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Teisho December 6 (1991)
by Harada Tangen Roshi, Bukkoku-Ji
The oak tree in the front garden. Koan. A monk once asked Joshu, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?” Joshu answers: “The oak tree in the front garden.” Mumon’s commentary: If you can firmly grasp the essence of Joshu’s answer, for you there is no Shakyamuni in the past, and no Maitreya in the future. Mumon’s poem:
Words do not convey actualities,
Letters do not embody the spirit,
One who attaches to words is lost,
One who abides with letters will remain in ignorance.
Your resolution in the face of everything is to awaken to everything. Directly. Directly awaken to what is most important. Your resolution is to awaken to everything, and you are dedicating, you are devoting, your all to this. How thankful, there is no room here for lies, for falsehoods, or anything artificial. No room for deception, no room for coincidence. The most important thing is you yourself. Your real self. Because it embraces everything.
Steadily, earnestly, you are exhausting yourself. You are being one with this, this one way of practice. Who is doing this? Who is practicing this one way practice? All the universe. And who is being lazy? Who could it be? Who is looking off, who could this be? Hurry up and realize that there is nobody to look off, because until you realize that there is nobody to be distracted, then you wouldn’t realize that you are looking off, you wouldn’t realize that you are falling to distraction. You got to open your eyes, you got to go for it. For life or death. That means putting everything you’ve got into this. This one breath.
It’s big, this is not that big that’s in contrast to small. Because no matter what you can bring in to compare with this true, this true self, well there is no standing or footing for comparison. So I say, stop grasping. You are grasping because you falsely perceive a solid entity called me. So you falsely perceive that there is something to grasp. There was never any such beast to grasp. Hey, what are you dallying away the time for.
Get on with the oak tree in the front garden.
The oak tree in the front garden. A monk once asked Joshu… Joshu, the old muburu comes out here again. Your common connection with Joshu must be really widening. A monk asked Joshu… A monk means every one who seeks dharma, everyone who is seeking dharma, is truly a monk, truly. You can help but seek truth. Why is this? It’s because everyone suffers. Everybody is drowning in a sea of suffering, and that’s why you have to find the answer. Most people don’t even realize that it is suffering. They just toddle about like babies. The heart still isn’t set on finding what’s real. Just, they are just lost in good and bad, looking this way and that, comparing this with that. You are arrogant when you feel like you are looking good, you start to turn up your nose at others. But when you come up against the wall, you envy others. You despise them. There are other things more utterly painful still then this, but the point here is that you try not to face the pain. You seek to sneak past it. To somehow escape it. This is not seeking truth.
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