right at our feet. Clear, clear as a bell for everybody to see. Always threatening us. Some of you come from far, far away to attend sesshin. So far, that it might take years if you have to walk it. Yet you arrive in a flash on a big airplane, just as if you just went to sleep a few minutes, and here you are. Don’t waste this.

Coming from far away, somebody brought me a present. A souvenir. It’s a photograph of an eighty year old fellow with whom I practiced some forty years ago. He has now become a center of a large sangha in America. This photograph was taken to commemorate his 80th birthday. He has become eighty. He looks it. His face is wrinkled. But already eighty years old. Hmm, together sitting, I was in charge of thekyosaku and I hit him over and over and over with thekyosaku. It was my aim to die together with him. If I hit him on the wrong spot and took his breath away – he kills you! – we would definitely die together. In that spirit I struck over and over and over. There in that zendo. Later my olderdharma brother, the roshi of the zendo, told me that he had been afraid that I’ll kill the guy. When that sesshin ended, and it was time for a bath, there he was with a red cushion on the shoulders. “What’s this?”, I thought to caution him. But it was because I struck him so forcefully. But he did not feel any hatred for me, on the contrary. He grinned at me. It was mutual appreciation.

Now, this man has become eighty years old. Hmm, even hit that hard, he was unharmed by all those tracks. Laying down his life with this tantei. And then he was able to break trough withtantei beyond sacrificing his body. With all of your might, put your all into this. This breath. And the world, very straightforwardly, honestly, reveals itself to you. There is no mistaking this. Come on, let’s dare myself to eighty years. To live to be seventy years is rare, that was once said. Eighty is something. What is this? Ten years have already past. It was so fast. Birth, aging. Aging, it does not stop for you. I would like to strike, and strike, and strike all of you. Those who receive the blows must promise to return them. If you strike, you are to be struck. You must repay these blows, but not in a state of blindness. This life, together, there is no coming, no going anywhere. Together. YES! Together.

When you’ve really seen, when you’ve really seen, it’s with this eye, the eye that sees, that you must strike. If you strike in blindness, this is the way of the fighting demon. Birth, aging, sickness, death. How do you feel about it? You will get what you don’t ask for. Just the other day, a child still blue behind the ears was playing happily, freely with our new year’s toys. The young mother brought the toys and they spent their holidays happily. Then three days later, suddenly she lost her sight. The sight of a true eye can’t be lost, of course. But these fleshly eyes, we don’t know when and how the threat will materialize. It’s sudden. Death is sudden, unexpected. Where we go, we don’t know. Space is black. The guy just said.

Where do you go? There are those who don’t believe beyond this life. This material life is all there is and once it’s gone, that’s it. Can you really believe that and be satisfied with it? Is that good enough for you? Perhaps there are those who can say yes, I am OK with this. Somebody who can say yes to this would be somebody who feels that this life is unpleasant. If that’s the foundation of your belief, then you won’t feel that life has to offer much anyway. So what’s the big deal if it is lost? You’ve got no reason really to live. You sometimes laugh and sometimes cry and are caught up in just these superficialities. You laughed yesterday, you have to cry today. So life isn’t such a treasure. This way of thinking must be terribly painful. 

Pain, pain of not getting what you want, of getting what you don’t want. The pain of being separated from those that you love. To have to separate from them is painful, painful. And there is the opposite – God, why do I hate this person so much? Pain of having to deal with somebody you can’t stand. And there is the pain of not being recognized. Causes dissatisfaction, frustration.

The seeds of pain are boundless. But it’s clear that the roots of the pain are your own grasping at I, me, mine. The misconception of the self. And that state is no end to suffering. Nothing to rely on. You can’t possible know that this I, me, mine is self notion that you are grasping. You can’t possibly know what it will encounter and when.

Shakyamuni Buddha started his own practice in order to help liberate us from our suffering. He was not practicing, he was not seeking the way just for his own sake. He was seeking an answer for the liberation of all of us. Everybody’s suffering is my own suffering. I want to be able to help others, to be of use to others. All beings. To help them have peace of mind. This earnest desire from the Bodhisattva heart. Your aim in practice. The pain of all beings is my own pain. And I must unravel the problem of this pain for all beings. This was the Buddha's reason for practice. His starting point. The suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Hundred pains, one hundred thousand pains, what is ours to receive and accept we must receive and accept. But, in essence, the question is, are we permitted to be free from the suffering? That’s the question, and that’s why you are here, now, struggling. Your each breath, each step, each tanteiis the practice that Buddha handed down to us. Your this one step of practice ultimately is no different - not a bit different - from Shakyamuni Buddha’s one step of practice. Ultimately, ultimately together, with the great Earth, with all beings, we attain Buddhahood. Awaken to the roots of truth and you will see that the me, which seems so sticky and so tenacious, so hard and solid, is nowhere to be found. Your time will come to see this clearly. Without a doubt, you can believe it. Your time will come to see this, clearly. Because it’s your own true nature, it’s your own essential truth.

But it is exceedingly difficult to encounter the dharmateachings. In this life and in future lives, may we hear the true dharma. And when we hear it, may we believe it. May it be impossible for us to doubt it. YES. This is just exactly our wish. To know the true self, to know your true self. Just. Nothing left out, no excess. Can you be liberated from the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death? Can you? Of course. It’s only the solidified notion of I, me, mine that gets caught up. It’s only the solidified notion that gets caught up in birth, aging, sickness, and death, and suffering and pain. That pain is the product of this me. There is no solid self. The true life, your true life, is beyond birth and death. It does not get old. My dharma friend who has turned eighty, how did you pass these last forty years, my friend? Always together. Always together. It’s no aging there, huh? No going anywhere, right? And there is no taking it away, it does not cease. No death. 
There isn’t a puff of a cloud covering the true eye. The fear of birth, aging, sickness, and death has been thoroughly dealt with. So then, is it just nothing? Hey, we are not talking about something so mean, so tight. There is everything. Freedom. This one truth world. This oneness truth world. This truth. Everything.

Together with all beings we attain Buddhahood.