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Therefore, when doing zazen we just sit, letting go of everything that comes up. All that has been learned is given back to learning, all that is memorized is given back to memory, all that has been thought is given back to thought. To let go of everything—that is the posture of zazen.
Religion has long been concerned with people’s relationship to an authority above them. People come under a suggestive spell through the words of that authority and proceed to call the complete submission to that authority religion. However, Zen is not a
religion in this sense, either.
On the contrary, this is the attitude of discovering the life within the self that is connected to all things. It means aiming at manifesting the life of each and every encounter, and seeing all of these encounters as our own life. This life attitude is referred to in Buddhism as compassion. A person unable to find compassion toward others cannot be called a person of zazen who has awakened to the reality of the life of the whole self.
Therefore, we can say that zazen is for the Buddhist much as God is for the Christian.
Our life as a person lies precisely where we live in peace while progressing. Dōgen Zenji refers to this as the identity of practice and enlightenment. This is without a doubt the structure of the actualization of life.
however, I should point out that living by vow is quite different from the religious life of the Christian, for in Buddhism there is no notion of sacrifice.
To truly repent does not mean offering an
apology; rather, repenting requires facing life straight on, and letting the light of absolute reality illuminate us. What does it mean to be illuminated by absolute reality? The Samantabhadra Bodhisattva Dhyana Sutra says, “If you wish to repent, sit zazen and contemplate the true nature of all things.” In other words, it is in doing zazen that true repentance is actualized.
Where there is no vow, we lose sight of progress; where there is no repentance, we lose the way. Vow gives us courage; repentance crushes our arrogance. This is the posture of a vivid, alive religious life.
A person who discovers the direction of his life in zazen, who vows and at the same time lives by repentance through zazen, is called a bodhisattva.59
Most people live by their desires or karma. They go through their lives dragged around by desires and hindered by the consequences of previous harmful actions. In Japanese that kind of life is called gosshō no bompu. Gosshō are the obstructions to practicing the Way caused by our evil actions in the past. Bompu simply means ordinary human being—that is, one who lives by karma. Our actions are dictated by our karma: we are born into this world with our desires and may live our whole lives just reacting or responding to them.
In contrast to that is the way of life of a bodhisattva who lives by vow (ganshō no bosatsu).
In contrast to that a bodhisattva, though undeniably still an ordinary human being like everyone else, lives aiming at the well-being of everyone, as the direction of his or her own life.
The power of life that is buried deep inside you will never rise up until you have become convinced that you’re walking the only path open for you.
Once there was a monk in our sangha named Dōki Zentetsu, who was conscripted during the war. Just before he died in battle, we received a long letter from him. He wrote, “There are many young men like myself here who could get shot at any moment. I really wonder about the sanity of it all, but if I do get hit, what else can I do but shut up and die?”
There are times when an evaluation or criticism by others hits home, but then there are other times when it’s way off the mark. If it’s correct, then you ought to sit on it for a while and consider the matter. If it isn’t, then it should be enough for you to tell yourself it’s off the mark and let it go at that. If you aren’t able to forget criticism by others, how can you really be living out the full reality of your life? To practice Buddhism means to confront and live out the reality of your life, so if some unwarranted criticism comes along, your practice is to live it out by not getting
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You should know that it’s not enough for a bodhisattva to just uphold the precepts. There are times when you have to break them, too. It’s just that when you do, you have to do so with the resolve of also being willing to accept whatever consequences may follow.
A bodhisattva is one who sees the world through adult eyes and whose actions are the actions of a true adult.
In the first chapter, called “Instructions for the Cook” (Tenzo Kyōkun), Dōgen Zenji speaks of the spirit of the bodhisattva’s actual life in terms of three minds or attitudes toward life: magnanimous mind, nurturing mind, and joyful mind.60
As long as we base our lives on distinguishing between the better way and the worse way, we can never find absolute peace such that whatever happens is all right.
We place ourselves within the illusive flow of time from past to future and become bound by our relationships with others, bound by the force of habit of the past, and bound by our goals for the future. Being totally tied up, we are dragged around by the expectations of our small egos and end up floundering in desperation.
This is equally true in zazen as the practice of the Buddha Way. If in our practice we try to achieve some goal by means of zazen, even if the goal is satori, then we have become completely separated from true zazen and practice.
In the “Instructions to the Head Cook” this is referred to as joyful mind, or kishin, the mind that lives in accord with the true value of life.
Rather, joyful mind is discovering one’s worth and passion for life through the action of parental mind toward everything we encounter.
Any bodhisattva aspiring to live the Way of Buddha will without exception possess these three minds of magnanimity, joy, and parental care.
Becoming an adult is nothing other than each one of us becoming a bodhisattva, where we see every encounter as our child and discover our joy and ardor in life through looking after each of our children.
I propose that a bodhisattva, protected and guided by zazen and living by vow and repentance, must be the true ideal image of a human being for the coming age.
3. Zazen must work concretely in our daily lives as the two practices (vow and repentance), the three minds (magnanimous mind, nurturing mind, and joyful mind), and as the realization of the saying “Gaining is delusion, losing is enlightenment.”
“No gaining, no knowing” is the attitude of refraining from all fabrication.
To practice opening the hand of thought, right now, right here, knowing that the reality of life is beyond human thought—that is what it means to practice buddhadharma only for the sake of the buddhadharma.
People want the buddhadharma to be useful or to satisfy their desires. That’s no good. The true Buddha Way is to practice buddhadharma for its own sake.
Opening the hand of thought is itself what is most valuable.
True zazen is not practiced for the sake of some value promoted by desire.
Zazen, which is letting go and opening the hand of thought, is the only true teacher. This is an important point. I have never said to my disciples that I am a true teacher. From the beginning I have said that the zazen each of us practices is the only true teacher.
What I am attempting to do through all my writings is to clarify just what true zazen is. And, of course, it is even more important to train people who can teach true zazen directly.
As long as we are living, we eat cabbage and rice, bread and wine. Our bodies are collections of such stuff. Superficially, it seems that our bodies are separate from the rest of the world. But as a matter of fact, our bodies continuously radiate heat and moisture and absorb nutrients and light. Everything is coming and going with remarkable freedom. We really are universal. Where are we going after death? Back to universal life. That’s why the Japanese refer to the recently deceased as shin ki gen (“one who has returned to the origin”). This universal life is the original self.
In our life as personal self, universal self is not something to yearn for, it is the direction toward which we should aim. This is the meaning of “vow.” The first of the four bodhisattva vows is “Sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them all.” This means to settle as universal life wherever that life naturally settles. The second vow is “Cravings are inexhaustible, I vow to extinguish them all.” This means refraining from being dragged around by one’s thoughts. But as long as we are human beings, we’re going to have a mind that fabricates illusions, and so we have to continuously
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The true mind of sentient beings—that is, universal self—itself is vow.
For example, Buddhist priests generally moralize too much. If we reflect upon ourselves intently, we can see that no one is entitled to do this. There’s no use trying to hide the fact that none of us can carry out all our ethical teachings.
I guess, because when I talk about morality, I also reveal that I myself can’t follow what I’m proposing. I try to expose my own faults as a form of repentance.
7. Cooperate with one another and aim to create a place where sincere practitioners can practice without trouble.
We shouldn’t imagine that life after retirement has to be miserable or impoverished. To be old is also one of our roles. When we’re young, our role is to work; upon retirement, we take up another role. Since we have less income, we should simplify our lives as much as possible. That is the way to fulfill the role of an old person. We should not judge it miserable, but just devote ourselves to that particular role. We function through our roles and exert ourselves in our occupations as a role. Finally, dying is one of our roles.
