..续本文上一页 Australia. And we were talking about this interleaving as something that happens also between life and death and sickness and health. He is really getting much sicker these days and is rather thin and his hair is all spikey from the chemotherapy he”s taking. He”s a physician and manages his own medications, so he”s doing that as well as lots of zazen and other shamanic work.

　　Somedays he said he”s really healthy. He doesn”t have cancer. And other days he is dying, really dying. And on those days he really is dying and the other days he really is completely alive, there”s not a trace of sickness about him. And they are completely wedged together, these two experiences. And they don”t cancel each other out. The times when the way is dark and difficult do not write off the times when the way is luminous and clear, and we must be as interested in the dark and difficult times as my friend is. His dying is a part of his living and he asks himself, "Well, what is this dying

　　 How can I do it well

　　 What is my task here

　　 What action must I take from this place

　　 This is very interesting, I seem to be dying, but even then I”m not sure because some days I seem to be living more vividly and joyfully than ever."

　　One old Zen personage was ordered to kill himself because he ran afoul of the Shogun of the time, not always a difficult thing to do. And in his last poem he wrote, "Seventy years and now a sword." He was interested in what was coming, interested in his death, too.

　　So this interleaving is the brightness and darkness coming together and we realise we can have sadness and an underlying joy. We can be in pain and still the song is there, pure and strong. It doesn”t matter who did it to us. It doesn”t matter why. That is interesting at another time but at this moment there is just that underlying song that doesn”t really ever go away.

　　It is the happiness we find deep in sesshin, a current in the universe that is there even when we cannot hear it. We can feel it and make these swimming motions as it carries us along. When we don”t put anything in front of it, there it is, and we may be sad but the deep current of happiness interpenetrates that sadness. The movement into the world of joy and light becomes very strong and we just have to follow it and allow it. Somebody asks and we do. It is very clear. One old Zen teacher asks another, "What”s it like

　　" and he says, "It”s like a donkey sees a well." Just instantly reflected like that. His companion says, "Oh, I don”t think it”s like that at all," and his friend asks, "Well, what do you think it”s like then

　　 "It"s like a well sees a donkey." Even less going on there, even more natural and pure.

　　So here we are, we are that donkey walking out into the world. We are that well that the donkey walks by, pauses and looks into. The interleaving goes on also between character and insight. The character work really does go on.

　　We really do have to address our prejudices about the other people in the Sangha.

　　We really do have to address our timidity and the way we tend to cling to what we know. We tend to cling to what is powerful in us. Perhaps what is powerful in us is a helplessness, what is powerful in us is maybe a stubbornness. Some of us powerfully cling to the Cartesian universe where we know there are separate objects and there is no illumination but it”s safe, and we can do things with the objects. It is like having a bulldozer and pushing down all those trees along the track, a very strong thing to do. It is rather despairing but it”s very powerful too.

　　So we have to work on our courage, on coming and going and doing things and our steadfastness and our humility. But it”s easier because the light is clear and it seems foolish not to work on those things. Not foolish in a bad way, but sad. It seems foolish not to accept that we are human and fallible and that we make mistakes. It is so evident and obvious that it is a good thing to do the character work, and then we realise the insight and the character work have started to coalesce, to interleave and we can”t say which is which. At that stage the koan is not just lodged in your heart, it is all the way down to your dirty toes, becomes part of your toes. How will you walk with the koan stuck between them

　　 The question has become completely one with us. We have met it and have encountered the world and have breathed in a deeper sense. We open our mouths and something comes out and we know it is the right thing because we do not think whether it is the right thing or not.

　　Interleaving then is between the love of life and the love of people and the love of the world. The insight and the purity and the clarity about things are just naturally attendant, naturally inhabited. Everything rises and passes away and these two are interleaved and one.

　　PLEASE DO NOT BELIEVE MY WORDS, PLEASE LOOK FOR YOURSELVES.

《The Luminous Life》全文阅读结束。