Dzogchen in Everyday Life

By Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The everyday practice of dzogchen is simply to develop a complete carefree acceptance, an openness to all situations without limit. We should realize openness as the playground of our emotions and relate to people without artificiality, manipulation or strategy.

We should experience everything totally, never withdrawing into ourselves as a marmot hides in its hole. This practice releases tremendous energy which is usually constricted by the process of maintaining fixed reference points. Referentiality is the process by which we retreat from the direct experience of everyday life.

Being present in the moment may initially trigger fear. But by welcoming the sensation of fear with complete openness, we cut through the barriers created by habitual emotional patterns.

When we engage in the practice of discovering space, we should develop the feeling of opening ourselves out completely to the entire universe. We should open ourselves with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind. This is the powerful and ordinary practice of dropping the mask of self-protection.

We shouldn’t make a division in our meditation between perception and field of perception. We shouldn’t become like a cat watching a mouse. We should realize that the purpose of meditation is not to go “deeply into ourselves” or withdraw from the world. Practice should be free and non-conceptual, unconstrained by introspection and concentration.

Vast unoriginated self-luminous wisdom space is the ground of being - the beginning and the end of confusion. The presence of awareness in the primordeal state has no bias toward enlightenment or non-enlightenment. This ground of being which is known as pure or original mind is the source from which all phenomena arise. It is known as the great mother, as the womb of potentiality in which all things arise and dissolve in natural self-perfectedness and absolute spontaneity. All aspects of phenomena are completely clear and lucid. The whole universe is open and unobstructed - everything is mutually interpenetrating.

Seeing all things as naked, clear and free from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or realize. The nature of phenomena appears naturally and is naturally present in time-transcending awareness. Everything is naturally perfect just as it is. All phenomena appear in their uniqueness as part of the continually changing pattern. These patterns are vibrant with meaning and significance at every moment; yet there is no significance to attach to such meanings beyond the moment in which they present themselves.

This is the dance of the five elememts in which matter is a symbol of energy and energy a symbol of emptiness. We are a symbol of our own enlightenment. With no effort or practice whatsoever, liberation or enlightenment is already here.

The everyday practice of dzogchen is just everyday life itself. Since the undeveloped state does not exist, there is no need to behave in any special way or attempt to attain anything above and beyond what you actually are. There should be no feeling of striving to reach some “amazing goal” or “advanced state.”

To strive for such a state is a neurosis which only conditions us and serves to obstruct the free flow of Mind. We should also avoid thinking of ourselves as worthless persons - we are naturally free and unconditioned. We are intrinsically enlightened and lack nothing.

When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to be as natural as eating, breathing and defecating. It should not become a specialized or formal event, bloated with seriousness and solemnity. We should realize that meditation transcends effort, practice, aims, goals and the duality of liberation and non-liberation. Meditation is always ideal; there is no need to correct anything. Since everything that arises is simply the play of mind as such, there is no unsatisfactory meditation and no need to judge thoughts as good or bad.

Therefore we should simply sit. Simply stay in your own place, in your own condition just as it is. Forgetting self-conscious feelings, we do not have to think “I am meditating.” Our practice should be without effort, without strain, without attempts to control or force and without trying to become “peaceful.”

If we find that we are disturbing ourselves in any of these ways, we stop meditating and simply rest or relax for a while. Then we resume our meditation. If we have “interesting experiences” either during or after meditation, we should avoid making anything special of them. To spend time thinking about experiences is simply a distraction and an attempt to become unnatural. These experiences are simply signs of practice and should be regarded as transient events. We should not attempt to re-experience them because to do so only serves to distort the natural spontaneity of mind. All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique and entirely free from all concepts of past, present and future. They are experienced in timelessness.

The continual stream of new discovery, revelation and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of our clarity. We should learn to see everyday life as mandala - the luminous fringes of experience which radiate spontaneously from the empty nature of our being. The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or play of the universe. By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being. Therefore we should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything. This enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of events that usually irritate us.

In meditation we can see through the illusion of past, present and future - our experience becomes the continuity of now-ness. The past is only an unreliable memory held in the present. The future is only a projection of our present conceptions. The present itself vanishes as soon as we try to grasp it. So why bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

We should free ourselves from our past memories and preconceptions of meditation. Each moment of meditation is completely unique and full of potentiality. In such moments, we will be incapable of judging our meditation in terms of past experience, dry theory or hollow rhetoric.

Simply plunging directly into meditation in the moment now, with our whole being, free from hesitation, boredom or excitement, is enlightenment. 

Ten Oxherding Pictures

Verses by Kakuan Shien (12th century)
Oxherding text translations by Victor Sogen Hori

“Here, our essential self is compared to an ox. We seek the ox, grasp it, tame it and finally the self which has always been seeking becomes completely one with the ox. But this also is forgotten so that we now simply carry on our ordinary lives. This is the process described by the Pictures. They show concretely the progression of our practice and are very helpful for a self-examination of our own practice and as encouragement for further practice.The Ten Ox-herding Pictures have concretely depicted the process in which the imperfect, limited, and relative self (the little child) awakens to the perfect, unlimited, and absolute essential self (the ox), grasps it, tames it, forgets it, and completely incorporates it into the personality. But we must stress that these pictures and verses are merely an indication of the way to practice and not an object for conceptual thought. Thus, the study of the Ten Ox-herding Pictures are very useful for those who are actually striving to make clear the true self in Zen through the actual sitting with aching legs. But for those who want only to learn the rationale of Zen I must warn that these pictures and words will be only “white elephants” of no use whatsoever.”

   — taken from the Teisho (commentary) by KUBOTA Ji’un

 1. Searching for the Ox

Preface:
Until now, the ox has never gone astray. Why then does he need to search for it? Because he turned away from himself, he became estranged from it; then, lost in the dust, at last he let it astray; he’s lost as soon as the path divides. Winning and losing consume him like flames, right and wrong rise round him like blades.

Verse:
Beating about the endless wild grass, he seeks and searches, the rivers broaden, the mountains stretch on, and the trails go ever deeper. His strength exhausted and his spirit wearied, no place allows him refuge. He listens–there’s just the evening’s shrilling of cicadas in the trees.

Waka:
Sought ox in the mountains–missed it. Only a cicada’s empty shrilling.

__________________

II. Finding the Tracks

Preface:
With the aid of the sutras, he gains understanding; through the study of the teaching, he finds the traces. The many vessels are clearly all of one gold; and he himself is the embodiment of the ten thousand things. But unable to recognize correct from incorrect, how is he to distinguish true from false? Since he has yet to pass through the gate, only tentatively has he seen the traces.

Verse:
By the water and under the trees, there are tracks thick and fast. In the sweet grasses thick with growth, did he see it or not? But even in the depths of the deepest mountains, how could it hide from others its snout turned up at the sky?

Waka:
Deep in the mountains, his efforts bear fruit. Tracks! How grateful to see a sign.

__________________

III. Seeing the Ox

Preface:
Through sounds he makes an entry and comes to know their source. But it’s no different for each and every one of the six senses. In their every function, it is plainly present, like salt in water, or glue in paint. Raise your eyebrows–it is nothing other than yourself.

Verse:
On the tree branch a nightingale sings, warm sun, soft wind, green willows on the bank. Now nowhere for it to hide, its majestic horns no artist could draw.

Waka:
In the spring sun in the green willow strands, see its timeless form.

__________________ 

IV. Catching the Ox

Preface:
At last today you finally meet up with the ox so long hidden in the wilderness. But the world around is so distracting, it is hard to keep up with the ox. It will not give up its longing for the sweet grass. It is just as willful as before and just as wild natured. He who would truly tame it must lay on the whip.

Verse:
He expends all strength to take the ox. But willful and strong, it won’t soon be broken. As soon as he gains the high ground, it vanishes once more deep into the mist.

Waka:
Thinking “At last, my mind–the ox. Don’t let go.” Just this is the real fetter.

__________________

V. Taming the Ox

Preface:
If even the slightest thought arises, then another follows. With awakening, all becomes truth; but if you reside in ignorance, all is unreal. Things arise, not because of the objective world, but only because of the mind. Keep a firm grip on that rope and do not waver.

Verse:
Let drop neither whip nor line even a moment lest the ox wander back to dust and desire. Tame this bull and it will be pure and gentle. Without fetters or chain, of itself, it will follow.

Waka:
Days past counting and even the wild ox comes to hand. Becoming the shadow that clings to my body–how gratifying.

__________________

VI. Riding Home on the Ox

Preface:
The struggle is over; all concern about winning and losing has ceased. He sings woodsman’s village songs and plays children’s country tunes. Lying back on top of his ox, he gazes at the sky. Call him back but he will not turn around; try to catch him but he will not be caught.

Verse:
Astride his ox, leisurely he heads for home. Trilling a nomad’s flute, he leaves in misted sunset. In each beat and verse, his boundless feeling–what need for an intimate companion to
say even a word?

Waka:
Roar in the sky of limpid soaring mind; white clouds come back on the peaks.

__________________

VII. The Ox Forgotten, the Person Remains

Preface:
The dharma is not dual; the ox just stands for the actuality. Likewise, the snare and the rabbit are different, and fishnet and fish are not the same. So, too, gold separates from dross, and the moon emerges from the clouds, sending out a single shaft of icy light from before the age of Ion.

Verse:
Aback his ox, he’s reached his original abode, Ox now gone, he too is still. Sun risen high, yet still he dreams, old whip and line put away in the woodshed.

Waka:
Hard to take–people who fret over good and bad, knowing nothing of Naniwa reeds.

__________________

VIII. Forgetting Both Person and Ox

Preface:
He has shed all worldly feelings and erased all thought of holiness. He does not linger where the Buddha is; he hurries right past where the Buddha is not. As he does not cling to either side, not even the thousand-eyed one can find him. Birds flocking around bearing flowers–that would be a disgraceful scene.

Verse:
Whip and line, man and ox–all vanished to emptiness. Blue sky utterly vast–no way to say or convey. Into the flames of a fire pit, how can a snowflake fall? He who attains this is truly one with the Patriarch.

Waka:
Without clouds, or moon, or cassia–the tree too is gone, the sky above swept so clean.

__________________

IX. Return to the Origin

Preface:
The fundamental is pure and immaculate, without a speck of dust. The sees the things of existence arise and decay though he resides in the serene quiet of doing nothing. But he is not merely conjuring up visions. Why then is there any need to change things? The blue waters, the green mountains–he just sits and watches them rise and pass away.

Verse:
Return to the origin, back to the source–such wasted effort. What compares with being dumb and blind? From within the hut, one sees not what is in front–the river by nature broad, flowers by nature red.

Waka:
No traces of the Dharma way, on the original mountain. The pines are green, the flowers glint with dew.

__________________

X. Entering the Marketplace with Extended Hands

Preface:
All alone, the gate shut so tight–not even the thousand sages can comprehend. Hiding his light he strays from the tracks of the sages who have gone before. He comes round to the market with his gourd dangling and returns to his hut clumping along with his staff. He shows up at the drinking places and fish stalls to awaken all to their Buddhahood.

Verse:
With bare chest and unshod feet, he walks into the market, daubed with dirt and smeared with ashes, laughter fills his face. Without using mystic arts or divine powers he makes withered trees at once burst into flower.

Waka:
Hands extended, feet in the sky–on a dead branch perches a bird.

 

Nelson Foster Roshi on koans 

From his foreword to "Entangling Vines" translated and edited by Thomas Yuho Kirchner 

This book offers “entangling vines,” but who would want them and what for? The phrase suggests tough, jungly vegetation that will trip you up, snag you in its rope-like sinews, and hold you captive. As a title, it seems calculated to put off all but the boldest or most foolhardy readers, signaling that exploration of these pages will be a struggle—arduous, exhausting, possibly futile altogether. It invites risk-takers, curiosity seekers, and especially, perhaps, people driven to get to the bottom of life’s biggest questions. Shall we count you in?

As the subtitle makes clear, the vines threatening to tie us up here are koans, the famously enigmatic little stories of Zen tradition. The liveliness and strangeness of koans—the humor and inscrutability of their repartee, their unorthodox treatment of Buddhist doctrine, the indifference they exhibit to logic or social convention, their frequent eruption into hitting and hollering, their broad expressive range, from crudeness to banality to poetry of great subtlety and beauty—have made them intriguing to people of diverse cultures ever since they emerged as a feature of Zen’s Chinese precursor, Chan, some nine centuries ago.

Understanding has lagged far behind interest, unfortunately. In attempting to characterize koans, popular writers commonly resort to the words puzzles and riddles, which are so inaccurate as to be positively misleading. Academic specialists fare little better with such arid definitions as “pedagogical tools for religious training.” Zen masters, who seem supremely qualified to explain the nature and working of koans, typically deflect requests for such information, declaring words inadequate to do justice to the phenomenon. Try a koan and see for yourself, they say.

Which brings us back to the entanglement under consideration—yours. Entanglement in koans takes two basic forms, one of them praised in Chan and Zen tradition, the other deplored, even ridiculed. The latter is a fascination with koans that remains merely literary or intellectual. The tradition doesn’t reject such pursuits wholesale; indeed, it possesses an extraordinarily rich literature, and many of its great figures have demonstrated nimbleness and delight in the life of the mind. Zen has always insisted, however, that other interests be subordinated to practice and awakening, and it deploys a set of vivid metaphors to emphasize the absurdity and fruitlessness of a Zen student entering the thickets of analysis and interpretation before experiencing insight: heading east when you want to go west, scratching your shoe when your foot itches, beating the cart instead of the horse.

The approved form of entanglement with koans involves thorough, sustained absorption in one koan at a time, in the hope that it will eventually resolve in a deeply liberating realization. Before the process runs its course, however, engaging a koan in this fashion often feels tedious or even torturous—every bit as constricting and exasperating as the title metaphor implies—and the bonds grow still tighter if one thrashes around mentally in the effort to get loose. So whoever originally applied the phrase “entangling vines” to koans undoubtedly deserves a prize for Truth in Advertising (Medieval Chinese Division). It wasn’t a private effort, though; institutionally, for centuries Chan and Zen have stressed the hardship of working with koans, promoting images of the process even more painful to contemplate than getting snarled in a web of creepers. The most cringe-inducing of these liken koan study to nightmares at the dining table—gnawing on an iron bun, eating the putrid mash left after the fermentation of alcohol, lapping up the shit and piss of bygone sages, swallowing a red-hot iron ball that can’t be disgorged.

Despite such repulsive warnings, generations of Zen practitioners—male and female, lay and monastic, dauntless or terrified—have undertaken koan work and survived to verify its joys and lasting benefits as well as its intermittent miseries. Most descriptions of the process attribute the difficulty of koans to their deliberate thwarting of rationality. By this account, koans function as efficient traps for logical thought because the masters of old designed them expressly for that purpose. While it’s true that logic rarely produces significant insight into a koan, the notion that koans are explicitly intended to impede logic doesn’t hold up.

Centuries ago, the annals of Chan tell us, a monk questioned his distinguished master about the sayings of his predecessors, asking, “Did the buddhas and ancestral teachers have the intention of tricking people or not?” The master’s reply holds for Buddhist texts of all kinds but fits koans particularly well:

Tell me, do rivers and lakes have any intention of obstructing people? Although rivers and lakes have no intention of obstructing people, still people can’t cross them, so they become barriers from a human standpoint. Although ancestral teachers and buddhas had no intention of tricking people, right now people can’t go beyond them, so ancestral teachers and buddhas trick people after all.

Rather than presuming that koans were created to confound us, we would do well to take them at face value, as good-faith attempts to present the Dharma, the wisdom of the Buddha, in a straightforward, perhaps striking, manner. Many events in everyday life surprise and confuse us, after all, though no one intends them to; we simply don’t understand them or even know how to understand them. From this perspective, it seems utterly unremarkable that a koan—a few words cherished for illuminating reality in a profound way—would go over our heads on first encounter (and maybe for quite a while afterward). Koans often perplex the monastics and lay people who appear in them, and evidence abounds that they’ve perplexed innumerable monks, nuns, and lay people who’ve pondered them as well. You’re baffled by them? Big deal. Join the crowd. 

Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon,

summer with breeze, winter with snow.

When idle concerns don’t hang in your mind,

that is your best season. 

 -  Wu-men

Words from our Ancestors

     In late summer of 1659, Ungo was living in a hermitage on the summit of Mount Tsunagi in Sendai. At twilight he climbed the mountain’s eastern slope, rang the evening gong himself, and then sat in meditation until midnight, when he summoned his disciples and announced that he was about to depart the world. Begged for a final verse, Ungo laughed and replied, “The streams, the birds, the trees and woods, all these are my verse. Why are you asking for something more?” And so saying, he quietly passed away.

            As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space,

            an illusion, a dew drop, a bubble,

            a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightening;

            view all created things like this.

                       - Diamond Sutra

           This dewdrop world        

           Is a dewdrop world

           And yet, and yet

                      - Issa (1763-1828)

- From Hilo Zen Circle Newsletter, October 2019

Pai-chang
Having explained as far as that the present mirror awareness is your own Buddha, this is the elementary good ("good in the beginning"). Not to keep dwelling in the immediate mirror awareness is the intermediate good ("good in the middle"). Furthermore not to make an understanding of nondwelling is the final good.

      From: Sayings and Doings of Pai-Chang, P41. Translated by Thomas Cleary

Shôyôroku (Book of Equanimity) CASE 100
 -Rôya’s “Mountains and Rivers”
 Commentary by Yamada Kôun


Instruction:
“One word can make a nation rise, one word can make a nation fall;”
This medicine can kill people and can give people life.”
The benevolent person sees it and names it benevolence,
The wise person sees it and calls it wisdom.”
Tell me, where is the profit and where is the loss?

Case:
A monk asked Master Kaku of Rôya, “The essential state is pure and
clear; how are mountains, rivers and the great earth produced at once?”
Kaku said, “The essential state is pure and clear; how are mountains,
rivers and the great earth produced at once?”

Verse:
Seeing a being, he does not consider it to be a being;
He turns his hand over and turns it back.
The man on Mt. Rôya
Does not yield to Gautama.

On the Instruction:
Being able to examine this final case of the Book of Equanimity with you today must
be seen as the result of deep karma connections. The same holds, of course, for the first case,
but its also wonderful being able to examine this final case with you today. In that sense, the
persons present here today to hear this final teisho enjoy a deep karmic connection and good
fortune. As I always say, the Instruction is always written with the Main Case in mind. Let us
look now at that Instruction.

“One word can make a nation rise, one word can make a nation fall;”
These words have their origin in the Analects of Confucius. As they say, a single word
can cause a nation to flourish and a single word can cause the demise of the nation. From the
Zen standpoint, to say that one word can make a nation fall means that a single word can “kill”
a person. And to say that a single word can make the nation rise means to bring a person to
life. Killing and giving life in Zen do not mean physically killing or causing to live. To kill
means to cut off all our discriminating thinking and conceptualizing. With a single word, we
cut off all such ideas. “Killing” means to completely eliminate any such concepts, to cut them
off completely. And if you truly cut them off, in that instant the great life appears (daikatsu
genjô). A truly new world suddenly appears. This is what is known as satori. When all our
concepts disappear, in that instant new life wells up, and this is known as satori or
enlightenment. Thus, a single word can suffice to kill and give new life. For example, if you
ask what such a word is, I can point to the word Mu. If you practice Mu and become one with
Mu, not a single thought can arise, and in that instant you suddenly realize. What do you
realize? You realize your true self. But this is definitely not easy to do, even though it might
seem easy in theory. It’s a matter of continuing the practice of Mu (muji no nentei) tirelessly,
when breathing in and breathing out. You must continue on no matter how long it takes. In
the process you forget yourself. And when you completely forget yourself in the practice of Mu,
you become completely one with Mu. It’s a matter of melting into Mu. I speak about this
practice any number of times, but many people are unable to reach that point. I see people
who I haven’t seen in a while and ask them if they have brought a “souvenir,” so to speak, in
the sense of being able to show me their understanding of Mu. But in many cases they are
unable to do so. I would like you all to bring that souvenir as soon as possible. The joy upon
realizing Mu is beyond comparison. You will feel that you could die at any time having
realized this. You will feel that it was definitely worth being born into this world, that life was
worth living no matter whether you do anything outstanding after that or not. And to repeat,
to grasp Mu is to grasp your own true self. With that you have the key to solve all of life’s
problems. In Mumon’s Commentary to Case 1 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate), there is the
following passage: “It will be as if you have grasped the sword of General Kan.” You will be
able to cut down anything in your way, in the sense of cutting down all concepts and ideas.
This is found in the fervent practice of Mu. This is how we should understand these first
words of the Instruction.

This medicine can kill people and can give people life. What is the
“medicine”? It is your true self. You can also consider it to be Mu. A truly capable Zen master
can cut off all concepts and thoughts in a single word, as if it were a single stroke of a sword.
And then you clearly realize your own true self. The joy at that moment is beyond description.
Zen Master Gutei simply held up a finger whatever he was asked about Zen. This
single finger has the power to kill people and to give them life in the sense just explained. All
koans can be understood in that way.
      
The benevolent person sees it and names it benevolence,
The wise person sees it and calls it wisdom. As this is a reference to the way
of Mencius, it speaks in terms of “the benevolent person.” From our point of view, it can be
seen as meaning the Buddhas and patriarchs. Looking at the workings of Mu, they call it
“benevolence” (Chinese: ren, Japanese: jin). This comes from deep compassion and love, or one
could say grace. It is the compassion of wanting somehow to bring others to peace of mind, of
wanting to deliver them from their sufferings. This is known as compassion (jihi) in
Buddhism: the desire to save others in some way. “The wise person” means a person who has
truly grasped the essence of the human being, out of which arises a wisdom that can be used
freely. Such a person is considering how to guide others toward salvation. For example, the
Zen master, in his position of guiding others in practice, must have such wisdom. He needs
such wisdom to know where the student is in his or her practice. This must be clearly
apparent to the master. He then knows very readily how best to lead that person in practice.
Only compassion is insufficient. When it gets down to it, unless you have had an experience of
clearly grasping your own true self, you will not know where the student is in her or his
practice. This is a very important matter. For example, when a primary student comes to you,
you treat that child accordingly. When a layperson with a family comes to you, you consider
the level of that person and give him the guidance most appropriate to him.
Tell me, where is the profit and where is the loss? “Profit and loss” can be
understood here as meaning “making a nation rise or fall,” as was mentioned in the first line
of this Instruction. On one hand he can kill people and on the other hand he can cause them to
come to life. “Where is the root source of that activity?” the Instruction asks us. An example
will now be given and we are exhorted to look carefully at what transpires in the Main Case.

On the Case:
A monk asked Master Kaku of Rôya, “The essential state is pure and
clear; how are mountains, rivers and the great earth produced at once?”
Master Kaku of Rôya was Master Ekaku, with “E” meaning wisdom. Rôya was the name of the
mountain where he lived. He was eighth in succession in the line of Hyakujô Ekai Zenji.
Hyakujô was blessed with many outstanding successors. First we can mention Obaku, or we
could cite Isan, who together with Kyôzan was the founder of the Isan School of Zen. In that
same line we find master Shuzan Shônen. It was Bunyô Zenshô who inherited Shuzan’s
dharma. There were actually two streams: The Ôryu Stream and the Bunyô Stream. This was
a major bifurcation within the Rinzai School. Ekaku of Rôya was the successor to this Bunyô,
which means he is in the Rinzai tradition. When we look at this case, we can see that he had a
very clear dharma eye.
One day a monk came to this master and quoted this text: “The essential state is pure
and clear; how are mountains, rivers and the great earth produced at once?”
Our true self or the true fact is pure and clear. That is because it is completely empty,
there is not a single thing. This is known also as the essential world. It is the world of not a
single thing. That means it is beauty itself. And issuing from it are mountains, rivers, the
great earth, the moon and the sun and the stars. “How do they suddenly come into being?” the
monk wants to know. How do all those phenomena arise from the pure essence? He cannot
understand it. In other words, how do the myriad phenomena arise from essential nature or
from the essential world? If his interlocutor had been a scientist, he might have answered in
logical terms, saying it arises out of nothing. But the way of treating this question in the Zen
tradition is somewhat different.
The essential state is pure and clear; how are mountains, rivers and the great earth
produced at once? (shô-jô-hon-nen-un-ga-kosshô-sen-ga-daichi). There is essentially no
meaning to the words, it is just: shô-jô-hon-nen-un-ga-kosshô-sen-ga-daichi. If there were any
meaning to the words, it would only be a concept. (Roshi strikes the rostrum with his kotsu).
You have to listen to those words in the same way as this sound. That’s how I used to explain
it, and it’s not wrong. Nowadays, however, I have a slightly different view, which is proof that
my way of seeing the koans is evolving. Zen Master Kaku replies: The essential state is pure
and clear; how are mountains, rivers and the great earth produced at once? (shô-jô-hon-nenun-
ga-kosshô-sen-ga-daichi). He is producing for the monk where they come from. As I will be
mentioning later, all things in the phenomenal world—our body, hands, this rostrum, etc.
have two aspects. The first aspect is the phenomenal aspect. The other aspect is the essential
world. You might think these are two different things, but actually they are one and the same.
Usually we are only familiar with the back of the hand and remain unaware of the palm of the
hand, which symbolizes the essential world. Unless you realize this directly in an
enlightenment experience, you will not know that world. The world of phenomena is the world
of dualistic opposition. But most people are not even aware of the existence of this essential
world, the world of oneness. When you get right down to it, they are simply attempting to
understand it conceptually or philosophically, while remaining ignorant of the truth. After all
is said and done, you must come to a direct experience of it and appreciate for yourself.
Otherwise you will remain unable to see the world of emptiness. You might think there is
something like an essential world on which the phenomenal world is based, but actually they
are one. Like the back of my hand and the palm of my hand, they live the same single life.
When you look at the world, you might assume that the Soviets are the “bad guys” and the
Americans are the “good guys.” Actually, however, they are on equal footing in the same sumo
ring, you might say. I would somehow like to make the leaders in the U.S. and the Soviet
Union aware of the real world. The true world is the world of zero, where there is no dualistic
opposition. Unless we become aware of this world, humanity will not really come to peace no
matter how much time goes by. I would like the people practicing here from abroad to sit their
very best and come to true realization, and then return to their countries. I sometimes have
the feeling that they are more diligent in their practice than the Japanese. There is the saying
in the Bible about a single grain of wheat planted in the ground. When ten or twenty years
have passed, it might not become something outstanding. But in the course of one hundred or
two hundred years, it will gradually sprout and grow. Then true peace will come to the world.
Please do your very best. I would like you all to become such a grain of wheat. The essential
state is pure and clear; how are mountains, rivers and the great earth produced at once? (shôjô-
hon-nen-un-ga-kosshô-sen-ga-daichi). If you can hear this in the same way as the stick
banging the rostrum, it is the essential world itself, and not just an expression thereof. The
monk asks his question about where it all comes from, and Master Kaku produces that world
of emptiness for him. He has given a sample of it. These days, I have the feeling that this is
the better way to view this case.

On the Verse:
Seeing a being, he does not consider it to be a being;
He turns his hand over and turns it back. This is precisely what I was just
talking about. Although the phenomenal world might appear to have form, for those who have
opened their dharma eye, its content is empty. He has clearly realized that. Although there is
being, at the same time there is not a single thing. That is what is meant by the phrase:
“seeing a being, he does not consider it to be a being.” When he turns his hand over, that is the
phenomenal world. As I was saying just now, my hand has two sides. But actually they are the
same single hand. The back of my hand cannot move on its own, nor can the palm of my hand.
I would like to make the politicians in other nations somehow aware of this fact. For those
politicians know better than anyone that disputes cannot be the solution. They are gravely
aware of how allowing disputes to get out of hand could be calamitous. That is the reason for
my wishing to somehow make these people aware of this world of oneness, the true world.

The man on Mt. Rôya
Does not yield to Gautama. The “man on Mt. Rôya” is a reference to Master Kaku
of Rôya. “Gautama” means Shakyamuni Buddha. The poet is saying that we should not be
under the control of Buddha. Master of Kaku of Rôya is every bit a match for the Buddha and
has his own views of things. He has no need to be taught by the Buddha. When you realize
your own true nature, that is only natural. It’s not a matter of gobbling the dregs of the
Buddha. In his teisho on this koan, Yasutani Roshi writes: “Where are mountains, rivers, the
great earth? Isn’t there only pure and clear?” That is certainly true. But at the same time, we
could also say, “Isn’t there just mountains, rivers, the great earth?” Actually, the true fact is
that there is neither pure and clear nor mountains, rivers, the great earth. What is there,
then? Just this! (tada kore kore).