..续本文上一页be verified by anything and everything, or more straightforwardly, by all of life itself. Life is verified by itself. It has to be! When we forget the self all we are is the ten thousand dharmas, all we are is life itself. This is how we must live, over and over again.

　　"To be enlightened by ten thousand dharmas is to free one”s body and mind and those of others." In other words, there is no pision between oneself and others. The Buddha realized this when he saw the morning star. Seeing into his own nature, he saw the universality of his life, the freedom of his life. Life is absolutely free from the beginning. It is not at all restricted. The Buddha found this out, and we should appreciate our life in this way. When you are truly unconditionally open, you are forgetting the self at that moment. If you are hanging on to something, you have the self and you are not completely open. When we truly forget the self, there is no pision between inside and outside, no pision between yourself and externals. In such a way, we can appreciate life in its fullness.

　　I think openness is a wonderful characteristic of the American temperament. How can we be unconditionally open

　　 What kind of openness are we talking about

　　 Thorough openness itself is the best wisdom. When you are open, you are able to be one with another person. It does not matter if the person is a close friend or a stranger.

　　Some of you ask, "How do I apply this to the workday world

　　 I have stress-filled workdays. How can I forget the self in the midst of trying to meet deadlines

　　" Simply put yourself completely into your work and just do whatever needs to be done. Deadline after deadline

　　 There is no deadline! Each moment is a beginning as well as an end, not a goal or a deadline set up by someone else.

　　So when you practice shikantaza, just sit. This is the condition of openness. Then being totally open, you are nothing other than all space and time. Dogen Zenji says, "On this body, put the Buddha seal." The Buddha seal is this openness, where there is no conditioning, no pision between yourself and the object, no pision between yourself and your life. When you close this gap, Dogen Zenji says, you become "the Buddha seal itself; the whole space becomes subtly itself." If we are open this much, is there anything else that we need

　　For the most part, we are not just sitting; we are nursing delusions one after another. There is often this feeling that I am doing shikantaza. When we have this feeling, then shikantaza is not at all shikantaza. Instead, there is some kind of maneuvering, some kind of action of one”s self. Do not be fooled by words and ideas. When you practice with a koan, take the koan as your life. Koans are not something to study or evaluate apart from yourself. Make your life itself genjo koan, the realization of koan. This is what your life already is. Such a life is totally open and full, and one is not conscious of oneself.

　　So imprint the Buddha seal, not the human seal, upon your body and mind and penetrate this openness. Just do this over and over and over.

　　We have a practice known as the paramitas. "Paramita" means "to have reached the other shore." Dogen Zenji says, "The other shore is already reached." In other words, the meaning of reaching the other shore is to realize that this shore is the other shore. This life is the unsurpassable, realized life. There is no gap.

　　So if there is purpose to our practice, it is to realize that this shore and the other shore are the same. The purpose is to close the gap, to realize that there is just one shore, there is just one life. To reach is extra. Until you realize that this shore where you stand, this life that you are living, and the other shore, the life of the buddhas, are the same shore, you cannot appr…

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