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thibaud05
France
86 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 10 2008 : 08:30:33 AM
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"Whatever happens, whether you think it is good or bad, study closely and see what you can find out. This is the fundamental attitude. Sometimes you will do things without much reason, like a child who draws pictures whether they are good or bad. If that is difficult for you, you are not actually ready to practice zazen."
In your zazen or in your life you will have many difficulties or problems. when you have a problem, see if you can find out for yourself why you have a problem. Usually you will try to solve your difficulty in the best way as soon as possible. Rather than studying for yourself, you ask someone why you have a problem. That kind of approach may work well for your usual life, but if you want to study zen, it doesn't help.
The moment you are told something by someone and you think you understand, you will stick to it, and you will lose the full function of your nature. when you seek something, your true nature is in full activity, as if you are feeling for your pillow in the dark. If you know where the pillow is, your mind is not in full function. Your mind is acting in a limited sense. when you are seeking for the pillow whitout knowing where it is, then your mind is open to everything. In this way you will have a more subtle attitude toward everything, and you see things as it is.
If you want to study something, it's better not to know what the answer is. Because you are not satisfied with something you are told, and because you cannot rely on anything set up by someone else, you study Buddhism without knowing how to study it. In this way you find out for yourself what we really mean by "Buddha nature", "practice", or "enlightenment."
Since you seek freedom, you try various ways. Of course you will sometimes find that you have wasted your time. If a Zen master drinks sake, you may think the best way to attain enlightenment is to drink sake. But even though you drink a lot of sake, as he does, you will not attain enlightenment. It may look like you've wasted your time, but that attitude is important. If you continue to try to find out in that way, you will gain more power to understand things. whatever you do, you will not waste your time.
Shunryu suzuki
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