open your hands and walk

Let go of hundreds

of years and relax completely.

Open your hands and walk, innocently.

Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,

are only to free you from

obstructions.

Shitou

listen to the tongueless teaching

First of all,

try to forget yourself

and rely on your true voice,

your voiceless voice, your nonverbal voice.

“Listen to the tongueless teaching,”

we say, don’t listen to my words.

Think about this.

Shunryu Suzuki

One day while

editing a transcription of

Suzuki Roshi’s first lecture on the Sandokai,

I came upon the phrase “things as it is.” I asked him

if perhaps he had not meant to say “things

as they are,” which I thought to be

proper syntax.

“No,” he said,

“what I meant is ‘things

as it is.'”

To Shine One Corner of the World