To Shine One Corner of the World
A student who
had just concluded a thirty-day
zazen retreat with two enthusiastic dharma pals
asked Suzuki Roshi how to maintain the
extraordinary state of mind
he’d attained.
“Concentrate on your
breathing and it will go away,”
Suzuki said.
Gently I weep for my mind,
caught in its illusion of ownership.
Mind, you’re not who you think you are.
You’re dancing over a pit. Soon you’ll fall through,
and these things you’ve valued and collected will
be left behind. My sweet dear, do you
understand this, and if you do,
how does your food
taste?
Do not go
about worshipping
deities and religious institutions
as the source of the subtle truth.
To do so is to place intermediaries
between yourself and the divine,
and to make of yourself a beggar
who looks outside for a treasure
that is hidden inside his
own breast.
If you want to worship the Tao,
first discover it in your own heart.
Then your worship will be meaningful.
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We say
to practice zazen
without any gaining idea,
without any purpose. Let things work
as they do, supporting everything as your own.
Real practice has orientation or direction, but it has
no purpose or gaining idea, so it can include everything
that comes. Whether it is good or bad doesn’t matter.
If something bad comes: “Okay, you are a part
of me;” and if something good comes,
“Oh, okay.” Because we don’t have
any special goal or purpose
of practice, it doesn’t
matter what
comes.
When the water returns
to its original oneness with the river,
it no longer has any individual feeling to
it; it resumes its own nature, and finds
composure. How very glad the
water must be to come
back to the original
river!
If this is so,
what feeling will we have
when we die? I think we are like the water
in the dipper. We will have composure then, perfect
composure. It may be too perfect for us, just now, because
we are so much attached to our own feeling, to our
individual existence. For us, just now, we have
some fear of death, but after we resume
our true original nature,
there is Nirvana.