Appreciate Your Life

by Taizan Maezumi

  This is a very common dilemma. That is why if we just rely on one perspective, such as “We are all okay, be just as you are,” we fall into a trap. It sounds good, but unfortunately, not all of us can live like that. Something is not quite right. We must examine who we are and truly see what this life is, what is the very nature of existence. This is a very natural inquiry. The important point is to have the understanding that is expressed in the seven sisters’ three wishes.

  So how do we practice in accordance with the insight of the seven wise sisters? Just sitting is fine. Polishing your insight with koans is also fine. Each of you must find the way in which you can comfortably practice. You are always at the very center. You are already in the Way. The realization of koan is your life! Each of us as we are is the realization of koan. And living our life is the practice of koan.

  How can we appreciate our life as the rootless tree, as the land where there is no yin and yang, and as the valley with no echo? How are these three wishes the life of each of us? The important point is this life! Each of us is the treasure. How do we best take care of it? And taking care of this life is the best treasure we can have, isn’t it?

  LIVE THE LIFE OF IMPERMANENCE

  DURING THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY Dogen Zenji gave a talk to his followers called “The Thirty-seven Conditions Favorable to Enlightenment.” These thirty-seven conditions are very old principles relating to practice. They are the very best incomparable wisdom for living. One of these wisdoms is impermanence. How do we live fully a life of impermanence?

  My mother died recently at the age of ninety, and her body was so small and light. I notice that even my own body, being over sixty years old, has begun to shrink. It happens. And that coldness of death. As a fact, I think ice is much colder than a human corpse. The coldness that comes with death is something very, very special. I am sure some of you have experienced it, and especially at such a moment, you felt a sense of impermanence or change. And perhaps you asked, “What is this life?” Suddenly we know how fleeting and perhaps even how insignificant our human life is.

  “What’s left behind?” we ask. Practically nothing is left, except maybe remains. And if we think something is left, what would it be? 1 do not mean to exaggerate, but I often have the feeling that my mother left everything. I sense this because I cannot discriminate what and how much she left. Furthermore, I sense to some degree that all I have is what has been left by her. Again I ask, “Just what do I have?” I do not know, but definitely something is there. This sense of impermanence can inspire us to confront our life.

  When I myself think of impermanence, what comes up again is the Abhidharma’s teaching on how rapidly change is always taking place. We commonly consider ourselves to be living and then dying after fifty, seventy, or ninety years. But as I mention quite often, in a twenty-four-hour period alone we are being born and dying 6,500,000,000 times. It is so fast we cannot notice it. What is the nature of impermanence?

  Let us appreciate together what Dogen Zenji teaches about this.

  First of all, there are the four types of meditation that eliminate false views: (1) contemplating the impurity of the body, (2) contemplating that perception leads to suffering, (3) contemplating the impermanence of mind, and (4) contemplating no-self [all things are devoid of self].1

  What do we usually like to contemplate? We like to contemplate the beauty of one’s physical body because that is what is usually promoted in our society. Instead, when we contemplate impermanence, we are contemplating the impurity of the body. So one might imagine a beautiful man or woman, and when this person dies, what happens to the beautiful body? It deteriorates. This change helps us realize the impermanence of life; we realize how transient life is, how such a beautiful, attractive body changes into that which no one can even bear to see. Our attachment to the body lessens. This resembles the original practice of the old Buddhist monks who meditated in charnel grounds.

  However, Dogen Zenji talks about this contemplation in a totally different way. Let me read another passage about the contemplation of impermanence:

  Concerning the “contemplation that the mind is impermanent,” Sokei (the sixth patriarch, Eno) the ancient buddha said, “Impermanence is the Buddha nature.” Great master Yoka Shingaku said, “All things are impermanent, everything is empty, this is the Tathagata’s Great and Perfect Enlightenment.” Contemplation of the mind’s impermanence is the Tathagata’s Great and Perfect Enlightenment. If the mind does not contemplate this, it falls into subjectivity. If there is mind, there must also be this contemplation.

  The actualization of supreme and total enlightenment is the impermanence and the contemplation of the mind. Mind is not necessarily permanent, nor is it separated from various pluralistic forms; even walls, tiles, stones, and large and small rocks are mind.2

  This passage reminds me of the koan of Joshu’s dog: A monk asks Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?” Joshu said, “No.” According to the Record of Joshu, Joshu first says, “Yes.” And the monk asks, “If a dog has Buddha nature, how come he has the dirty skin of a dog?” We think in a similar way, don’t we? We think that Buddha nature is something pure and genuine, which cannot be at all compared to what we are, to whatever we have inside of this bag of skin. But this impermanence itself is the Buddha nature.

  And what is this so-called mind? The mind is impermanent and that impermanence is the Buddha nature—the true nature, the unsurpassable Way. Contemplate this mind as impermanence which is the very life of the Buddha. Furthermore, that mind of impermanence and all its different manifestations are all together Buddha nature. This means not only us but everything: walls, tiles, mountains and rivers, shit stick, trash, literally everything. In other words, each of us and everything in this world are nothing but Buddha nature. And Buddha nature is nothing but the great, perfect enlightenment of Tathagata Buddha.

  Dogen Zenji talks about contemplation, mind, and impermanence as one thing. This is a very important point. We usually separate these into three things. We say, “My mind contemplates impermanence,” don’t we? Dogen Zenji says these three are one. We live our life as impermanence, as the mind, as our zazen. Dogen says they’re all one, everything is here.

  So, for instance, when we look at life in this way, what is purity? What is impurity? What is delusion? What is enlightenment? If we make any distinction between Buddha nature or the Way itself and how we are actually living, then we are caught in the struggle between subject and object. However our life is, it is not excluded from that Buddha nature. Can we appreciate our life altogether as the life of the Buddha, regardless of the conditions in which we live?

  Dogen Zenji says:

  Contemplation that all things are devoid of self is that long things are long, short things are short, in themselves. Realization and actualization exist, and therefore, there is no self.3

  What does this mean? Long is long, short is short, a so-called pair of opposites. Actually, our life also appears to be made of opposites: suffering and joy, enlightened and deluded, good and bad, all kinds of dualities. Dogen Zenji says that these are all devoid of self. “Devoid of self” means “no fixed thing, no finite thing.” If that is the case, what is there? How do we perceive this self?

  Our life comes about through causations, direct and indirect causations, and appears as conditions that are constantly changing. Having this body and mind is always the result of many, many causes, all constantly changing. When we really see this tact, right there is freedom. Such a life is itself no-self. Right here, all of us, each appearing distinctly-different, are ourselves no-self, not fixed. We are constantly changing. In other words, we are totally free, liberated. If we could really see this, our life would be quite all right.

  When we chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese, we chant Kanjizai. In the English version, Kanjizai, the “one who rests in the Self,” is translated as Kanzeon, the “one who contemplates on the sounds of the world.” Kanzeon appears as all the creatures he or she is contempl
ating, all the sounds he or she hears, and expounds the dharma as each and every one of them. So Buddha nature is a dog or you or me. When we say the dog has Buddha nature, we mean the dog is Buddha nature.

  At the same time, being devoid of self, we appear to be simply what we are. Dogen Zenji repeats this over and over. Sentient beings are not Buddha nature because sentient beings are sentient beings, long is long, short is short. Dogen Zenji says, “All dharmas are no dharmas. That’s the way to contemplate this mind devoid of self. If we grasp this, we can attain freedom from perplexity and doubt.” You should know that everything is the activity of your life. This activity is all together the activity of Buddha nature, devoid of self, the activity of yourself as you are in each moment. This is what Dogen Zenji is expounding when he comments on whether a dog has Buddha nature or not.

  Let me read a passage from the Gakudo Yojinshu in which Dogen Zenji comments on Joshu’s dog:

  A monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?” Joshu replied, “Mu [non-being, negation].” Beyond this word mu, can you measure anything or grasp anything? There is entirely nothing to hold on to. Please try releasing your hold, and releasing your hold observe, what is body and mind? What is conduct? What is birth and death? What is Buddha dharma? What are the laws of the world? What in the end are mountains, rivers, earth, human beings, animals, and houses?

  What Dogen Zenji is talking about is clear, isn’t it? It does not matter whether we think we have it or do not have it. The point is: what is it? The Sixth Patriarch illustrates this point in such a clear way: “Before you think good or evil, who are you?” Good and bad are just a pair of opposites. What is this body and mind all about? Instead of thinking have or have not, think about what you are.

  Let me read what Dogen Zenji says in the very last paragraph of The Thirty-seven Conditions Favorable to Enlightenment:

  These thirty-seven conditions favorable to enlightenment are the enlightened eyes, the nostrils, the skin, flesh, bones, marrow, hands, feet, and face of the buddhas and patriarchs. Moreover, enlightenment is the actualization of 1,369 (37 × 37) conditions. Practice zazen continually, and drop off body and mind.4

  That is to say, each condition contains all other conditions. This means that there are innumerable conditions. Again, this is the life of each of us, moment after moment. Being impermanent, being devoid of self, life goes in this way, moment after moment, six-and-a-half billion times a day; this is what is happening.

  Dogen Zenji says, “Realize this and you will be liberated, you will realize the unsurpassable Way, the life of the Buddha, the real wisdom.” The very ancient teaching is this vivid dynamic life of the buddhas and ancestors, which is no other than the life of each of us.

  1. Translation based on Nishiyama, vol. 2, p. 72.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  DIVERSITY AND THE “RIGHT WAY”

  I HEAR FROM MANY OF YOU how hard it is to have faith in the fact that we are the Way ourselves. Our so-called ordinary life is the way of difficulties and troubles. So what makes everyday life the way of the buddhas and ancestors? Do we live as human beings or as hungry ghosts in hell? Who among you can accept your life as is as the Way of the buddhas and ancestors?

  Our senses perceive external phenomena through the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The seventh consciousness is the ego-conscious awareness, the consciousness that perceives life from our own ego-centered point of view. The eighth is the storage consciousness, which perceives all experience from beginningless time to the future, and the ninth consciousness is the so-called universal consciousness.

  So how do we perceive this ordinary life?

  Let us look at the five senses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, which we use to perceive external objects. Even in the first stage of perception, are you perceiving the external world as is or as it comes through your five senses? There are all kinds of sounds, sights, sensations, and feelings. How are you perceiving them? And how does the sixth consciousness, the mind, function? For example, when all of us are listening to the same song at the same time, are we hearing the same thing? Some of you are annoyed by it, some are enjoying it, maybe some just notice the singing, and some are hardly paying any attention. Even at the earliest stage, we are already not perceiving things in the same way. We are already noticing and reacting to certain things differently according to our experiences, both direct and indirect. So already at the first stages there are big differences in the way we perceive things.

  I like the word diversity because it captures all these differences. How are you reacting to this diversity with your discriminative mind? No two persons react in the same way. Every reaction is different. Our discriminative consciousness, the consciousness of the ego, involves literally billions of differences. The more sensitive you are, the larger the differences seem. Each of us has different experiences based on our varying cultural, religious, and racial backgrounds. Such a diversity! All these experiences are stored in the storage consciousness. These experiences are not only those that take place after we are born but also those from beginningless lives that we have all gone through.

  We have only been human beings some fourteen million years. Our past lives in one way or another have been influencing this life. How much are we truly aware of these things? When we talk about our everyday life, our ordinary life, what kind of life are we talking about? We may think that our way is ordinary, but each of us is looking at it in an extraordinary way, with biases based on our own experiences. How can we understand this everyday, ordinary life? How much can we say that the way I perceive is the right way?

  Dogen Zenji tells us to forget ourselves. Are we instead reinforcing ourselves by the way we think and believe? Are our perceptions trustworthy? If something disturbs you and you express your anxiety about life, are you trusting your life as the Way itself, as the dharma itself? Your life is the same as the life of the buddhas and ancestors. Do you truly believe that? And believing in this way, can you really forget yourself? If you cannot forget yourself, what you are believing in is not the Buddha Way but something of yours that is troublesome.

  How can we deal with this difficulty of our undivided life, our life as the Way, being chopped up into all these differences? All of us, as we are, are everything; we should not miss this point. When we realize it, then all this diversity—including these dichotomies of good and bad, right and wrong, male and female, night and day, life and death, whatever—is nothing other than the undivided Way manifesting as our ordinary life. Let the so-called body and mind go, unconfined by one’s own thoughts. Our perceptions confine us, so how to be free? How to let ourselves function as is?

  This undivided life of the buddhas and ancestors is manifesting as difference, as diversity. Please focus on how to appreciate this undivided and diverse life meaningfully and how to contribute in some way to decreasing the pain around us. Let us have more and more mutual respect and appreciation for each other, forgetting our own confinement in this unconfined life. I more than believe that you are the dharma yourself, that everyone and everything is the dharma itself. Please take good care of it.

  THUSNESS

  Great master Kokaku of Mount Ungan was the rightful heir of Tozan. He was the thirty-ninth dharma descendent of Shakyamuni Buddha and the rightful ancestor in the Tozan tradition. One, day he addressed the assembly, saying: If one wants to attain the essence of thusness, one must become a person of thusness. But one is already a person of thusness, so why should one be anxious about the essence of thusness!1

  —Eihei Dogen,

  SHOBOGENZO IMMO

  “THE ESSENCE OF THUSNESS” is enlightenment. Dogen Zenji says, “It is said that to think of attaining the essence of thusness is already to be a person of thusness. But one is already a person of thusness, so why should one be anxious about the essence of thusness.” Which is to say that the as-it-is-ness is supreme enlightenment, and that is what we call thus
ness.

  Thusness is no other than this very body and mind. How do you appreciate this? Dogen Zenji first expresses thusness in Chinese and then in Japanese. When we examine this line in Chinese, it means to want or to wish for enlightenment: “If one wants to attain the essence of thusness, one must become a person of thusness.” But Dogen Zenji rephrases it in Japanese in the following way: “To think of attaining the essence of thusness is already to be the person of thusness.” Dogen Zenji says you are already thusness.

  The Nirvana Sutra says that all beings have Tathagata Buddha’s wisdom and virtue. How do we manifest or reveal ourselves as having the same wisdom as Tathagata Buddha, or reveal ourselves as the person of thusness? This is always the key to our practice. Whether your practice is shikantaza, koans, breathing, or something else, how do you understand this poem? Having the life we are living, we are already the person of thusness, the unsurpassable Way. Are we truly living as such a person?

  The nature of this supreme enlightenment is such that even the universe in all the ten directions is but a small portion of the supreme enlightenment. And the supreme enlightenment is still further beyond the entire universe. We are also various furnishings in the universe in all the ten directions. How do we know such is the case? The answer is, we know that such is the case because our bodies and minds manifest themselves in the entire universe and they are all selfless.2