One more thing; “The observation that Dharma is without self.” Dharma is things, or rules, I should say. The way everything comes about, the regulations, the methods of activity, the rules, there are big ones and small ones, and when I show them to you like this, what we humans see like this are the rules. This one is this one and this one (showing a different one) is this one, it is what it looks like. No one decides, but this is how it should be. It doesn't mean that this is what it looks like that this way (swapped). It is a rule. It's a way of being that can't be violated. BANG! (Hitting the desk) when I hit here, and I hit there, BANG! (Hitting the other part of the desk,) it's made in such a way that you can hear the sound differently. No one has decided that. Loud sounds, even sounds like this, this sound and that sound will absolutely never be heard in the same way. Always, BANG! this sound is this sound, BANG! (Hitting the other part of the desk,) this sound is this sound, it is set up to be able to be heard as such. That's the rule. They are not set by humans. We call it the law, the dharma. True Dharma, or the way things should be, it is the rule.
It says that there are no rules for that. No self. There is nothing central to it. Generally speaking, no-self means not setting oneself up. You don’t say “I am.” Saying “I am” is that there is the self. I I, I, I'm watching, I'm listening, I'm doing, that's what is called having the self. Then it is troublesome. There will always be conflicts with people, and you have to protect them. If we hold on our principles and opinion, and try to follow them, we are bound to come into conflict. But because there is no self in the rules of things, just as there is no self in my eyes, everything will be as it should be. There' s no self in the ears, so when there' s a sound, it always goes as it is. TAP! TAP! TAP! (Hitting the desk) That's how it's preached. When we sit, we are sitting. When we stand up, we become standing. How do we get away from sitting when we stand up, we don't know, but when we stand up, it is set that there is not sitting at all. That's what you call standing. When we sit, there is no such thing as standing at all. When someone does that, you say, "Oh, he's sitting. This is a rule. There are no regulations in it. There are no rules, but it's all so orderly. There are no principles or opinions, but the rules are in place without much deviation. It's a wonder.
Well let’s see, “The long has a long Dharma-body, and the short has a short Dharma- body.” It' s just this way of saying that the long ones are long and the short ones are short. It's natural, isn't it? In this case, a teacher brought a disciple who asked how he should practice to a bamboo grove. “How should I practice?” The teacher took him to the bamboo grove and told him to look at the bamboo over there and look at the bamboo over here. The disciple said that the bamboo over there was long and the bamboo over here was short, and the teacher said “That is fine.”
“Because they are the realized state of your activity now, they are without self.” The realized state of your activity now means that the state right in the midst of your living now is just like that. When facing the shoji screen, you surely become the state seeing the shoji screen, even if you don’t say you are seeing it. When you face to the fusuma like this, you certainly become like seeing the fusuma. You don't have to say I did, you don't know who became it. We became like fusuma, or like shoji, we don't know who became like that, we just became in this way. This is what has been said.
No Buddha nature in the dog, “A dog is without the Buddha-nature,” Well, maybe it's best not to touch this stuff too much, folks. It can get troublesome, it's all in our heads. When it comes to the question of whether or not there is Budd-nature, people who have studied Buddhism have a very tough time. The reason why they struggle is because they don't know what the word " Buddha-nature " or the character means, but they study it. Even though no one teaches it, once they read it, they immediately grasp something in themselves, something called Buddha nature. It is strange. They draw what looks like a Buddha. Then I asked them if they had ever seen a Buddha, and even though they had never seen a living Buddha, they all drew what they thought a Buddha should look like. That's why, when they walk around the city with their painted images, they wonder if that is a Buddha, or if this is a Buddha, or if they come across something that is similar to what they have painted, they immediately go along with it. That's a self-serving deduction, your own messed-up, to put it crudely. It's unreliable. Therefore, in order to study, it's really important to not have such a concept in our practice. Anyway, we all have that kind of thing without even knowing it. That's why one said that even when he sits, it's hard for him to become mindless. He says he can't be mindless, because he doesn't know what mindlessness is, so even if he could, he thinks he wouldn't be mindless. Oh! Even if he can do it on his own, he doesn't know that it's mindless, so if he doesn't think it's mindless, he says he's not doing it. So even if we have it, we don't know it's there. It's strange.
“A dog is without the Buddha-nature, and a dog is with the Buddha-nature.” This is a story about whether or not there is a Buddha nature in a dog, but whether or not to be is very interesting to human beings, isn't it? When saying the word "mu (無)", you probably read it as " not exist(ない)".When being said ‘mu (無)’, you will read it ‘not exist. (ない)’ First of all, let's talk about something very simple, Even though there is a sound called "mu, (無)" when one says "mu(無)," they say "nai" ( it does not exist.) You're saying things you can' t hear. Uh! When I say the word "mu", even though they can hear it, they say “nai,” there isn't. If you look at a letter and say "mu," even though the letter is there, you say “nai,” there isn’t. You are doing such a funny thing. Even if the word "exist" is written, even if the word "do not exist" is written, that is just the way it is being done. That is the state of the mind. When we face the word " Aru; being," we receive the word " Aru; being," and when we face the word " Mu; nothingness," we receive the word " Mu; nothingness" exactly as it is written, we, humans are set to be able to receive in that way. That is the working of so called the mind. Even if you don't know it, even if you don't know the characters, you can receive as it is, because even a child can. That's why you can learn. If you don't know the character for " Mu," it doesn't mean you can't write it. When I say, "Write it like this, write it exactly as it is," you see it, so you write it exactly as it is. It's okay if you don't know what that is.  It's useful to be able to write it as it is. Say “Ah”, and make them say it out loud. That's how you are coming to be able to utter the pronunciation of Japanese. You don't know what it is, you don't know anything about it.
“All sentient beings are without the Buddha-nature. All Buddha-nature are without sentient beings. All buddhas are without sentient beings, all buddhas are without buddhas. All Buddha-nature are without the Buddha-nature, all sentient beings are without sentient beings.” Well, a lot of things are written variously. The reason why he writes so many similar things is because human beings have their own habits, and it is difficult for them to be honest. Touch them one by one like this, just as they are written. It will surely turn into what is written on it. But as soon as you start to think " Oh my God, there are so many of the same things, what the hell is this?” When you start thinking like this, you're doing something completely different from learning what's written here. You are dealing with what you are picturing in your head, not with what is written in this text.  You know what it says.
Phenomena occur in various daily life. When we come in contact with various things, when we come in contact with the phenomenon, when we come in contact with the fact that it is a phenomenon, we should really value the fact, but as soon as we come in contact with the fact, we start treating it as what it is, humans are. When we start dealing with what it is, we are already without facts. The only thing we are dealing with is what we grasp in the way of thinking. So, even if we try to deal with what we grasp in the way of thinking, we will not be able to solve the problem. It's because we are thinking without facts. When we really solve something, we can't do it without the facts, no matter what the problem is. The fact that the problem has occurred itself is in the facts of this moment. It's not that there is a problem outside of that fact.
For example, I sometimes use this example, when this stove went out, and we want to know why this stove went out, when there are several stoves here, we leave the stove that went out alone, and open the other stoves to see what's going on and why the fire went out, there are some people who study it like that, too. But this stove didn't go out, so no matter how much you study this stove, the truth about why it really went out can only be found in this (the stove that went out.) Even if there are similar stoves, if this one really went out, the cause of its vanishing is inside this one. In that way they should study, the smart people should study like that in the general public. That's how smart people learn, even in general society. That's what it' all about that a lot of the same things are lined up like this, and whether you can really learn from that, one by one. I'm sure you'll bring up other things soon.
“Because it is like this, we learn all Dharmas being without all Dharmas as the observation that Dharmas is without self.” All Dharma is not within all Dharma. What it means is that the thing is just what it is. It's really just the way it is at the time. If you want to hear this sound, CLAP! (He claps his both hands) there is no other way but to hear it at this moment. No matter how many decades you've lived. This sound, CLAP! all you have to do is touch it like this. You said to let it out again, and I will, CLAP! You can' t hear what I just sounded earlier. That's the way it's been done. And now, CLAP! When you get to be able to hear the sound I've made in this way at once, it solves all the problems you' have been having with how to listen.
 “You should know that springing out on the whole body from the self-entanglement.” There is really no other way to learn about things than to learn from the state of this thing called the body and mind of each one of us, when we learn things. People who have experienced this kind of thing have written books on how to learn about it, and there are many books that tell you how to understand it. That's why everyone reads books. However, when it comes down to what is written in the books, there is no need to read them. If you have the ability to look at yourself and learn, that's enough. No matter how great a book is, what it says is just what the person experienced through his or her own body. That's all there is to it, isn't it?