someone else's idea, and you are not independent, not your-
self, and not natural. Even if you sit in the cross-legged posi-
tion, if your zazen is not natural, it is not true practice. You
do not have to force yourself to drink water when you are
thirsty; you are glad to drink water. If you have true joy
your zazen, that is true zazen. But even though you have to
force yourself to practice zazen, if you feel something good
in your practice, that is zazen. Actually it is not a matter of
nothing. So if there is no true emptiness in your activity, it
is not natural.
Most people insist on some idea. Recently the younger
generation talks about love. Love!Love! Love! Their minds
are full of love! And when they study Zen, if what I say does
not accord with the idea they have of love, they will not ac-
cept it. They are quite stubborn, you know. You may be
amazed! Of course not all, but some have a very, very hard
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RIGHT UNDERSTANDING
NATURALNESS
109
attitude. That is not naturalness at all. Even though they talk
about love, and freedom or naturalness, they do not under-
stand these things. And they cannot understand what Zen is
in that way. If you want to study Zen, you should forget all
your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind
of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness.
Whatever you do, this attitude is necessary. Sometimes
we say nyu nan shin, "soft or flexible mind." Nyu is "soft
feeling"; nan is something which is not hard"; shin is "mind."
Nyu nan shin means a smooth, natural mind. When you have
that mind, you have the joy of life. When you lose it, you
lose everything. You have nothing. Although you think you
have something, you have nothing; But when all you do
comes out of nothingness, then you have everything. Do you
understand? That is what we mean by naturalness.
E
MPTINESS
should have
"When
you study Buddhism you
general house cleaning of your
a
idea of existence is very difficult to explain. Many people
these days have begun to feel, at least intellectually, the emp-
tiness of the modem world, or the self-contradiction of their
culture. In the past, for instance, the Japanese people had a
firm confidence in the permanent existence of their culture
and their traditional way of life, but since they lost the war,
they have become very skeptical. Some people think this
skeptical attitude is awful, but actually it is better than the
old attitude.
As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope
in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment
that exists right now. You may say, "I can do it tomorrow, or
next year," believing that something that exists today will
exist tomorrow. Even though you are not trying so hard, you
expect that some promising thing will come, as long as you
follow a certain way. But there is no certain way that exists
permanently. There is no way set up for us. Moment after
moment we have to find our own way. Some idea of perfec-
tion, or some perfect way which is set up by someone else, is
not the true way for us.
Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we
do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mys-
tery. When you understand one thing through and through,
you understand everything. When you try to understand
everything, you will not understand anything. The best way
is to understand yourself, and then you will understand every-
thing. So when you try hard to make your own way, you will
help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you
make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can
help you. To be independent in this true sense, we have to
forget everything which we have in our mind and discover
something quite new and different moment after moment.
This is how we live in this world.
So we say true understanding will come out of emptiness.
When you study Buddhism, you should have a general house
cleaning of your mind. You must take everything out of your
room and clean it thoroughly. If it is necessary, you may
mind."
If you want to understand Buddhism it is necessary for you to
forget all about your preconceived ideas. To begin with, you
must give up the Idea of substantiality or existence. The usual
view of life is firmly rooted in the idea of existence. For most
people everything exists; they think whatever they see and
whatever they hear exists. Of course the bird we see and hear
exists. It exists, but what I mean by that may not be exactly
what you mean. The Buddhist understanding of life includes
both existence and non-existence. The bird both exists and
does not exist at the same time. We say that a view of life
based on existence alone is heretical. If you take things too
seriously, as if they existed substantially or permanently, you
are called a heretic. Most people may be heretics.
We say true existence comes from emptiness and goes back
again into emptiness. What appears from emptiness is true
existence. We have to go through the gate of emptiness. This
По
RIGHT
UNDERSTANDING
EMPTINESS
111
Concentration is not to try hard to watch something. In
zazen if you try to look at one spot you will be tired in about
five minutes. This is not concentration. Concentration
means freedom. So your effort should be directed at nothing.
You should be concentrated on nothing. In zazen practice we
say your mind should be concentrated on your breathing, but
the way to keep your mind on your breathing is to forget
all about yourself and just to sit and feel your breathing. If
you are concentrated on your breathing you will forget your-
self, and if you forget yourself you will be concentrated on
your breathing. I do not know which is first. So actually there
is no need to try too hard to be concentrated on your breath-
ing. Just do as much as you can. If you continue this practice,
eventually you will experience the true existence which
comes from emptiness.
bring everything back in again. You may want many things,
so one by one you can bring them back. But if they are not
necessary, there is no need to keep them.
We see the flying bird. Sometimes we see the trace of it.
Actually we cannot see the trace of a flying bird, but some-
times we feel as if we could. This is also good. If it is neces-
sary, you should bring back in the things you took from your
room. But before you put something in your room, it is neces-
sary for you to take out something. If you do not, your room
will become crowded with old, useless junk.
We say, "Step by step I stop the sound of the murmuring
brook." When you walk along the brook you will hear the
water running. The sound is continuous, but you must be
able to stop it if you want to stop it. This is freedom; this
is renunciation. One after another you will have various
thoughts in your mind, but if you want to stop your thinking
you can. So when you are able to stop the sound of the
murmuring brook, you will appreciate the feeling of your
work. But as long as you have some fixed idea or are caught
by some habitual way of doing things, you cannot appreciate
things in their true sense.
If you seek for freedom, you cannot find it. Absolute free-
dom itself is necessary before you can acquire absolute free-
dom. That is our practice. Our way is not always to go in one
direction. Sometimes we go east; sometimes we go west. To
go one mile to the west means to go back one mile to the
east. Usually if you go one mile to the east it is the opposite
of going one mile to the west. But if it is possible to go one
mile to the east, that means it is possible to go one mile to
the west. This is freedom. Without this freedom you cannot
be concentrated on what you do. You may think you are con-
centrated on something, but before you obtain this freedom,
you will have some uneasiness in what you are doing. Because
you are bound by some idea of going east or west, your activ-
ity is in dichotomy or duality. As long as you are caught by
duality you cannot attain absolute freedom, and you cannot
concentrate.
"It is the
EADINESS, MINDFULNESS
readiness of the mind that is wisdom."
In the Prajna Paramita Sutra the most important point, of
course, is the idea of emptiness. Before we understand the
idea of emptiness, everything seems to exist substantially.
But after we realize the emptiness of things, everything be-
comes real-not substantial. When we realize that every-
thing we see is a part of emptiness, we can have no attach-
ment to any existence; we realize that everything is just a ten-
tative form and color. Thus we realize the true meaning of
each tentative existence. When we first hear that everything
is a tentative existence, most of us are disappointed; but this
disappointment comes from a wrong view of man and nature.
It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in
our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find
everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actu-
ally realize this truth, we will have no suffering.
This sutra says, "Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara observes that
112
RIGHT UNDERSTANDING
READINESS, MINDFULNESS
113
Journal Project
Beginning Week 6 of the semester, you will be responsible for producing “journal entries” in regard
to specific readings. Your assignment will be to produce a one (1) page summary of each reading; this
will amount to seven (7) written pages during by the semester's end. Your summary should (a) state
what you find the main thesis of the reading to be; (b) state why you think that is the main thesis of
the reading, in other words, what does the reading say to support your claim, and (c) summarize the
total reading by stating - in summary form - what else the reading says of value.
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