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Teisho April 2 (1992)
by Harada Tangen Roshi, Bukkoku-Ji
We are well into seshin. You find, I know, that you are working hard, single-mindedly at the practice that you’ve been given, at your practice. But can you always practice steadily? Steadily, just as you’ve been shown how to practice. No matter what comes up, with no obstacles. You are doing it some of the time. But then you let something grab your attention, a thought or whatever, and you start to look away, you get interested in something else. You have been shown how to practice, just stick with it. Stay with it continuously, like you are driving down a straight road. But maybe you feel that you just can’t quite get yourself to practice, to stick with your practice continuously, like you are driving down a straight road.
So what am I supposed to do? What is the key, so to speak? Here it is. No matter what comes up, neither indulge in it, nor seek to repress it. Neither indulge, nor repress. This is empty mind, this is the meaning of not grasping, not carrying, not sliding. It’s body and mind dropped. No matter what comes up, neither indulge in it, nor seek to repress it. Carry nothing, don’t try to hold on to anything. But hey, is this something that really can be done? It is, of course. And once your eyes have opened, you will see that everything has already always been just this way. There is really no possibility of carrying and bringing. So this is sort of a description of reality.
When you stop looking off, everything that appears reveals this. You are now, though, I suppose, looking off around you, looking outside for something. You have the feeling that what you need has to be gotten.
Grasped. So you are involving yourself in this way and that, in abstractions. You feel that if this or that, situations which you are supposed to be outside yourself, you feel that if this or that, if it just could be changed, then you would be happier. You phone me this, you phone me that, this is looking to the outside. But you can let go of this style of seeing and being.
Forget body and mind, let go of them. This is what all of the ancient teachers have told us to do. Will I really be OK if I forget body and mind? You have your fears, you will be OK.
Just set aside your body and mind, throw them into the house of Buddha, and all is done by Buddha. When you follow this, you are free from birth and death, and you will become a Buddha without effort, without calculation. Without effort, without calculation, just slamming yourself into this.
Throw yourself into the house of Buddha. These are the words of Dogen. He talks to us just as a parent teaches a child, about exactly what we must do. His teaching arises from his own experience. If your karma with the teaching is really ripe, then just to hear these words alone, these words which lay out the way to practice so clearly, it will be enough for you. You can hear them and follow them. But because it is so easy, for every one of us, to get confused, or to be hesitant, then various ways to practice are given us. Counting your breaths, following your breaths, shikantaza, the sound of one hand, the original face, muji. With this practice you’ve been given, well, you’ve been given a fine feast. If you open yourself, if you become empty, you can receive this feast. But if you are not empty, you cannot swallow it. So if you are counting your breaths, just count this breath. Steadily, firmly become one with the breath.
In the beginning it would seem that there is somebody counting the breaths, that there is an I counting the breaths, I am breathing. You append this I to everything that you do. I am doing tantei, I am doing mu. I told you repeatedly that tantei means oneness doing. The notion that I have, I am, it carries within itself implicit duality, division, separation. When you are really practicing, you are becoming one with whatever you are doing. There is no room for I, me, or mine to show its face. This is forgetting body and mind. You become one with your practice, you become your practice.
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