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Teisho April 1 (1992)
by Harada Tangen Roshi, Bukkoku-Ji
This is the April sesshin, this is the first sesshin of the new retreat period. You have already taken your first steps. This step, this step is always fresh and new. If your beginning is not right, myriad practices will be useless. Be aware of this, set out on the right foot. Begin this sesshin, begin your practice with this step, begin with the right aim. If you don’t think that the right aim means anything, then you will probably live to regret it. Setting out on the right foot, practicing for the right aim is believing in the true dharma. I will practice true dharma, I will be a person of true dharma. What is this, this true teaching, this true dharma? There are those who have a deep connection with dharma teaching, those who will hear the dharma teachings once and believe deeply, and never once doubt what they’ve heard. And there are those whose present connection with the dharma teaching is weak, and who will not have the ears to hear a word of it. Hearing not a word of dharma, such a person would pass his lifetime having missed it. And probably the next and next lifetimes as well.
We have just read, as before every teisho, the arousing thought or the desire for enlightenment. Each line, each word can speak to you. Each line reveals life. If you’re dharmatized, indeed, you can taste this feast, you can chew it, and you can say for yourself, “What a feast!” Chanting this Hotsuganmon, chanting it over and over as you do, you can hear it ever more deeply. As you chant the chant, you are ever more able to venerate it. Venerate. What does that mean? It means that there are no obstacles. Why? When you can bow in veneration it means that your self-cherishing has dropped away. You are empty. You are one with the so called object of veneration. But of course there is no object, no opposition.
Dogen’s arousing desire for enlightenment reveals Dogen’s deepest desire. It’s our desire. Your desire, my desire, it’s the desire which rises from life itself. It’s our prayer, our promise, our vow, we are one with all of those who have ever practiced, who will ever practice.
We live from this desire. The Hotsuganmon starts off with the words we vow. We vow, we pray, we promise, we desire. It’s the desire of life. To realize enlightenment for the sake of all beings is not just a plan, an idea that we’ve come up with on our own, in our heads. I vow that together with all beings…, “together with all beings” can’t be dropped. It’s just naturally included in the vow.
Enlightenment, the vow to become enlightened, means that all beings are included. Of course, we are all together in this. One and the same. But all this is just words to us as long as we don’t know ourselves. I-me-mine, we grasp this false notion of the self, and we make our world so very small. Once awaken to the true eye, though, you know that “together with all beings” is a given. It’s the way it is. Together with all beings, one. All beings means all. Nothing can leak out of this all. All beings.
Everything, everyone, is born of causes and conditions. Everything is born in cosmic relation to everything else. Other interdependence, that’s what it is all about. Geology shows us fossils in the rock strata, layer after layer built on top of layer after layer. Fossils millions or billions of years old. With the awakened eye, you will see that everything that comes before the eye is born thanks to its interdependence, its cosmic relation with everything else in the universe. You yourself CAN come to see this way. You yourself can come to understand. To understand that whatever is seen, whatever is heard, is marvelous, rare, valuable. Everything is just as it is, no two things are alike. But just hearing me talk about the other, value each thing in the universe, doesn’t really make you, cause you, to cherish each and everything, does it?
I guess we have in our heads pretty much decided what is valuable. Maybe the newer the thing, the more valuable we see it to be. Talk about antiques and we prize a 200 year old bowl. But how far in seeing can we possibly get? If your dharma eye, if your life sight is opened, then you see the limitless value of anything. Everything comes before you. Of a pebble that you’ve kicked with your foot. Each and everything is born of timeless cosmic connections with everything else. What could not be precious? We get very caught up in what appears in fixed form before our eyes. But let the wind touch you. It’s dear, it’s familiar. The quiet evening light of April, here before the birth of your parents. Fresh, cool, warm breeze of April. Timeless. Including everything. Dear, familiar. If… can let it touch you.
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