Homeless Kodo's "TO YOU" - Introduction and Chapters 1 & 2

[Jundo]

Dear All,

We will begin Sawaki Roshi's "TO YOU" in our "No Words Bookclub" from this week. We are working with the new edition, available many places (support your small bookstores! ):

https://books.google.co.jp/books/about/To_You_Zen_Sayings_of_Kodo_Sawaki.html?id=c-1XzgEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

As it is a fairly easy read, and chapters are rather short, consisting mostly of small quotes, we will take a few chapters at a time.

The rules of the game are pretty easy: Just mention here, in our discussion, any quotes (none, one or many) that ring your bell and resonate with you, and briefly say why.

That's it!

If you need a version to "cut and paste" a quote, there is one here. However, PLEASE PURCHASE THE ACTUAL BOOK! I ask everyone to use the following only for ease in cutting and pasting a quote or two into this discussion, not for purposes of reading the entire book. Thank you!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13v2mybc4y3kiro9cIny5rnkWOVaVAXf_/view?usp=sharing

So, this week, after reading the Introduction and Chapters 1 & 2, what trips your trigger, strikes your fancy, inspires and makes your day? Try to say why it does so for you. (You can also feel free to disagree with Ol' Kodo too, but be prepared to say why!)

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Tokan]

Hello everyone - well where do you start, this book stimulates both nods of solemn agreement and fits of laughter! There is so much you could comment on, but I shall pick a random pair....

So, serious (from the introduction) I'm not sure I need to comment in detail, but I too have seen this and also felt it while in zazen myself - At one point he had a day off and decided to do zazen in his own room. By chance, an old parishioner who helped out at the temple entered the room and bowed towards him respectfully, as if he were the Buddha himself. This old woman usually just ordered him around like an errand boy. So what was it that moved her to bow towards him with such respect? This was the first time that Sawaki Rōshi realized what noble dignity was inherent in the zazen posture, and he resolved to practice zazen for the rest of his life.

On the funny side (from Chapter 2) I can see how we fall into these things so easily, and why, when taking 'leave of group stupidity' we benefit from the support of a sangha, provided the sangha isn't the source of the group stupidity! - We live in group stupidity and confuse this insanity with true experience. It is essential that you become transparent to yourself and wake up from this madness. One at a time, people are still bearable, but when they form cliques, they start to get stupid. They fall into group stupidity. They’re so determined to become stupid as a group that they found clubs and pay membership dues. Zazen means taking leave of group stupidity

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[sreed]

I'm going to start by asking for help to understand one of the quotes.
I kept notes on over 10 quotes in Chapter 1 alone that I enjoyed and found tremendous wisdom. However, I'm not sure I grasp this one:

"Everybody talks about “reality” but there’s nothing to it.
They’re actually just being misled by what they call “reality.”


Now to my favorite:
"Everyone in the world tries to make themselves important with their relationships
and possessions. It’s like trying to use the plate to give
flavor to a flavorless dish is how the human world has lost sight of itself."

I grew up in a household that was very proud of its status and wealth, (which, truly, was nothing to get excited about whatsoever!) and I grew up to appreciate and crave possessions to elevate my self-importance. In my late twenties, I begin to realize myself, and what was important to me. I understood that possessions and position/relationships do not make a person. They do not sum up their importance. I feel in a world of social media, this quote is especially poignant and is something I will teach my eleven-year-old.

Gassho,
Sara
STLAH

[Tokan]

I'm going to start by asking for help to understand one of the quotes.
I kept notes on over 10 quotes in Chapter 1 alone that I enjoyed and found tremendous wisdom. However, I'm not sure I grasp this one:

"Everybody talks about “reality” but there’s nothing to it.
They’re actually just being misled by what they call “reality.”

Gassho,
Sara
STLAH

Hi Sara, I'm not going to offer help to understand the quote as such but, in the 'about this work' part of the introduction, I found this very helpful paragraph that, in itself, is worth reading and considering on it's own as well as in relation to the quotes...

Yet not a single one of these quotations deserves to be quickly read and then forgotten, for they are all about ourselves. Their deeper meaning is only revealed when we take the time to chew over these sayings in peace, digest them, and “see the mind in light of the ancient teachings.”

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[Kokuu]

"Everybody talks about “reality” but there’s nothing to it.
They’re actually just being misled by what they call “reality.”

Hi Sara

I wouldn't go as far as to say there is nothing to reality, but I think that what Kodo is pointing to here is that what appears to us as reality is a combination of sense experience and conceptual thoughts.

That is not actually a problem, as long as we don't think that *is* reality itself rather than our brain's particular interpretation of it, a version of reality. Others will be experiencing something different which is probably similar but not necessarily so. It is a reminder to not attach to what we experience as the one true reality, but also not to reject it as completely unlike reality either.

The Laṅkāvatāra Sutra puts it succinctly: "Life is not as it appears, nor is it otherwise".

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Risho]

It is a reminder to not attach to what we experience as the one true reality, but also not to reject it as completely unlike reality either.

The Laṅkāvatāra Sutra puts it succinctly: "Life is not as it appears, nor is it otherwise".

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

I love it; I think this is something especially important right now with all of the divisiveness. Timeless wisdom indeed

gassho

risho
-stlah

[Zenkon]

The quote that resonated most with me was:

"There are some who end up at the bottom of their class and then live out their whole lives feeling like victims. They say their lives have been “screwed up.” And it’s precisely this attitude that screws up their lives."

In my time at Treeleaf, I have met some amazing people, with compassionate, generous and gentle attitudes towards others and life. Many are all the more amazing when one realizes their particular disabilities or challenges. These people have developed attitudes which allow them to transcend their challenges.

From the time each of us is born (and perhaps earlier), we create “stories” to make sense of our world. Over time, these stories solidify, take on a permanence and develop into our personalities – our “attitudes”. We become Pro-life or Pro-Choice, Pro-Gun Control or Pro-Gun Rights, Democrat or Republican. We become convinced that “we” are “right” and “others” are “wrong”, that we are “entitled” to something others aren’t, or, as Koto points out, that we are powerless “victims”, doomed thru no fault or responsibility of our own. As Koto points out, this attitude “screws up their lives”. All because of our “attitude”, a creation of our own minds.

But, thanks to impermanence, we are not doomed. We can change this attitude. We can change our way of thinking, thru other-centered thinking and compassion.

Although, perhaps, Koto was sying something completely different

Gassho

Zenkon

sat/lah

[sreed]

Leon and Kokuu, gassho.

Sara
ST/LAH

[Margaret]

Hello, I am quite new to Zen (but very happy with what I have found so far here at Treeleaf!)… so just wondering what Sawaki Roshi meant in the intro when he said “he had wasted his entire life with zazen,” particularly when he goes on to say in chapter 1 that samadhi means being yourself and only yourself…. and you can only be that person in zazen.
Any help?!?
Gassho
Margaret
Sat

[Jundo]

Hello, I am quite new to Zen (but very happy with what I have found so far here at Treeleaf!)… so just wondering what Sawaki Roshi meant in the intro when he said “he had wasted his entire life with zazen,” particularly when he goes on to say in chapter 1 that samadhi means being yourself and only yourself…. and you can only be that person in zazen.
Any help?!?
Gassho
Margaret
Sat

Hi Margaret,

Welcome again.

One "wastes their life in Zazen" when one realizes that every moment is precious, and nothing can be wasted ... never wasted in Zazen, nor in all of life. He is being ironic, and it is something of the opposite meaning.

Yes, it is true that we may impose measures about whether this moment is "meaningful" or "not meaningful" ... and we may go about making a mess of life with our chasing after greedy desires, with anger or pettiness, all manner of harmful behavior and thinking. Yes, it is true, and we should stop doing so. To live in such harmful ways is to waste life.

Even so, not a moment of life can be wasted.

It is much as we sit in Zazen dropping all goals, sitting for sitting's sake (what sounds like more of a "waste of time" than that??), sitting in the preciousness of Zazen which is complete just for its sitting ... thus to experience that all of life is precious just for its living! Nonetheless, we should live it well, try not to make a mess of it.



Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

I'm going to start by asking for help to understand one of the quotes.
I kept notes on over 10 quotes in Chapter 1 alone that I enjoyed and found tremendous wisdom. However, I'm not sure I grasp this one:

"Everybody talks about “reality” but there’s nothing to it.
They’re actually just being misled by what they call “reality.”

As Kokuu points out, our experience of life, this world and even who we think we "ourself" are is all created "between the ears" much more than we know. You think you see a "chair" in your room, but there is (I assume, unless it is totally a dream) only a conglomeration of atoms fashioned in a certain shape which our brain has come to label "chair" because we have butts and have come to assign such meaning, function and name to it. If buttless space creatures ever came to earth, they would be unlikely to see a "chair" until we explained it. An ant crawling across the chair also likely knows nothing but the bare sensory feel of a surface, no "chair." Furthermore, everything that we then add ... such as "ugly/pretty chair" or "comfortable/uncomfortable chair" is our subject experience and weighing of our feelings about it. The chair is none of those things until we put such personal assessment. Even "green chair" is only our brain's interpretation of the photon frequencies entering the eyes ... and there is no "green" apart from our subjective experience inside of those vibrations.

Well, as it is for "chairs," so it is for every darn thing in this life, world, and our own experience of our selves.

Buddhism not only allows us to become aware of how much we "mind create" our experience of the world, but to drop aspects of it completely (primarily the hard divide between "self/not myself" and all the frictions that come with that division). We also learn to drop some of the harmful "junk" between the ears (for example, the excess desire, anger, jealousy, other divided and harmful thinking), to encourage a more healthful experience between the ears. Life is like a dream we dream, and yet ... it is our dream of life, so we had best dream it well.

Kodo's point is likely much more basic, however: Most people run through this rat race life convinced of so much nonsense that they buy into, take for true and tangle themselves up in (anything from the importance of having the right basketball shoes to the "Q" conspiracy). We really become prisoners of our own fantasies, delusions and sometime self-created traps.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kokuu]

Hi all

Just noting, right at the very beginning of the introduction that Kodo's parents died when he was very young (his mother at four, and father at seven). This reminded me of the Buddha himself, who lost his mother shortly after birth, and Dogen, whose mother died at seven.

Perhaps there is something about the early loss of one or both parents that turns the mind towards the dharma, knowing that things of the world are not to be relied upon.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Tokan]

Hi all

Just noting, right at the very beginning of the introduction that Kodo's parents died when he was very young (his mother at four, and father at seven). This reminded me of the Buddha himself, who lost his mother shortly after birth, and Dogen, whose mother died at seven.

Perhaps there is something about the early loss of one or both parents that turns the mind towards the dharma, knowing that things of the world are not to be relied upon.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

I think you are right, though coming from Reading, Berkshire I'm not sure I would have found the dharma at that age! Sadly, in my mental health work, I see that people who have been through this experience, without something else to ground them (like the dharma), can end up with a long-term disaffected, mistrustful relationship with the world and others - the negative expression of 'the world not being reliable' in a way.

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[JudyE]

Hi everyone,

Two quotes stand out for me:

“The eyes don’t say, ‘Sure we’re lower, but we see more.’
The eyebrows don’t reply, ‘Sure we don’t see anything, but we are higher up.’
Living out the buddha-dharma means fulfilling your function completely without knowing that you’re doing it. A mountain doesn’t know it’s tall. The sea doesn’t know it’s wide and deep. Each and every thing in the universe is active without knowing it.”

“You do everything that people praise you for. You run after those who are praised. You are never yourself.”

To me, both passages speak to the tendency to compare ourselves with others and the desire to meet other peoples’ standards. I sure have done my share of both! When I wake up and realize what I have been doing, I feel regret as well as relief that I don’t have to work so hard chasing after approval and praise.

Gassho,
Judy
Sat/lah

[Mokuso]

I'm going to start by asking for help to understand one of the quotes.
I kept notes on over 10 quotes in Chapter 1 alone that I enjoyed and found tremendous wisdom. However, I'm not sure I grasp this one:

"Everybody talks about “reality” but there’s nothing to it.
They’re actually just being misled by what they call “reality.”


Now to my favorite:
"Everyone in the world tries to make themselves important with their relationships
and possessions. It’s like trying to use the plate to give
flavor to a flavorless dish is how the human world has lost sight of itself."

I grew up in a household that was very proud of its status and wealth, (which, truly, was nothing to get excited about whatsoever!) and I grew up to appreciate and crave possessions to elevate my self-importance. In my late twenties, I begin to realize myself, and what was important to me. I understood that possessions and position/relationships do not make a person. They do not sum up their importance. I feel in a world of social media, this quote is especially poignant and is something I will teach my eleven-year-old.

Gassho,
Sara
STLAH

Hi. I have read the whole book. It was very stimulating, interesting and thought provoking.
As Kokuu answered "ourselves" everything is created "between the ears"
our real true self can only be found by ourselves. Only I know my true self, only you know your true self. What everyone else says is an interpretation built from noise and from their mood and way of seeing.