To You-17 frank pieces
of life advice from a Zen master
Kodo Sawaki Roshi
WINTER 2015 tricycle
Kodo Sawaki Roshi [1880–1965], or “Homeless
Kodo,” as he came to be known, was one of the most influential Soto
Zen teachers of the 20th century. Born in 1880 and orphaned in
early childhood, Sawaki ran away from his caretaker at the age of
16 to become a monk. Not long after he was ordained, he was drafted
into the Imperial Japanese Army and served during the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. When the war concluded, he returned
to his study of Zen, eventually taking responsibility of Antaiji
Shichikurin Sanzen Dojo in 1949. Sawaki was by no means a
conventional abbot, however, and instead of attending to
administrative duties at the temple, he roamed around the country
of Japan in order to teach zazen [meditation] to laypeople, an
endeavor he dubbed the “Moving Monastery.” His efforts both earned
him the appellation “Homeless” and established him as a pioneer of
the repopularization of sitting practice within Japan.
What follows is an abridged version of a
collection of his sayings, called “To You,” which were compiled by
Sawaki’s successor, Uchiyama Roshi. Unpublished in full, a
selection can be found on Antaiji’s website, from which this text
was taken. It has been translated from the Japanese original by
Muho Noelke, the current abbot of Antaiji, and Reiho Haasch, a
teacher in the lineage.
Sawaki is especially known for his nomadic
lifestyle and for emphasizing the importance of meditation over the
study of texts or working with koans. If his words here are any
indication, however, he must also be remembered for his charismatic
and direct style of communication, which can sometimes border on
the irreverent. Are you worried about your career? Fighting with
your spouse?
Complaining about how busy you are? Homeless
Kodo has a piece of advice for you. We just can’t guarantee it’s
the advice you’ll want to hear.
1. To you who have just begun brooding over
life
In a part of Manchuria, the carts are pulled
by huge dogs. The driver hangs a piece of meat in front of the
dog’s nose, and the dog runs like crazy to try to get at it. But of
course he can’t. He’s only thrown his meat after the cart has
finally reached its destination. Then in a single gulp, he swallows
it down.
It’s exactly the same with people and their
paychecks. Until the end of the month they run after the salary
hanging in front of their noses. Once the salary is paid, they gulp
it down, and they’re already off: running after the next payday.
Nobody can see farther than the end of their nose.
The question is: why are you straining your
forehead so much?
If you aren’t careful, you’ll spend your whole
life doing nothing besides waiting for your ordinary-person hopes
to someday be fulfilled.
2. To you who can’t stop worrying about how
others see you
You can’t trade even a single fart with the
next guy. Each and every one of us has to live out his own life.
Don’t waste time thinking about who’s most talented.
The eyes don’t say, “Sure we’re lower, but we
see more.” The eyebrows don’t reply, “Sure we don’t see anything,
but we are higher up.”
The nose can’t replace the eyes, and the mouth
can’t replace the ears.
Everything has its own identity, which is
unsurpassable in the whole universe.
3. To you who are totally exhausted from
fighting with your spouse
The question isn’t who’s right. You’re simply
seeing things from different points of view.
It all begins when we say “I.” Everything that
follows is illusion.
Stop trying to be something special—just be
what you are. Hold fire. Just sit!
4. To you who think there’s something to being
“in”
You’re always hanging on to others. If
somebody’s eating French fries, you want French fries too. If
somebody’s sucking on a candy, you want a candy too. If somebody’s
blowing on a pennywhistle, you scream, “Mommy, buy me a
pennywhistle too!” And that doesn’t just go for
children.
When spring comes, you let spring turn your
head. When autumn comes, you let autumn turn your head. Everyone is
just waiting for something to turn their head. Some even make a
living turning heads—they produce advertising.
One at a time people are still bearable, but
when they form cliques, they start to get stupid. They fall into
group stupidity.
We live in group stupidity and confuse this
insanity with true experience. It is essential that you become
transparent to yourself and wake up from this madness. Zazen means
taking leave of the group and walking on your own two
feet.
5. To you whose life is about money, money,
and more money
Human happiness and unhappiness doesn’t only
depend on money. If the balance in your savings account were a
measure of your happiness, it would be a simple matter. Yet it
really isn’t so.
Don’t be so helpless that you start saying you
need money to live. In this world you can lead a fine life without
savings.
Some think they’re important because they have
money. Others think they’re important because they have “satori”
[enlightenment]. But no matter how much you puff up your personal
sack of flesh, you won’t make yourself into any- thing besides a
devil.
That which doesn’t belong to you fills the
entire universe. Where personal thoughts come to an end is where
the buddhadharma begins.
6. To you who would like more money, love,
status, and fame
Stupidity means being preoccupied with your
own body. Wisdom says, “I am what I am, no matter how things end
up.”
Once during the war [the Russo-Japanese War,
1904–05] I visited a coal mine. With the same outfit and headlamp
as the miners, I got into the lift and down we went. At one point
when we were going down it seemed to me as if suddenly we were
going up again. But when I looked with the lamp at the wall of the
shaft, I saw that we were still going down. In the beginning when
we were accelerating downward, we could really feel that we were
going downward. It was only when the velocity changed that it
seemed to us as if we were going up again. In exactly the same way,
when we think about our lives, we always go wrong when we mistake
the fluctuating amounts for the sum.
Losing is satori. Winning is
illusion.
Not coveting a single thing is the greatest
gift you can give to the universe.
7. To you who would like to leave your rivals
in the dust
We often wonder who here is really better. But
aren’t we all made out of the same lump of clay?
Everyone should sit firmly anchored in the
place where there is no better and worse.
Your whole life you’re completely out of your
mind because you think it’s obvious that there is a “you” and “the
others.” You put on an act to stand out in a crowd, but in reality
there’s neither “you” nor “the others.”
Buddhadharma means seamlessness. What seam
runs between you and me? Sooner or later we all end up acting as if
a seam separates friend and foe. When we get too used to this, we
believe that this seam really exists.
Poor and rich, important and unimportant—none
of that exists. It’s only glitter on the waves.
8. To you who are sobbing because somebody’s
put one over on you
All beings are mistaken: we see as happiness
that which leads to unhappiness, and weep over an unhappiness which
isn’t unhappiness at all. We all know the child whose tears
suddenly turn into laughter when you give him a cookie. What we
living beings call happiness isn’t much more than that.
At some point you’ve got to slap yourself in
the face and seriously ask yourself: is your personal gain or loss
really worth this overwhelming joy and suffering?
Sooner or later everyone starts thinking of
nothing besides themselves. You say, “That was good!” But what was
good? It was only good for you personally, that’s all.
A person with big desires is easily fooled.
Even the greatest con man can’t profit from a person with no
desires.
Buddhism means no self, nothing to
gain.
9. To you who are tumbling down the career
ladder
When you’re dead and you look back at your
life, you’ll see that none of this mattered in the
least.
Fortune and misfortune, good and bad—not
everything is how it looks to your eyes. It’s not how you think it
is either. We’ve got to go beyond fortune and misfortune, good and
bad.
Suffering is nothing more than the suffering
we create for ourselves.
10. To you who are complaining all the time
that you haven’t got any time
Everybody complains that they’re so busy they
haven’t got any time. But why are they so busy? It’s only their
illusions that keep them busy. A person who practices zazen has
time. When you practice zazen, you have more time than anyone else
in the world.
If you aren’t careful, you’ll start making a
big fuss just to feed yourself. You’re constantly in a hurry, but
why? Just to feed yourself. Chickens too are in a hurry when they
peck at their food. But why? Only to be eaten by humans.
How many illusions does a person create in
their lifetime? It’s impossible to calculate. Day in, day out, “I
want this, I want that . . .” Just a single stroll in the park is
accompanied by incalculable illusions. So that’s what it means to
be “busy.” “I want to be with you, I want to come home, I want to
see you. . . .”
People are constantly out of breath— from
running so quickly after their illusions.
11. To you who wish you could lead a happier
life
Rest awhile and everything will be fine. We
simply need to take a short break. Being buddha means taking a
short break from being a human. Being buddha doesn’t mean working
your way up as a human.
“What sort of person stands on the ground
where there’s neither coming nor going?” Kyuho answered, “The stone
sheep versus the stone tiger: sooner or later they’ll get tired of
staring each other in the eyes.” The stone sheep won’t flinch. The
stone tiger won’t jump out of hunger. That’s the point—encountering
things beyond thinking.
What do we have when we truly have a grip on
things as they are? Beyond-thinking [hishiryo]. Beyond-thinking
doesn’t allow itself to be thought. No matter if you think so or
not: things are simply as they are.
“All things are empty” means there’s nothing
we can run into, because nothing is really happening. Nothing is
ever happening, no matter what seems to be going on—that’s the
natural condition. Illusion means losing this natural condition.
Normally we don’t recognize this natural condition. Normally we
cover it with something else, so it’s not natural
anymore.
The buddhadharma means the natural
condition.
To practice the way of Buddha means to
completely live out this present moment—which is our whole
life—here and now.
12. To you who want to study a little Buddhism
to improve yourself
“Empty theories” is what we call it when
bystanders play around with terminology. Playing around like that
is good for nothing. Dive in with body and soul!
You’ve got to die completely in order to be
able to reflect on the buddhadharma. It isn’t enough to torture
yourself and only die halfway.
13. To you who say that Buddhism doesn’t have
anything to do with you
When you talk about Buddha, you’re thinking of
something far away that’s got nothing to do with you, and that’s
why you’re only running around in circles.
Ordinary people and buddhas have the same
form. Awakening and illusion have the same form.
When we practice the buddhadharma, we are
buddha. Or better yet, it is precisely because we are buddha
already that we can practice the buddhadharma.
You believe that Buddhism is a little
different from everything else. But it’s not like that at all:
Buddhism is each and every thing.
14. To you who are wondering if your zazen has
been good for something
What’s zazen good for? Absolutely nothing!
This “good for nothing” has got to sink into your flesh and bones
until you’re truly practicing what’s good for nothing. Until then,
your zazen really is good for nothing.
You say you want to become a better person by
doing zazen. Zazen isn’t about learning how to be a person. Zazen
is to stop being a person.
You say, “When I do zazen, I get disturbing
thoughts!” Foolish! The fact is that it’s only in zazen that you’re
aware of your disturbing thoughts at all. When you dance around
with your disturbing thoughts, you don’t notice them at all. When a
mosquito bites you during zazen, you notice it right away. But when
you’re dancing and a flea bites your balls, you don’t notice it at
all.
Don’t whine. Don’t stare into space. Just
sit!
15. To you who are out of your mind trying so
hard to attain peace of mind
You lack peace of mind because you’re running
after an idea of total peace of mind. That’s backwards. Be
attentive to your mind in each moment, no matter how unpeaceful it
might seem to be. Great peace of mind is realized only in the
practice within this unpeaceful mind.
When dissatisfaction is finally accepted as
dissatisfaction, peace of mind reigns.
16. To you who say that you have attained a
better state of mind through zazen
As long as you say zazen is a good thing,
something isn’t quite right. Unstained zazen is absolutely nothing
special. It isn’t even necessary to be grateful for it. . . . Don’t
stain your zazen by saying that you’ve progressed, feel better, or
have become more confident through zazen.
We only say, “Things are going well!” when
they’re going our way.
We should simply leave the water of our
original nature as it is. But instead we are constantly mucking
about with our hands to find out how cold or warm it is. That’s why
it gets cloudy.
Zazen isn’t like a thermometer where the
temperature slowly rises: “Just a little more . . . yeah . . .
that’s it! Now I’ve got satori!” Zazen never becomes anything
special, no matter how long you practice. If it becomes something
special, you must have a screw loose somewhere.
17. To you who are aiming at the ultimate way
of life
What’s the buddhadharma about? It’s about
having every aspect of your daily life pulled by Buddha.
The basis of all actions is to follow through
to the end. If your mind is absent even just for a moment, you’re
no different from a corpse.
Practice means asking with your whole being
the question “What can I do right now for the Buddha
way?”
It isn’t enough to hit the bull’s-eye once.
Last year’s perfect marks are useless. You’ve got to hit the
bull’s-eye right now.