..续本文上一页r inpidual practice Equanimity in the midst of the coming and going is really so important. It is the fruit of the Way, but it is also the discipline we need in order to experience the fruit of the Way. To be rather serene and just keep walking.

　　The dharma then is rather full of happy errors. If we are willing to be small and walk along, we will find that the dharma really does take care of us: we are guided, we have the right accident at the right time, things like that. We find that we fall into the error of pushing too hard, and then we stop, fatigue stops us, and we think that this is an awful thing, but it relaxes a little, and then suddenly the mind becomes quite clear. So do not despise or be snobbish about any state of mind that arises. When we are blocked we must trust that we are blocked; that is where we are. We must trust that this too is where Avalokiteshvara name has magical power. We must find a way through it or into it or around it; become one with it or suffer it; climb over it, be squashed flat by iin. We must have some relationship with it. And as long as we are in a relationship with it, Avalokiteshvara is there. And what is more interesting anyway than walking the Tao; what is more precious than the opportunity to walk the Tao

　　 There is more value in the difficult blocks, more courage and more serenity. It is easy to be courageous when we can see the clear path ahead. The only use of courage really is when there is mist all around and we must take that next step not knowing where the next beyond that will lead. When Shakyamuni stopped his ascetic practices he took some nourishment given to him by a woman, so the feminine sense of being as well as the great sense of doing was allowed in and he became more whole. Then he looked up and the accident of the morning star occurred. Have you thought: what if Venus were not in the evening sky at that time

　　 No Shakyamuni, no Buddhism. We must trust that :some other accident would have opened his heart and mind.

　　I have been interested for some years now in the "I Ching", which is not formally a Buddhist book but a wise and interesting one, and I think a Zen book, concerned with integration of character and insight. It is an oracle, the hexagram of the oracle is made up of six lines: two units of meaning, called trigrams, of three lines each. The hexagram for peace has the trigram for earth above the trigram for heaven. Very interesting. When heaven is above earth, you have stagnation, standstill, because there is the tendency for the world of insight, the world of heaven, to go off into its purity and clarity, and the world of earth to stagnate into the obtuseness and lumpishness of matter. There is separation, there is no creative interchange and flux. But the hexagram for peace, or "tai", has the intermingling, where heaven is actually below earth and there is an intermingling of the worlds of character and insight. The great clarity of zazen is simultaneous with the distraction, the memory from childhood, the pain in the knees; and so we no longer say, "I wish the pain would stop so I can do some meditation." This too is meditation; this is the great life.

　　We do not chase perfection. When heaven is below earth is when the young prince discovers that this toy is the source of all things and joy. The play, and the spirit of the child: you just turn it upside down and every time it snows. Just like Avalokiteshvara: every time you call, there she is, calling.

　　So it is important to stay with the joy of the smallness and the joy of the mystery. Another old Sung dynasty teacher said, "The one who preserves the Way through old age to death in the mountains and valleys is not as good as the one who practices the Way with a group of people in a community." It is good to ha…

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