The Selected Letters of Master Daie Soko E-Book

Venerable Myokyo-ni

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 555

Beschreibung

Master Daie Soko was one of the most distinguished masters of the Sung dynasty. His teaching methods shaped the development of Rinzai Zen practice. This book is a selection of his letters to his disciples and the commentaries by Venerable Myokyo-ni bring these letters alive for modern day readers and practitioners of Zen.

Leseprobe

THE BUDDHIST SOCIETY TRUST

THE ZEN TRUST

The Hokun Trust is pleased to support this volume of The Selected Letters of Master Daie Soko with Commentary by the Venerable Myokyo-ni.

Both Song Master Daie’s letters and Ven. Myokyo-ni’s commentaries make the insights of the Buddha come alive and keep the teachings relevant and meaningful for our present time. May they continue to encourage students of the Way and appeal to a wider public as well.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

The Letters of Master Daie Soko with Commentary by Ven. Myokyo-ni

Further Reading

FOREWORD

This book, The Selected Letters of Master Daie Soko with Commentary by the Ven. Myokyo-ni, records the correspondence of Master Daie Soko (Chin. Ta Hui 1089-1163) to his disciples, all around China. It is a Ch’an work, or Zen as it is known in Japan, and was written during the Song dynasty (960-1279). This was a period in China of both unprecedented expansion, in agricultural output, population, and technology of all kinds, including gunpowder, as well as wide commerce, both within and outside China. The Song was also a time of violent armed conflict and turbulence, as the dynasty faced the ever-increasing incursions of the Mongols from the north.

However enormous the cultural and temporal differences between China of Song times and our life here in the West today, they shrink into nonexistence, as we realise the human heart has not changed at all, our hopes, dreams, and aspirations, remain unchanged, as does the longing for calm and stability, as well as joy, hope and trust.

Venerable Myokyo-ni’s vivid commentary brings alive these letters of long ago, placing them right into the here and now. Solace and help, and wise advice abound in these pages, in easy everyday language. Helpful to students of Zen as well as understandable to the merely curious; all will find much to ponder here.

We would like to thank Michelle Bromley and Eifion Thomas for their enthusiastic support of this work. Without their enthusiasm these words would have remained available only to the few.

Desmond Biddulph

President, The Buddhist Society

London, 2024

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Nikko Odiseos President of Shambhala for permitting our use of the text from Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui. Translated by J. Christopher Cleary. [Selections from 瞿汝稷 Qu Ruji’s (1548-1610)指月錄Zhiyue lu / Records of Pointing at the Moon, Vols. 31-32.] New York: Grove Press, 1977, Shambhala Publications, 2006.

PREFACE

As a student instructed by Venerable Myokyo-ni, it is a joy to see this book of Zen commentaries brought to publication. In this book, based on her talks, she gives encouragement and stimulation to those on or commencing the Zen Way.

These commentaries on Master Daie’s letters by Ven. Myokyo-ni provide a comprehensive presentation of what is required for serious Zen practice and deepening insights. They offer the reader – whether experienced Zen student, an inquiring beginner or simply an interested observer – a number of pointers, elucidations and guidance on the effective practice of Zen Buddhism. Myokyo-ni instilled in her students that Zen practice was for daily life, giving ourselves into what is being done at this moment. She points to Master Daie’s careful warning, that not only in our talking, but also in our thinking we have to keep to the practice, to the framework and not continuously allow our own ideas, our own passions, our own weaknesses, to obstruct and rule us.

Master Daie pointing the way tells us, ‘Within the wondrous mind of the original vast quiescence – pure, clear, perfect illumination – there is not a single thing that can cause obstruction.’ With this book the Way becomes clear and beckons.

Eifion Thomas

INTRODUCTION

This present volume brings together two special offerings – on the one hand, excerpts from the letters of Master Daie Soko (Chin. Ta-hui Tsung-kao), a 12th century Chinese Ch’an master, and on the other, the commentaries on these by Venerable Myokyo-ni (1921-2007), a modern Western Buddhist teacher. And though their dates span many centuries, their teaching is seamlessly interwoven.

Daie Soko (1089-1163) became a monk at seventeen and studied with many teachers from different Ch’an schools, before becoming a student of Engo Kokugon (Chin. Yuan-wu K’o-ch’in) and eventually his Dharma-heir. Among Ch’an communities he became a widely renowned teacher, gathering many students around him, and before long he also came to the notice of officials in high circles of government.

But historically this was a tumultuous period of political upheaval in China, and Master Daie was often caught up in the repercussions of this social and political unrest. Though at times in his life he received imperial honours and was made abbot of prestigious monasteries, at other times he was also exiled for many years before being pardoned and reinstated.

Many of the teaching methods still used in Zen training today can be traced back to him; best known are his innovations to koan study. Believing that koan practice had been reduced to a mere literary study, he created a new more rigorous method of working with the key phrase of a koan as a theme for meditation. This shaped the further development of Rinzai Zen practice up to this day. But equally important is the legacy of his letters, which were very influential and widely circulated in his own time. These are addressed mainly to lay disciples who mostly came from the scholar-official class of Chinese society and held various positions in government service. With great care and compassion, he considers the concerns of each of his correspondents and offers individual advice, guiding them through all the various situations of daily life, from the hubbub of official duties and personal difficulties to the practice of meditation. He firmly believed that insight into the Buddha’s teachings could be attained by all people, regardless of their social standing and daily activities. As well as being personal instructions for his students, each of Daie’s letters is also a profound discourse on many aspects of Buddhist doctrine and practice. His letters are still used today in monasteries and temples as a guide for practice and inspiration. It was during her training at Datoku-ji that Ven. Myokyo-ni was first introduced to them in the teisho given by Sesso Roshi.

Ven. Myokyo-ni (Irmgard Schlögl 1921-2007) was trained at Daitoku-ji monastery in Kyoto, Japan, where for twelve years she worked under two successive masters, Oda Sesso Roshi and Sojun Kannun Roshi. Later she was ordained by Soko Morinaga Roshi at Chithurst Forest Monastery in England and became abbess of the London Zen Centre’s two training temples, Shobo-an and Fairlight. Ven. Myokyo-ni’s teaching style was very traditional and in keeping with the ethos of the teachers of her lineage. Beginning with Imakita Kosen (1816-1892), whose aspiration it was to bring Zen to a wider audience outside the monastery walls, she also adapted the temple training methods and regulations to the everyday lives of her predominantly lay students, with much emphasis being placed on the Daily Life Practice. The concern Master Daie shows towards his students and the guidance and pointers he offers for their practice is very much reflected in Ven. Myokyo-ni’s relationship to her own students. Her commentaries were very down-to-earth, translating the teachings into practical examples and using a variety of teaching stories from different traditions as well as anecdotes from her own training in Japan.

Both Master Daie’s Letters and Ven. Myokyo-ni’s commentaries make the insights of the Buddha come alive and keep the teachings relevant and meaningful for our present time. These Dharma-talks were a great inspiration to all who heard them. May they continue to encourage others on the Way.

EDITORIALNOTES

This book is compiled from a series of talks given between 2001 and 2006. The text of Master Daie’s Letters used in this book is a selection from the translation by Christopher Cleary’s Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui, reprinted here with kind permission of the publishers Shambala.

As the Cleary text uses the Wade-Giles romanisation of Chinese words, this transliteration has been kept throughout Ven. Myokyo-ni’s commentaries as well. However, as her own study of these texts was originally in Japanese, many of the masters referred to are given their Japanese names, including Ta-hui Tsung-kao as Daie Soko. Where necessary for clarification the Chinese name is given in parentheses. Occasionally Ven. Myokyo-ni also changed a word in the translation, these also appear in parentheses. The numbering of the letters corresponds to the Cleary translation.

Michelle Bromley

THE LETTERS OF MASTER DAIE SOKO

LETTER 1 to LI HSIEN-CH’EN

THETEXT

Buddha said, if you want to know the realm of Buddhahood, you must make your mind like empty space and leave false thinking and all grasping far behind, causing your mind to be unobstructed wherever it may turn. The realm of Buddhahood is not some external world where there is a formal Buddha. It is the realm of the wisdom of self-awakening.

Once you are determined that you want to know this realm, you do not need adornment, cultivation, or realisation to attain it. You only need to clear away the stains of afflictions caused by the alien sensations that have been on your mind since beginningless time, then this mind becomes as broad and open as empty space, detached from all the clinging of the discriminating intellect, and so your false, unreal, vain thoughts too are like empty space. Then this wondrous effortless mind will be unimpeded wherever it goes.

VEN.MYOKYO-NI’SCOMMENTS

We are taking as our text the letters of Master Daie Soko (Chin. Ta-hui), who was one of the great Chinese Zen masters of the Sung Dynasty. He was born in 1089 and from the earliest age, Daie showed great interest and insight into the Buddhist teachings. He became a monk at the age of seventeen and had many teachers, but became Dharma-heir of his main master, Engo (Chin Yuan-wu).

But Master Daie lived in tumultuous times and was himself swept up in them, given the highest honours, then exiled, and later called back again. A big temple was built for him in the capital, and a special retirement temple was given to him at the end of his life. He knew life in all its forms and had many disciples, among them lay people of great standing as well as ordinary people, with whom he kept in correspondence. He died aged seventy-five.

Some of his letters and talks have been collected. His record is particularly relevant for us because he is mostly addressing lay disciples. My first master, Oda Sesso Roshi, was very fond of Master Daie’s Letters and I heard two series of his teisho on them. For us here in England with but one or two enrobed, Master Daie, speaking mainly to lay people, comes closer to our concerns.

The translation of this text, excerpts of Master Daie’s letters, is by J. C. Cleary, which is gratefully acknowledged.

In this letter Master Daie, like all Zen masters, tells his correspondent, and us, above all to empty the heart, to clear out all notions, ideas, likes, dislikes, etc. The Japanese term for it is mu shin, the empty heart.

‘The Buddha said that, if you want to know the realm of Buddhahood you must make your mind (heart) clear as empty space and leave false thinking and all grasping far behind.’ In empty space there is nothing. ‘Clear’ is a good translation here, because very often it is also translated as ‘pure’. Whenever we come across the word ‘pure’ in the Buddhist texts, particularly Zen texts, we must not interpret it with our idea of ‘pure’ in the moral sense, for it always means ‘empty’. In empty space there is nothing. The technical term for it is sunyata – this nothing is the beginning of the insight of a Buddha. As long as there are any thoughts whirling about, they are inevitably connected with feelings and emotions and passions, and all of them are created by I. And so, ‘You must make your heart as clear as empty space, and leave false thinking and all grasping far behind.’

How do I make my heart empty as space? According to the basic Buddhist teaching, ‘I’ am a delusion, and so ‘I’ only needs to get out of the way. But since I cannot do this by an act of will, there are specific methods that can help us to do this and our Daily Life Practice is a well-tested one. If I really give myself into doing something, then I give myself away and therefore I am no longer there. To ‘make your heart empty as space’ then, is at the same time ‘to leave false thinking and all grasping behind’ because if the heart is empty, there is no thinking and no thinker! Nor is it that ‘I grasp’ but ‘I am the grasping’. Just leaving all this behind is ‘causing your mind (heart) to be unobstructed wherever it may turn.’ Without false thinking or grasping there is no rejection, so the heart is of itself unobstructed wherever it may turn. In the midst of the multitude of things, in the midst of the hubbub, the heart remains unobstructed.

This Empty Heart is also called the Heart Mirror. Old Chinese mirrors were made of metal and so as well as having to be dusted they had to be polished to a shine or they would quickly get dull. Such a mirror will reflect exactly whatever falls into it, without adding or subtracting anything. A mirror doesn’t hold on to what it has just reflected and superimpose another reflection. Yet that is just what we do with our clinging, our notions and ideas, a multi-layered jumble which makes it quite impossible for us to see clearly. Hence the cleaning, polishing and keeping that Heart Mirror always bright is what Master Daie also suggests here.

And this is not something external as Master Daie tells us, ‘The realm of Buddhahood is not some external world where there is a formal Buddha, but is the realm of wisdom of the self-awakened one.’ Talking about Buddhism and of the Buddha, these are only thoughts, for there is no external Buddha to whom we can turn. The real realm of Buddhahood is the realm of wisdom, opening to one who has awakened to his own nature.

In the Mahayana tradition the Buddha on his awakening says, ‘How wonderful, how miraculous, all beings are fully endowed with the Tathagata’s wisdom and power. But sadly, in the case of human beings, because of their attachments, they are not aware of it.’ And so in the Heart Mirror the seeing is brilliantly clear and everything is seen as it is, the way it is. But sadly because of our attachments, our heart mirror is scrambled and we cannot do so. I may believe that I don’t have that many attachments, but on looking very carefully, is that really so? Although most of us, are supposed to have settled into the Daily Life Practice, we cannot help our continuous thought streams. What are those thought streams about? Are they neutral or are they mostly to do with my likes and dislikes, with my planning how to make things easier and more convenient for me, or with what I would like to do and what I want to avoid? Once again, ‘I’ am not doing the picking and choosing, the picking and choosing is what I am.

It is the same with the attachments; it is not that I have attachments, I am these attachments. This is a hint of what it is that stains the mirror. For the heart to be unobstructed means that the mirror has to be clear. Master Daie says that ‘Once you are determined that you want to know this realm, you do not need adornment, cultivation or realisation to attain it.’ This is the first condition. We first need to be really determined. If this realm of the Buddha, the wisdom of the self-awakened one, means little to me and I do not feel deeply moved and inspired, then we need not go any further. It needs a real determination, and once so determined, ‘you do not need adornment and cultivation for realisation.’

Only one thing is necessary, and Master Daie repeats it again and again, ‘You must clear away the stains of affliction from alien sensations that have been on your mind (heart) since beginningless time,’ that is, to clear away the klesas, the passions. These are the alien sensations, our wanting, disliking, annoyance, the whole lot. Since beginningless time they have stained the Empty Heart, not only in this life but they also affect the karma-linkage. When easily annoyed, or greedy, or whatever it might be, the job now is to clear away the stains of these alien sensations that afflict our heart. How are we going to do that?

Once again, we come back to the Daily Life Practice of giving ourselves into the doing, giving ourselves wholly into it, until giving ourselves into it and giving ourselves away are one and the same. Then the stains slowly begin to shrink, pale and wear out and as they begin to dwindle, then the heart ‘becomes as broad and open as empty space, detached from and emptied of all the clinging of the discriminating intellect.’ It is not I who have to do something or get somewhere – all that is ‘my’ deluded thinking. ‘I’ have nothing to do in this, there is only the bundle of Aggregates, the Five Skandhas: 1) a physical one (the body) and four mental ones which are 2) feelings and physical sensations, 3) perceptions and thoughts, 4) the composite formations or samskaras, karma-engendered and karma-producing, and lastly 5) consciousness. Nowhere in that five-strand bundle can an ‘I’ be found. So, the Empty Heart is as wide and open as space, unattached, free of all stains. Even the slightest stain already distorts the mirror.

But to be detached from all the clinging of the discriminating intellect is extremely difficult. It is possible, though not easy, to come to terms with greed and anger, the ‘outside objects’, but to detach from clinging to the discriminating intellect is desperately hard. It is said it is as difficult as cutting through a thick lotus stem, resisting even the sharpest knife. And what is discriminating? Clear seeing beholds that there is light and dark, right and wrong, Buddha and Mara. Well, is that not discriminating? We have to be careful here: the Empty Heart sees clearly what is. But by immediately making value judgments such as beneficial or worthless, great or small, beautiful or ugly, the thing/object itself can no longer be seen. Rather we see only our discriminations and so want to have or to get rid of. That is the discriminating intellect.

As an ‘I’ we cannot see without immediate judgement and evaluation, we cannot see neutrally – and thereby hangs the whole story. It is not that everything is the same as it is so often mistakenly understood, for nothing is the same. Although ultimately it is the same, but practically on this level of the Two Truths, there is I and you, both human beings, but as for better or worse? Master Rinzai says, ‘One sits on a mountain alone, one stands in the market place bedaubed by the dust of carts and horses. Who is front (better), who is back (worse)?’ The late Ananda Maitreya in Sri Lanka was actually asked this question and replied, ‘It depends on motivation.’

We cling, compelled by the discriminating intellect, and we ‘know’, ‘This is better.’ But there is nothing better or worse. This ‘knowing’ is what the clinging is. I may say, ‘Well, if there is nothing better or worse, then after all I can go out and mug somebody and steal a fortune!’ This is also the discriminating intellect doing an extra clever thing and trying to have it ‘my way’. But there are the Precepts and there is our humanity, and it is not decent human behaviour to club someone over the head – though considering out collective history, sadly one might be inclined to think it is!

One cannot stress it too much that most of our difficulties come from the discriminating intellect, from false and unreal thoughts. When that is seen into and cleared out then, ‘detached from all clinging of the discriminating intellect, all the false, unreal, vain thoughts are but like empty space’ and can no longer get hold of us. They may still flutter about, but they are now seen as false, unreal and vain and they become like empty space. Without the delusion of ‘I’, things just are as they are. It depends on us – our motivation. An old master said, ‘The heart flows with the ten thousand things. This flowing is truly mysterious.’

Master Daie ends, ‘Then this wondrous, effortless mind (heart) will be unimpeded wherever it goes.’ ‘Unimpeded, free’ and I may then think that I can do what I want. But real unimpeded freedom opens only when the discriminating intellect – that is the ‘I’-delusion – has really dropped off and then there is only clear seeing of what is, the way all things really are, without liking or disliking but, and that is important, with real warmth of heart. One of the qualities of an Empty Heart is human warmth and if unimpeded, the natural warmth of the heart can begin to flow freely.

With that we enter the realm of the Divine Abodes. The first one, mostly mistranslated as loving kindness, is actually the warmth of the heart, the good will, which fills the heart and flows out towards all, rather as the sun shines because shining is its nature. It does not select, it shines and it flows, and with that we begin to realise the fullness and warmth of the Buddha’s Teachings.

LETTER 2 to HUNG PO-CH’ENG

THETEXT

An ancient worthy had a saying: ‘To look for the ox, one must seek out its tracks. To study the Path, seek out Mindlessness. Where the tracks are, so must be the ox.’ The Path of Mindlessness is easy to seek out. So-called Mindlessness is not being inert and unknowing like earth, wood, tile, or stone; it means that the mind is settled and imperturbable when in contact with situations and meeting circumstances; that it does not cling to anything, but is clear in all places, without hindrance or obstruction; without being stained, yet without dwelling in the stainlessness; viewing body and mind like dreams or illusions, yet without remaining in the perspective of dreams and illusions, empty nothingness. Only when one arrives at a realm like this can it be called the true Mindlesness. No, it’s not lip-service mindlessness: if you haven’t attained true Mindlessness and just go by the verbal kind, how is this different from the perverted Ch’an of silent illumination?

‘Just get to the root, do not worry about the branches.’ Emptying the mind is the root. Once you get the root, the fundamental, then all kinds of language and knowledge and all your daily activities as you respond to people and adapt to circumstances, through so many upsets and downfalls, whether joyous or angry, good or bad, favourable or adverse – these are all trivial matters, the branches. If you can be spontaneously aware and knowing as you are going along with circumstances, then there is neither lack nor excess.

VEN.MYOKYO-NI’SCOMMENTS

This letter actually says everything that needs to be known about Zen training, the rest comes down to practice – rather than trying to find out more and more, actually doing it. The old masters constantly remind and inspire us towards that decisive step of doing it ourselves.

Master Daie quotes an old master, ‘“To look for the ox (bull), one must seek its traces. To study the Path, seek out Mindlessness (the Empty Heart). Where the tracks are so must be the ox (bull).”’ The Empty Heart reveals itself if that Path is actually walked. Master Daie continues, ‘Mindlessness (the Empty Heart) is not being inert and unknowing, like earth, wood, like tile or stone, it means that the mind (heart) is settled and imperturbable when in contact with situations and meeting circumstances.’ Do not misunderstand – if the heart is empty, swept clean, then it is not that there is nothing that can touch it. On the contrary, then it responds to circumstances as they really are, not like my deluded, misconceived responses.

This is also expressed in a Zen saying that is particularly apt for the residents in a monastery, in communal living: ‘If you sleep under the same blanket, you all know where the holes are.’ In other words, if you do the same training in the same place, living together, you get to know each other pretty well. You may on the surface often misinterpret things because you have got your own ideas, but underneath there is a very clear perception of what the body actually flashes. The same applies when sitting in meditation. An experienced head monk will know where each sitter is, know their frame of mind. This is why the jikijitsu goes around particularly when there is a long sitting like in a sesshin. A practised meditator walking along a row of sitters cannot help but perceive the state of each of the sitters. It is unmistakeable, in the same way, for example, that it is unmistakeable to hear how gongs are struck differently. Being a woman, I did not live in the monastery in Japan, but lived up a hill very close by. When I was late as I sometimes was, I would hear the morning interview bell going and since I knew the line the monks sat in and was familiar with the sound of how each struck the bell, I also knew how much time I had or whether I would have to really race down the hill in order not to miss the morning interviews.

A telling story about the Empty Heart concerns Rinzai’s teacher, Master Obaku (Chin. Huang-po). When he had settled on Obaku Mountain after which he was named, the local deity came to pay his respects to the famous master, but however often he came, and although he looked for Obaku everywhere, he could not find him. That is the true Empty Heart. It is not attached to anything.

Continually concerned with itself, wanting to be appreciated, frightfully embarrassed, always feeling awkward, ‘I’ is different from the Empty Heart. ‘The Path of Mindlessness (the Empty Heart) is easy to seek out; so-called Mindlessness (Empty Heart) is not being inert and unknowing like earth, wood, fire and stone. It means that the mind (heart) is settled and imperturbable when in contact with situations and meeting circumstances.’ Remember the Buddha, sitting under the Bo-tree and Mara in all his forms could not do anything to him. That is the ‘heart settled, imperturbable when in contact with situations and meeting circumstances.’ When there is something really important or very unpleasant in front of us, are we just as imperturbable and settled as when everything goes ‘my way’? Behind the clinging and the aversions is the delusion of being a separate ‘I’, the other side of which is fear. This is something which we really need to know because if we approach it a little closer, and still a little closer in our practice, we begin to be caught by that fear.

I remember the first full sesshin at Daitoku-ji after having been accepted by Sesso Roshi as his student. That was also when I started my sanzen training. Having been shown exactly what to do and being rather scared, I went for my first interview. I had heard stories about how severe it could be, but there sat a kind old gentleman who asked me whether I had got used to the daily life practice, how my breathing was in zazen and he gave me the koan I had to work on and told me how to work on it, keeping it in the heart, going at it and going at it without thinking. The interviews in a Rinzai Zen monastery are extremely short and there are three a day during a sesshin. Four days had thus already gone by and I was beginning to feel more confident, thinking it typical to frighten beginners and make things difficult. So expecting another morsel, I went for my next interview, but already on the threshold, I felt a bit awkward. Bowing and entering the room, feeling more and more uneasy, I did my prostration in front of him. And sitting up, there was no kind old gentleman but a mixture of a high-power generating plant, with dynamos in a row and blue sparks hissing from one to the other, and you know you’d better keep a good distance. So, it was a mixture between that and a mental X-ray set. You do not want to strip physically naked even less do you want to be stripped mentally naked, do you? And that ‘thing’ (it did not feel human) said to me, ‘Now you know everything you need to know, now JUMP!’ ‘Piiing’ went his little bell. I slunk out feeling as I walked along the corridor, ‘Yes, yes, this is what I came for, this is what I want – but not just now, not just now!’ At that last moment, it gets to you and a lot of training is needed to carry one through. That is what Master Daie is saying here. But the Empty Heart, settled and imperturbable when in contact with situations and meeting circumstances, just responds as fits the given situation, responds to the circumstances in terms of the situation, not in terms of ‘I’, my intention. ‘I’, being a smart one, feel that when just going with the situation, things can’t go wrong. That is not true because there is the situation and there is the human being and there is the cat; the cat will react to a certain situation reliably like a cat reacts. But I, and this is why we have so much trouble, just react as an ‘I’. Deluded by my views, likes and loathings, anger or greed, I rarely react as a true human being.

But the Empty Heart, if truly ‘settled and imperturbable’ acts as a human being ‘when in contact with situations and meeting circumstances. It does not cling to anything, is clear in all places without hindrance or obstruction; without being stained, yet without dwelling in the stainlessness.’ If I do not fear, if I do not feel self-conscious, then there is no problem. Thereby hangs the story, because as long as I am there, I cannot be aware of the Empty Heart and so I, feeling alone, separate and hence insecure, cannot but fear. That fear is the other side of I, just as deep and tenacious. Therefore it is said that what needs to drop off, to be let go of, is the four-fold delusion of ‘I’, a person, a sentient being and a life. With that gone, the mirror is truly clear. When the mirror is clear, the heart is truly empty and remains clear under all circumstances, without clinging, ‘without hindrance or obstruction, without being stained, yet without dwelling in stainlessness.’ It cannot be stained anymore. It no longer belongs to the world of stains, but does not dwell in stainlessness either.

I was once with Sesso Roshi when the head monk returned from an errand. He called out, opened the door when asked to enter and sitting on his knees, absolutely correct, perfectly poised, reported about it. I did not understand much but it was obviously very funny. He was laughing freely as they were talking but he didn’t lose his form even for a bit, not for a moment did he falter. That is real freedom spontaneously unfolding itself in a human being in human good form, no longer obstructed by my delusions. If a proper form is kept, it arises of itself with the full strength which I lack because of ‘I’ being the delusion.

So the form is most important. I do not know about today, but in my time some fifty years ago industrial diamonds could be made. A diamond is after all nothing but carbon, coal dust. Now if you load coal dust into an empty pipe and blow, the coal dust comes out the other end and settles itself over everything. But if that pipe is so strong that even very high pressure cannot burst it, then loaded with the same coal dust and real pressure applied, at the other end imperfect little diamonds come out. Power is needed for transformation. ‘I’ do not have it, it needs to be cultivated by practice. So it is never for ‘me’, but it can be cultivated. If we truly give ourselves into the practice, if we stick to our timetable, not in a way which is rigid and unfeeling but in a truly obedient way, then that power will begin to develop. This power leads to fearlessness and it is in this fearlessness that it becomes possible for ‘I’ to drop off. ‘Only when one arrives at a realm like this can it be called true Mindlessness (Empty Heart). It is not lip-service, this Mindlessness (Empty Heart).’ Do not talk about it if you do not know. ‘If you have not attained true Mindlessness (Empty Heart) and just go by the verbal kind,’ then it is no different from all kinds of perverted practice like just sitting and hoping that the sitting alone will produce something.

Master Daie again quotes an old master saying, ‘“Just get to the root, do not worry about the branches.”’ It comes from Yoka Daishi (Chin.Yung Chia). Just get to the root, do not worry about the branches. My real problem is that I am my real problem and unless I work on that, the branches will just change shape; one finished, then another will sprout rather like a boil. If lanced too early, it will give rise to further boils and may lead to blood poisoning. Stick to the root! Emptying the heart is the way to the root. Without that nothing can be done. ‘Once you get to the root,’ says Master Daie, ‘then all kinds of language and knowledge and all your daily activities as you respond to people and adapt to circumstances are only branches.’

We have to be careful here because getting to the root is not the end of the training, there is still much more to be done. But once the root has been reached, then as the training continues diligently and willingly, the sight begins to clear and with that, ‘all kinds of language and knowledge and all your daily activities as you respond to people and adapt to circumstances’ become fitting and neutral because ‘through so many upsets and downfalls, whether joyous or angry, good or bad, favourable or adverse – these are all seen as trivial matter, the branches.’ All kinds of language and knowledge, all daily activities, our response to people and circumstances, are usually acted and stiff, our ideas preconceived. With all the ups and downs in the light of the day and in the darkness of the night, when upset or when joyful, when circumstances are easy or difficult, favourable or adverse, if there is clear seeing they are all recognised as trivial matters. True, there are favourable and adverse circumstances, but they are now not judged, not taken personally but simply responded to as is proper under the circumstances. And they can be made good use of, because they are so much more opportunity for further good practice. Only when really settled is the natural response under all circumstances reliable as befits the human form. If anything contrived or intentional still lurks, then the heart is not truly empty. Therefore it is said that the first insight, that first seeing into and from the Empty Heart is relatively easy. But to then really live according to it through all the circumstances, that is very difficult indeed, and needs much more training. The Jataka Stories, the birth stories of the Buddha, point in that direction. Nowadays we regard them as, ‘Oh well, these are just fairy stories for our children, quite unreal!’ But they tell us what freely responding to all circumstances implies.

Such is the story of the Bodhisattva, not yet Buddha, who stood on a cliff and looking down, saw a starving tigress totter out from a thicket and on her heels a scrawny little cub. She was obviously on her last legs. The Bodhisattva looked at the tigress, and taking in the situation, he leaned forward and let himself fall right down, feeding her and the cub. Now what is our reaction to that?

This is a pertinent story that belongs to the Empty Heart. Ponder it. Perhaps it will give an inkling of what responding to people and adapting to circumstances through so many upsets and downfalls, whether joyful or annoying, good or bad, favourable or adverse, really requires. Do not try to hide, be open – these are all trivial matters. ‘If you can be spontaneously aware and knowing while going along with circumstances, then there is neither lack nor excess.’ If you can be spontaneously aware and knowing as you go along with circumstances, in all the doing – is that not the Daily Life Practice? Not watching myself, not trying to do it, but just eating and knowing that I am eating, without watching myself, without thinking, just being aware. Sweeping and knowing there is sweeping, but not observing myself sweeping which is the wrong way. Knowing there is sweeping and the sweeping is all there is, nothing else but the sweeping – at one with it, or in samadhi with it. If this has become truly the natural response to circumstances, then it is not self-conscious. Is that intellectually clear? If done that way, then the activity is the only thing that exists. There is the sweeping, there is the cooking, there is the eating, there is painting, there is this or that, freely and without hindrance flowing from one into the other. When the clappers sound for mealtime, assembling in the zendo. And when the clappers go again, filing into the dining hall. All this flows along smoothly. Then there is neither lack nor excess. There is a beautiful saying by Layman P’ang, ‘The snowflakes fall, each in its appropriate place.’ We are all in the appropriate place, according to out karmic development and as our karmic lineage actually puts it. And as we go from place to place, each one is appropriate. The same Layman P’ang said, ‘How wonderful, how miraculous! Carrying wood and fetching water.’ If we begin to see it like this, then the heart is truly empty because in the Empty Heart are all the miracles and all the wonders and all the warmth of which I have painted pictures but have always failed to reach. But once that Empty Heart is reached, all is truly there. And what is more, not as a picture in the mind, but actually completely liveable and lived.

Please ponder that, and little by little give yourself more into the training and so come closer.

LETTER 3 to LI HSIEN-CH’EN

THETEXT

Since you are studying this Path, then at all times, in your encounters with people and responses to circumstances, you must not let wrong thoughts continue. If you cannot see through them, then the moment a wrong thought comes up you should quickly concentrate your mental energy to pull yourself away. If you always follow those thoughts and let them continue without a break, not only does this obstruct the Path, but it makes you out to be a man without wisdom.

In the old days Kuei Shan asked Lazy An, ‘What work do you do during the twenty-four hours of the day?’ An said, ‘I tend an ox.’ Isan said, ‘How do you tend it?’ An said, ‘Whenever it gets into the grass, I pull it back by the nose.’ Isan said, ‘You really are tending the ox!’ People who study the Path, in controlling wrong thoughts, should be like Lazy An tending his ox; then gradually a wholesome ripening will take place of itself.

VEN.MYOKYO-NI’SCOMMENTS

Master Daie is particularly helpful for us because many of his disciples were laypeople. Although these letters are more than a thousand years old, the human heart is the human heart, and they pertain just as much to us today. So we may take it that Master Daie is addressing each one of us.

‘Since you are studying this Path’ – what is this Path? The Zen Path, the Zen Buddhist Path, the Buddha Path, the Way the Buddha pointed out, that leads out of suffering. What kind of suffering? What do we mostly suffer from? From feeling somehow excluded and alienated, feeling ‘I only’ – separated out from what is, and therefore insecure, easily frightened, alone, self-conscious. We must carefully consider here that we are really talking about two types of consciousness.

There is the consciousness which is normal awareness. And there is self-consciousness. We usually mix those two up. Normally we function only from self-consciousness and this produces our difficulties. We need to learn to come back to the straight consciousness that accurately reflects like a mirror – it does not add anything or highlight anything and when it turns to the next vista, does not drag along what was before and overlay what is.

‘Since you are studying this Path,’ says Master Daie, ‘then at all times in your encounters with people and responses to circumstances, you must not let wrong thoughts continue.’ What are those wrong thoughts? They are the I-connected thoughts of my liking and disliking this, that or the other. ‘Wrong thoughts’ are not only about harming things but also thoughts that make me feel separate and alienated from what is, that take me out of life to an abstract realm, filling the head with all kinds of notions. These are the wrong thoughts.

Master Daie says, ‘If you cannot see through them, then the moment a wrong thought comes up, you should quickly concentrate your mental energy to pull yourself away,’ and not let wrong thoughts continue. He does not say that you should not let them come up because that is not within our power. But once up, whether we let them continue and are carried away by them, or whether we do not let them continue, that depends on us. Those thought streams bubble along as we all know. Either they are very concentrated in planning or involved in what I want or am trying to avoid. But even when none of these thoughts preoccupy me, is the mind still without thoughts? Or does it go, ‘bubble, bubble, bubble’ like a constant undercurrent? Phiroz Mehta has called it the ‘chattering monkey mind’. It is not quiet for a moment, has to continuously act in order to give me the feeling that after all, ‘I am still here, I have not vanished.’

It carries us away from where we actually are. When that happens there is no awareness of being here now, in this place, in this chair, on that cushion, on that train. When we are in that other realm, there is nothing that can be noticed. Not being here, we cannot listen anymore, we cannot see anymore. We are truly not here but in a kind of never-never land. Then something stampedes us out again and we are back in the real-life situation, here and now.

These are the wrong thoughts. If you cannot see through them, says Master Daie, then the moment a wrong thought comes up, recognise it. And ‘you should quickly concentrate your mental energy to pull yourself away.’ The moment a wrong thought comes up, be aware. The awareness is almost physical. Either it comes up with heat, the Fires, wants and dislikes, or it comes up as the bubbly stream. You notice it particularly in zazen. There you sit, alive, awake, all there. And then suddenly the hands loosen, the chin sags and away we are. Now at that moment, if there is a real sense of being with it, the moment the hands lose their grip and the chin sags, then with an energetic breath come right back into what is being done. If this is continuously practised, it will make the awareness prevail and the wrong thoughts decline. Do not try to go against them, that is quite useless. Just jump right back into the liveliness and awareness of this moment, that is where your own feet stand. The moment a wrong thought comes up, quickly concentrate your mental energy – that is what is necessary. Do not fight it. Whatever we fight against, to that we actually give power over us. Why is it so necessary to recognise wrong thoughts? Because if we always follow these thoughts and let them continue without a break, we miss the living moment. Then what happens is that we feel that life is not really what we hoped it to be, it is boring, uninteresting, unsatisfactory. This is what the Buddha called suffering.

Master Daie continues, ‘If you always follow those thoughts and let them continue without a break, not only does it obstruct the Path, it makes you out to be a man without wisdom.’ A man without wisdom is somebody who falls from one difficulty into another, confronts one obstacle after another. And a man without wisdom cannot learn. He cannot learn because he cannot take in, and he cannot take in because there is no awareness. Or because he is too full. When a cup is full, you can put nothing more into it. It must first be emptied out.

Through a grid of thought streams and deep-seated opinions that we have in the head, we believe that we actually see things as they are. Do not believe it, it is not true. Although we believe we can, we are incapable because that grid obscures. The thought-streams are such a hindrance. From the earliest beginnings of the Zen school, the Sixth Patriarch already said, ‘Before thinking, what is the True Face?’ Our weaving of thoughts and our being cocooned in them obstructs, beclouds the mirror and so it cannot reflect clearly. Therefore ‘if you always follow those thoughts and let them continue without a break, then not only does this obstruct the Path, but it makes you out to be a man without wisdom,’ someone who continuously stumbles or misses the Way.

Master Daie illustrates this. ‘In the old days, Kuei Shan (Master Isan) asked Lazy An, “What work do you do during the twenty-four hours of the day?” An said, “I tend the ox (bull).” Kuei Shan (Isan) said, “How do you tend it.” An said, “Whenever it gets into the grass, I pull it back by the nose.” Kuei Shan (Isan) said, “You are really tending the ox (bull).”

The whole day long, he doesn’t do this, that or the other. He just tends his bull. And how does he tend it? ‘Whenever it gets into the grass, I pull it back by the nose.’ That does not say that he does not feed it or does not put it to grass to feed. But whenever it gets into the grass of others, or into long thought streams, whenever it goes into lush meadows that lead it on and carry it further away, he pulls it back by the nose. It is the same with a horse. Going for a country ride, if not properly ridden and there is a nice bunch of grass, it crops it quickly or tears a branch with some new leaf. Once it has got a chomp of it, it is much harder to hold it back. Once you have let it have three or four chomps, the horse feels, ‘This is my right’ and from then on it will have it and it is difficult to train him out of it. So better not to let it get away from the beginning. Just the same applies to us. Once we have got into a habit, then it seems it has always been so. And there is already a complaint for when it has always been so, why should it change? Whether bull or horse or myself, whenever it gets into the grass, pull it back by the nose at once. That is, whenever the thought-streams come up, with or without Fire, pull by the nose, right back into here and now. Right back to where our feet stand. Right back into the living situation.

‘Kuei Shan (Isan) said, “You are really tending the ox (bull).” People who study the Path, in controlling wrong thoughts, should be like Lazy An tending his ox (bull).’ ‘Controlling’ is perhaps not an apt translation. Rather, what is meant is when ‘working with wrong thoughts’, one should be like Lazy An with his bull. ‘Then gradually, a wholesome ripening will take place by itself.’ But we need to be consistent and constant and just carry on and continue with it. We human beings are very adaptable. Habits – good and wrong ones – can be cultivated. But we seem quick in cultivating wrong or unwholesome habits, and we are very slow in cultivating wholesome ones. Habits and my notions are what prevent me but can also spur me. We mistakenly believe that it can be done by the will alone, but the body also needs to come into it.

My will is very weak when it comes down to some emotional or habitual energy. This is where the body comes in. Anything that needs to be habituated, needs the body. If the body is not in it, it is not whole. Mind and body belong together. The Buddha himself said, ‘Have I ever said, Oh monks, that there is a body without a mind and a mind without a body?’ They do belong together and if we whole-heartedly put ourselves into it, again and again, gradually a wholesome ripening will take place of itself.

And so if there is really this resolute pulling back by the nose-ring, whole-heartedly, not only just ‘I should, but I’m so tired….’ – let it be quick and sharp! And with no option. Whatever we really wholeheartedly train in, it may not be overnight, it may take some time, but if only we continue willingly, then gradually a wholesome ripening will take place of itself. Giving ourselves whole-heartedly into what is being done, that of itself is the pulling the bull by the nose. We do not need to do anything else, but usually that does not satisfy us.

We want to do more, want to look round and examine ourselves, judge how we are getting on, but all those wants are already wrong thought-streams that pull us away. If we faithfully continue with what we actually need to do, then from the other side, it seems, comes the helping hand of Kannon Bodhisattva and begins to pull us back again. But if I am too self-conscious and arrogant to apply myself diligently, ‘because’ I have no time, ‘because’ I have other more important things to do, then I mess the whole thing up and the helping hand cannot come.

There is an Indian story which illustrates how even with the best intentions, things can miscarry, if they are not done whole-heartedly by giving myself into them, but are done only for my betterment. A man had been meditating in the forest and his mantra was, ‘Krishna, Krishna. When will you liberate me? Krishna, Krishna, when will you liberate me?’ After some fifteen years or so Krishna felt it was about time to take him out of his misery. So he quietly walked up from behind, touched his shoulder and was about to say, ‘Today’ when the meditator angrily exclaimed, ‘Don’t you see I’m meditating? How dare you disturb me!’ Krishna quietly withdrew his hand and walked away.

We had better be reverent then, and with this we enter the religious sphere. Reverently we bow the head and metaphorically we get a ring fastened into our nose with a good rope attached to help us – not by the will alone, but with a physical jerk will we throw ourselves or pull ourselves or hurl ourselves back into the here and now, into this living moment where we are anyway! We don’t need to worry about not seeing or understanding, the Buddha’s wisdom is inborn in any case. I do not need to watch or observe myself. Direct, immediate awareness is here anyway, provided I do not obscure it. Perhaps we can ponder that and really take it to heart.

LETTER 4 to LI HSIEN-CH’EN

THETEXT

‘Do not grasp another’s bow, do not ride another’s horse, do not meddle in another’s affairs.’ Though this is a commonplace saying, it can also be sustenance for entering the Path. Just examine yourself constantly: from morning to night, what do you do to help others and help yourself? If you notice even the slightest partiality or insensitivity, you must admonish yourself. Don’t be careless about this! In the old days Ch’an Master Tao Lin lived up in a tall pine tree on Ch’in Wang Mountain; people of the time called him the ‘Bird’s Nest Monk.’ When Minister Po Chu-yi was commander of Ch’ien T‘ang, he made a special trip to the mountain to visit him. Po said, ‘It’s very dangerous where you’re sitting, Ch’an Master.’ The Master said, ‘My danger may be very great, Minister, but yours is even greater.’ Po said, ‘I am commander of Ch’ien T’ang: what danger is there?’ The Master said, ‘Fuel and fire are joined, consciousness and identity do not stay: how can you not be in danger?’

Po also asked, ‘What is the overall meaning of the Buddha’s teaching?’ The Master said, ‘Don’t commit any evils, practise the many virtues.’ Po said, ‘Even a three-year-old child could say this.’ The Master said, ‘Though a three-year-old child can say it, an eighty-year-old man cannot carry it out.’

Now if you want to save mental power, do not be concerned with whether or not a three-year-old child can say it, or whether or not an eighty-year-old man can carry it out. Just don’t do any evil and you have mastered these words. They apply whether you believe or not, so please think it over.

VEN.MYOKYO-NI’SCOMMENTS

‘“Do not grasp another’s bow, do not ride another’s horse, do not meddle in another’s affairs.”’ It’s one of those very simple straightforward sayings which if only we would heed them, we would not have to do strange practices. But we love to meddle in our own affairs, even more so in others’ affairs, in the world’s affairs, in the affairs of our surroundings. We think we are clever, but we are not. We are like the clever tortoise who didn’t want to leave footprints and so walking along, it swept them out with its tail, making its traces even more visible. That is exactly what we do. We are great meddlers. We are ready to interfere, ‘Now if I were you, I would do it this way.’ So Master Daie comments on ‘Do not meddle in another’s affairs’, by saying, ‘Though this is a commonplace saying, it can also be sustenance for entering the Path.’ The Chinese phrase wu wei is usually translated as ‘non-action’. But that is not what it means. It means ‘non-interference’. So Master Daie says, ‘Just examine yourself constantly from morning to night, what do you do to help others and yourself?’

Master Sesso said to me once, and I have never forgotten, ‘Of course one cannot do this training for oneself alone.’ To the extent that ‘I’ decrease, the openness and awareness and connectedness with everything else opens up. We cannot help others without helping ourselves and we must understand that in helping ourselves, we help others too. These others are not just human beings, but literally everything else which is not I.

What does this result in? That we become respectful, careful and open and therefore notice what at this moment actually is right in front of us. It is said in Torei’s Inexhaustible Lamp that what this means is to help all things to fulfil their appropriate function. A knife is for cutting and not a screwdriver, and a needle for sewing, etc., etc. That is what their function is, and then after using them, not carelessly throwing them away or putting them down any old how. Since things have their own places, one should be respectful of their own places too and put them back in their proper places.

‘If you notice even the slightest partiality or insensitivity, you must admonish yourself.’ Partiality and insensitivity go together. I cannot be partial about one thing without being insensitive towards something else. Kipling’s If expresses it, ‘If all men count with you, but none too much.’ If I am partial to one thing, I overlook the other. It means to be open in order to take in what is, and to respond to that, to the situation as it is, whole-heartedly, in harmony with the demands of the situation. If that is not so, if I am glued to one thing and forget, miss or don’t care about the other, that is not whole-heartedness and there is no harmony with the situation.

So we need to be careful. Do we feel the slightest partiality or insensitivity? If we are totally engrossed in ourselves, we cannot notice what goes on around us. If I feel awkward when being watched, that, too, is partiality towards myself and so insensitivity to the situation. If I feel I am the hub of the universe or the person whom everyone is watching, that is simply an ‘I’ that has grown out of all bounds, and so is embarrassment, from which we often suffer. That is insensitivity to others and partiality to myself.

‘In the old days, Ch’an Master Tao Lin lived up in a tall pine tree on Ch’in Wang Mountain.’ He is often mentioned and there are many pictures depicting him, perched up there like in a nest. He was referred to as ‘the Bird’s Nest Monk’. One day Minister Po Chu-yi, who was also the military commander of a quite large town, came to visit him. He had heard about him and seeing him perched high up there in the tree and assessing the danger, ‘Po called up, “It’s very dangerous where your sitting, Ch’an Master.” The master called down, “My danger may be very great, Minister, but yours is even greater.” The minister said, “I am commander of Ch’ien T’ang. What danger is there?” The master answered, “Fuel and fire are joined. Consciousness and identity do not stay; how can you not be in danger?”’

Fuel and fire are joined, there can be no fire without fuel. Wherever we are, fuel and fire are joined. The fires flare up in seconds and can consume us if we are not well-trained. They are joined in ourselves,