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Teisho December 1 (1992)
by Harada Tangen Roshi, Bukkoku-Ji
Just mind. Just Buddha. Daibai asks Baso what is Buddha. Baso answers: “Mind is Buddha.” If you can at once realize this, you are wearing Buddha clothes, eating Buddha food, speaking Buddha words, and living Buddha life. You are Buddha yourself.
Though it’s maybe so, Daibai has misled a number of people and let them trust the scale with the stuck pointer. Don’t you know that one has to rinse out their mouth for three days if they’ve uttered the word Buddha. If they are a real person of Zen, they will stop up their ears and rush away when they hear mind is Buddha. A fine day under the blue sky, don’t foolishly look here and there. If you still ask what is Buddha, it is like pleading your innocence while clutching stolen goods.
It’s obvious that we have plunged into Rohatsu. Daiun Roshi, too, always gave teisho on the Mumonkan during Rohatsu. I don’t remember where I left off last year, but I think it must have been right around this case. In any case, you have let me begin here. That which does not change jumps in to the form of this or that, this case or that case. Change in no change. You are here throwing your life into meeting with this. This which does not change. You’ve got to see that which constantly appears to change but does not change. What is it about change, anyway? Look, perhaps things appear not to change. Perhaps things appear solid and ongoing. But nothing maintains a fixed form. Look. Instant by instant. Birth and death.
Rebirth. There is no sitting still. At all times, all places, this is being reborn. Newly, newly coming to life, newly reborn. But if you latch on to this newly reborn, latch on to this which is newly appearing now, latch on and believe this is new, this is now, then you are off the mark. Latching on is off the mark. You will be taking in, jerked around by birth and death. By this, which is supposedly new. It’s a state of mind of the ordinary unenlightened person. If you investigate the roots of your delusory thinking, you find it in the notion that there is a self. That notion which you try to protect and treat so prettily. You have belabored under the false assumption that there is this hard and solid clump of a me. And from this notion flows all manner of discriminating thoughts. If this is your scaffolding, you come to regard your discriminating function in this as the greatest treasure. And all this is based on falsely believing something which isn’t. That something which isn’t is.
Delusory thinking, what we called before the ordinary person’s way of viewing a world. Delusory thinking is a world of bountiful misery. And it’s dangerous, because there is not assurance that you are not disparaging, tearing at the real treasure. Perfect peace of mind beyond conditions. This is the reality which you must thoroughly awaken to.
Peace of mind beyond conditions. It’s already your own life. All of those who have awakened have verified this for themselves and have affirmed it for us. All of this to be grateful for. Who can afford to miss it? You, sitting here, you already know which you’ve got to do. You are already determined to know the roots of peace. You’ve passed the stage of confusion in which you did not know which way to turn or how to go about having peace of mind. But what of those countless beings who have not been able to hear the words of truth, much less to understand even intellectually, much less to practice to attain enlightenment? What of the countless persons who have to live each day accumulating karma, repaying karma, accumulating and repaying? Building new suffering with no end.
Living like this when things are going well, you want to call: “Life is uphill!”
But what a superficial joy, because when circumstances change, as they do in a flash, you are down again. Looking at the way most people are living, well, isn’t it this way? Even though a person may have accumulated so much merit that there is no lacking, no pain, all of the desires are fulfilled, once that merit is exhausted, there is a complete turnaround.
Because that’s merit which leaks. Everything is OK, everything is going well, one might think. But that thought is mislead, it’s delusive. Because it’s relying on something which becomes exhausted. I am going to stop going on and on like this. Silence is most kind. Your are here to awaken to the genuine. It’s genuine, it is not somebody else’s reality, it’s not something far off and unattainable. It’s directly touching you. Make it bare, direct, now. Just mind. Just Buddha. Mind is Buddha. Add something to this and you are just creating rubbish. Just mind.
Just heart.
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