..续本文上一页zazen that people give me in dokusan. I”ve had the image of zazen as a lover”s arms, and I just gave you the one of zazen as a garden. And there is the image of zazen as a mother holding you, or sitting on the nest, hatching the egg, brooding. So in a sense we do have a way of brooding over and nurturing the truth within us, and there is something patient and full about this process. We know in time it will come to fruition and we just have to keep that brooding process going.

　　Ramana Maharshi was an Indian teacher, who died about forty years ago, who had a very clear sense of inner truth. "The ultimate truth is so simple", he says, "it is nothing more than being in the pristine state. That is all that neeeds to be said." However, he went on: "All religions have come into existence because people want something elaborate, attractive and puzzling. Each religion is complex and each sect in each religion has both its adherents and its antagonists. For example, an ordinary Christian won”t be satisfied unless he is told God is somewhere in the far off heavens, not to be reached by us unaided. Christ alone knew humans, Christ alone can guide us. Worship Christ and be saved. If he is told the simple truth that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, he is not satisfied and will weave complex and far-fetched meanings into it." He said, "Only mature minds can grasp the simple truth in all its nakedness." So he emphasises the simplicity of the inner truth so that when we overshoot, it”s nearly always because we are looking further than our noses.

　　Another aspect is the playfulness of the inner truth. I think of a friend of mine who died recently. This story requires another little story before I tell it. Many of you know the altar figure at Koko An is a Bodhidharma looking very fierce, sitting in an old Chinese-style chair giving teisho, and it”s a precious antique. Soen Nakagawa Roshi and Aitken Roshi once walked by it in an antique store window, and Soen Roshi said, "Why don”t you buy that for the temple you will have

　　" Aitken Roshi had no idea at all about having a temple and he thought this was kind of crazy, but he loved Soen Roshi and bought the Bodhidharma. And, lo and behold, eventually a temple came, following this representative of inner truth.

　　Well, perhaps the first time I was ever Tanto in a sesshin at Koko An, and responsible for the dojo, before I understood that the dojo has its own evolution and development and is responsible for itself, I came downstairs one morning about four a.m. and found this tall, gaunt, elderly, very senior student, far more mature than me in his practice. He had had a stroke and was difficult to communicate with because if he didn”t want to hear you, he would pretend he hadn”t. And he was carrying Bodhidharma in his chair out the door of the dojo into the morning mist and drizzle. At first I was not sure if I had awoken but then I realised I had, and I looked at him and he had a beatific smile on his face, so I asked, "Where are you going

　　 " It seemed the most appropriate question. And he looked at me as if there was something strange about me and he said, "I am taking him for a walk in the garden."

　　And so that very simple truth he had seen, that inside and outside had become one, that Bodhidharma needed a breath of fresh air and to smell the flowers and to be taken out. Very lovely. So that little apparently-walled garden that we start out with when we are always coming back to the koan and keeping other thoughts out, eventually expands to include the whole universe. A friend recently wrote to tell me that this Bodhidharma-carrying Bodhisattva had died. His health had always been bad. He just said it was a lemon, his body was a lemon. He said that he was waiting to turn it in. And he said it had bee…

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