It's the first time I've seen something like this. (He looks around the room.) It's
different from what I saw earlier. What I saw a moment ago is what I did a
moment ago. I do it now, for the first time, ever. I've never done this before,
not once. And yet, this head is saying again, again, again. I don't see it that
way. There's nothing like what happened before, at a time like this. It is the
whole body. It's not just the human body, as mentioned here in the word
"mind," everything is acting in such a way. This is called seeing the
impermanence of the mind. As a way of studying, if you make it this far, you
will surely feel clearer.
“The old
Buddha Sokei says “Non constancy is the Buddha-nature.” It is said that because
there is such a thing, when we truly understand the state of this impermanent,
we can know exactly what the Buddha really realized. “Therefore, non-constancy understood by various things is also the
Buddha-nature.” You might say that all things are impermanent and
impermanent, but the contents are made in this way. It's such a simple thing,
but people think that things that happened a while ago, things that happened
years ago, are still coming up. You think like I am talking. It's not that it's
really happening, but you' re thinking that way. You are just thinking, such
things, like that, in the way of thinking. In the reality, there is not such a
thing. The question is whether or not you can see the mind to that extent, and
whether or not you can correctly see the state of things. That is what this
practice is all about. In the Four Abodes of Mind fulness “the observation that mind is without constancy” is.
There is a man in China named Great Master Yoka Shinkaku in China. There is a saying that he
left behind. “All things are
impermanent, all is empty.” He
says that all activities, various things, there is really only the appearance
of activity now, and nowhere else later, even though that activity has taken
place, there is no trace of it. Emptiness. “Just this is the Tathagata’s Great and Perfect realization.” The
Buddha's enlightenment is wonderful like that, he says so.
“The present observation that mind is
non-constancy is the Tathagata’s Great and Perfect
realization,” When we realize that the way we are now is really just
unfolding now, we can definitely be saved. There's no way to fix what's going on right now.
Okay? CLAP! (He claps his hands) You
can't hear this sound again. CLAP! It's
all done. CLAP! Even though it doesn't do anything. CLAP! It's good that you can hear
exactly as it sounds. It's not like you can only hear half of it. Everything is
exactly as it should be, there is no shortage of things, as it is said Great
and Perfect realization. That's what it looks like. That' s what is clear.
覚 “Kaku; realization” is being
enlightened. It is self-awareness. There is no need to deal with, it's made in
such a way that there's no need to fix it. What would you do if you noticed
something wrong and fixed it? What if there is a person who has the ability to
fix things, and when he sees something wrong here, he fixes it immediately? If
he fixes it as soon as he sees it, the mistake will never be noticed.
Let me tell you something about the body. If
there are people who treat their pain as if it is not painful when it is
painful, or if there are people who take it as if it is not painful when it is,
they will not be able to recognize their own body or illness. It looks good,
when you're in pain, it looks better if it doesn't hurt, but when it hurts, it
really hurts, and if you try to fix it, then you won't know, even when you go
to the doctor. If you have a pain here(A) and you change it to a pain around
here(B), and you say, "It hurts here(B)," they say, "What? It's
nothing.” They will send you home. In the reality, it hurt here(A). But humans
are that kind of animals, aren't we? When something is wrong, you try to make it
right. That's not true. The only way to make things right is to make it clear
that what is wrong is wrong, right? It is the saints who can recognize a
mistake as a mistake. Ordinary people cover up their mistakes. That is an
ordinary person. This kind of thing comes out in these parts.
“Mind, even if it intends not to observe,” We try to not see things, to not see such things. However, as it is
said, “it follows the others,” we
are always living together with all the movements, so it is impossible for us
to be here all alone. Look around you. See how you are here now. You are living
with all things as your content. We are not living without tatami mats. We are
not living without the room. We are not living without all this air. Yes, we really
don't know how much of it is the way of us, it is “it follows the others.” There is no boundary. This much is about me. Things
are so clear here that we think of only the visible side of this body as
ourselves, and the rest as the others. That's not true.
We have eyes and if there weren’t things like those as circumstances, the eyes
would not grow. Those things are the nutrition of eyes. Eyes eat those things and
live. To be able to see like this is what makes our eyes grow. If you put your eyes in
complete darkness, you can't see things. They lose their ability to function.
If you put a person in a room with no sound for years on end, he will lose his
hearing. If you leave someone bedridden, he or she will not be able to walk. Because
all of that is “it follows the others.” All the things around us are also the
nutrients of this body. They are not separated, are they? “If there is mind, there is also observation.” There is no such a
person who has a body but without a mind. There is no such a person who has
only a body but no function of the mind. Even if you say that a person is
placed in a vegetative state or a brain-dead state, if you touch him, his body
will always react as you touched him. Even though he may not be conscious of it. That's
how we' re made.
“On the whole to reach the Supreme Truth
of Bodhi, the Supreme Right realization is non-constancy” Well, even if something is
said to be the supreme state, if you ask what the content is, it is just this truth.
The truth of non-constancy is that there really is neither after nor before,
it's only carried through in the way things are now. We can recall what we did
yesterday, but we can't do what we did yesterday today. We can think about
tomorrow, but we can't do what we will do tomorrow right now. It's really just
what you're doing right now, is right now where you're doing it. This is the
highest state of being.There's really nothing more to say. Do you want
something more, yet? Is there something missing? When you live like that, you
can make a good living, I guess, if you have various occupations. If we spend
our time staying the way we are properly, in our occupation, in each situation,
and in each moment, we will be able to do good work. That's what it means t to
observe the mind. The observation of the mind.
“Mind is not necessarily constant,” If
you ask me if there is always something like a mind, there is no such thing. The
function which has nothing like the mind is called the mind for a while. What it means is that there is a function that we see red when we
face a red rose and white when we face a white rose. There is nothing that forces us to look at it this way. There
is nothing fixed, but depending on what you touch, this one exactly changes
into the color (the state) as it is. Just because this one has changed, where does it
stay, does it stick? When we come into contact with the next thing like this,
we are all living in a state of detachment from the former one, from one thing
to another. I think this is what is meant by “Mind is not necessarily constant,”
There is a saying, “Because it
separates the four corners; tetralemma, existence, nonexistence, both existence
and nonexistence, neither existence nor nonexistence, and surpasses the hundred
negations,” Four corners
mean being or not being. Things like " there is" or " there
isn't" is typical example. The hundred negations mean many things can be
listed as " it is not so,” “it is not so,” “it is not so." We have
the habit of seeing things from a fixed point of view. It' s strange, isn't
it? When I talk to people, I can understand
it very well. Even if someone seems like they don't have such a fixed view of
things, before they know it, they have their own way of thinking. It' s about
showing up in various places, that's what. That's probably what it means. That's
probably what it means to be bothered, isn't it? Whenever you touch something
in your life, whenever you are bothered by something, you have something inside
of you that you think it must be like this without knowing it. So, when you touch it
like this, you react to it. If you are bothered by such things as why they are
like that, why they do such things, or why they talk like that, then you have
something inside you that is like this, or should be like this. You should
realize that these things are making you uncomfortable.
Sometimes it is said, “I came for the first time, zazen is to become
nothingness, it is to become no-mindedness, isn’t it?” Where did you learn? How
is it like? How do you know what it means to become no-mindedness? When I say
such, everyone certainly has something this or that in his head. So, no matter
how much I talk to him, he doesn't accept it honestly. When I talk about
something that is different from the way they see things they have studied,
they say, "That person is strange, why is he saying that? I don't think I
came here to learn such things.” Saying that, they don't accept it. That's how
grasping something inside yourself can cause strange situations. But when you truly
become honest and you have nothing in this (pointing himself), what people say comes in
quickly and you understand things. The people who take a long time to practice
have always a lot of such things (possessions) in themselves. They are
accumulating them without knowing it. The way of leaving or cutting off all
such things would be “it separates the
four corners and surpasses the hundred negations.” Then, as you can see
here, when you come in contact with things called fences, walls, tiles, pebbles
that exist around there, that is, pebbles, walls, broken fences that you don’t
value, you come to realize. If you have possessions, you look at as if they are
nothing. They think it is not what they are looking for. If you see a stone, you
think if this is the study of Buddhism, if you are told to look at a stone, you
would not think that it is the study of Buddhism. There's a wall over there,
look at the wall, what's that? So what? That's how it works. It's impossible to
study.
Here is another one. “stones large and small,” The word
"stone head" is written as "head of stone," and when you go
to a place called Seoktusan (石頭山), stone
mountains, there are many stones, big ones and small ones, there is such a tale
and it is mentioned here. That is the way we can study. In a more general way,
there is a way of seeing things as they are, which you are using. It's really
the power of receiving it exactly as it is. When you do that, things start to change. In our
way of seeing things, there are things like likes and dislikes, good and bad,
right and wrong, and, generally speaking, these things always happen the moment
we see them. It's the only way to see things. There are few people who see
things as they are. When we see something, we never see it in comparison to
other things. When you say, "Look at this," you don't look at it in
comparison to other things. And yet, when you look at them like this, they are
big, or small, or beautiful, or what it is that comes up. You are comparing it to
something. You're doing it without knowing it, aren't you? You're not really
looking at the thing exactly as it is, are you? You don't realize it. It is so
simple thing, though. There's a good word for it, "see things as they
really are.” I wonder if you really can see things as they are. I wonder if
you' re doing it. Being so, it is said here “fences, walls, tiles, pebbles, and these
are the mind, and are non-constancy, and are precisely observation.” So
that's how it comes out. It's not that there is
something special about practicing.
You do it with the thing you're doing right now, the thing you're touching. Although
you practice with what you are doing, but if you' re not careful, you can't do
things like this. Well, maybe that's what makes us say it's difficult. So, this
is the end of “the observation that mind
is without constancy.”