..续本文上一页we dont refuse one and choose the other. When we do that we start living in heaven and hell, and it takes a lot of effort to stay in hellwhich is what we choose when we have that choice, always. So we keep always aware that it is this, right now. The really first-rate person knows right now that from the first theres never been anything that needed doing. Its because you dont have sufficient faith that you rush around moment by moment looking for something. You throw away your head and hunt for your head, and you cant seem to stop yourself. There is a compulsive quality to the way we look for our heads, isnt there

　　 We could start a twelve-step group: People with No Heads. Because it is a sort of addiction that fills the void we have created with our small minds. We have created this game that we are deluded and then we look for enlightenment. But if we omit the first step, we can cut out the middleman entirely and we can go directly to the source.

　　Compassion is a natural part of the Way and is very mysterious and deeply important. I think we know very little about love reallywhich is why we talk about it all the time. Its healing powers are very great. It is a natural thing that comes with awakening; it comes out of the heart. A moment of awakening in sesshin, even if it doesnt stick, will still open the heart a little and some of that will stay. And yet it is easy to fight with each other in a zendo. It is easy to be right and have other people wrong. It is a tiresome game, and at the bottom we know it is not true. When I consider the virtue of abusive words, as Torei Zenji says. Torei did not say that because he had no experience of the difficulty of life: he just used everything as a door. He was a very tough customer. He was the founder of Ryutakuji temple, which has an association with our lineage: it was Soen Roshis temple and Gempo Roshis temple.

　　Compassion can not only open things in the body, it can open the Way for you. If you remember the basic rule that ninety percent of everything everybody says is projection, then ninety percent of what you say is projection, so if you do not have compassion with somebody theres a problem in you, theres a shrivelling in your own heart; in some way youve closed yourself off to your own virtue and your own light. Its important to remember this. If compassion is not there, then that is good too, that too is the Buddha land; but then if we go inside and notice it, if we reflect, suddenly it arrives again. Its like when were going deep in zazen and fear arises: if we say, Get out of the way, the fear gets bigger. We notice, Ah, fear; then that too is golden. The same with any pain we can have. This is really all about respect for Buddha-nature, for your own Buddha-nature: if you can respect your own Buddha-nature you can respect others, because it is the same damn thing! So its not a great effort to stretch across. Its one golden chain.

　　So in your zazen, if you get out of the way, Buddha-nature will awaken, because the inside aspect of it so so bright, its so vivid that we cant not see it. If we try to flee from it, it will chase us. Everywhere we look, there it is. If you run into a dark room, there it is. And everywhere we flee, there it is too; its always there, its always in front of us. And this is the most ordinary thing in the world. This is the other truth that is very obvious now. Its wearing clothes, its eating, its hearing a hammer, its hearing a child playing a game while youre trying to listen to a profound talk on the dharma. Which would you rather listen to

　　 Which is the true dharma

　　 So nothing is a distraction; everything that comes, we enter there.

　　The other point is the gratitude for the Way. Over and over again that comes up. It comes with tears; it comes with joy; it comes with laughter. It is a great healing force. We were given life, and we are not even sure that we asked for it. We were given the dharma, and Im not sure we deserved it. Fortunately, there was nothing we could do to deserve it! It just came upon us; it inflicted itself upon us in the guise of some catastrophe that sent us running here. It is good to be grateful in that way, to be grateful for the things that we have and for the things that we dont have. As Yun-men said, it is better to have nothing than to have something good. Out of that nothing, everything comes; that one good thing can become a prison. We have that gratitude for everything that comes by, and that goes on and on, so we just walk the Way. And whatever comes up, it doesnt really matter; we cant complain that this is not the Way: it is plainly the Way. We can say we dont like itbut so what

　　 Its plainly the Way. And if our hearts have never been broken, we cant walk the Way; were still too innocent. And thats no excuse. The Tao will then break our hearts for us, so that we can walk the Way. So whatever comes up, thats it. Walking is it, disappointment is it, joy is it, and underneath it all you will find that great sleeping dragon of joy that is always there, snoring away underneath your life, making everything golden.

　　NOTE: The quotations in this Teisho, given on Day 6 of the Easter Sesshin at Gorricks Run, 1994 are taken from "The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi", translated by Burton Watson, Shambhala, 1993.

《That Great Sleeping Dragon of Joy Teisho》全文阅读结束。