“Sweet
ripen melon,” sweet ripen melon, what is it? Is it
a watermelon? “It means to replace by bitter gourd,” There is a footnote at the bottom of the page. This means that even though
we are formed excellent, we don’t know it, and live to suffer from the messy
way it is handled. The sweet melon is deliberately replaced with a bitter one.
That's because you don't know the thing. If you knew things well, you wouldn't
do such a foolish thing. You would eat sweet things while they are still sweet.
So, how you change sweet melon by bitter
one? See the example in your own life. You were suddenly slapped on the cheek. That's
all there is to it, but you'd immediately change it by saying, "What are
you doing? you instantly change it like that. This will cause problems, won't
it? In fact, PAN! (He hit his cheek,)
this is all there is to it, but you treat it like that, "What are you
doing?” When a person gets a little older and his memory gets worse, and he
starts repeating the same thing over and over again, the people listening will
say, "Shut up, and that one too.” It's all about this. They' re changing
it. Look closely. It's just what's being said at that moment, nothing else.
There is nothing else. There is no such thing as talking again or saying the
same thing.
Do you know about that kind of thing,
all of you? It's a story manipulated in your head. In the real ear, there is no
word because sound is vibration of air. When the vibration of air touches the
eardrum, the vibration is merely transmitted. That’s how sound works. As you
have studied it, you may probably know it. That is why when the vibration
stopped, the sound is nowhere to be heard. That's how it always is.
Because human beings have learned language, however, we don’t hear the
vibrating sound, we change it into words. We think we hear a sound. They say that
a crow caws, CAW, CAW, ask crows,
they don’t say, CAW, CAW. Cats goes MEOW, MEOW, they
don’t say it that way. They are onomatopoeias made up by man. We have created a
preconceived notion and decided that, in case of cat, they go like MEOW, MEOW, a
dog barks BOW-WOW. Then asked, "What does a dog
sound like?” They answer BOW-WOW. They think that's what a dog really sounds
like. Listen to it, listen to the real thing, it's different. The real thing,
you know, only makes sound when it vibrates. Other than that time, the real
thing makes no sound at all.
It's the same with such a thing. (There was a sound) You see, this is what
happens, but because our brains are so good, we catch it quickly and say,
" I heard that sound earlier, and I heard that sound again.” That's not
what you' hearing. This is talking in your head. These sounds are what you call
to replace the sweet melon with a bitter gourd. We live our lives in such a way
that it becomes a problem, even though we are fortunate enough to be able to do
just that at that time without any problems. I wish he didn't have to write in
such difficult words, but he must be a brilliant person, Zen Master Dogen. He brings these words to us, to our heads. I feel like I am going crazy.
“This
is bitter to the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow.” Once that happens, you suffer so much you
can't keep still. You just made a selfish mistake, but you suffer with your
whole body. In the worst cases, and that‘s
why they destroy themselves. There are more and more people like that, in
reality. Torment oneself, drive oneself into a corner. Whether or not you have
a mind, whether or not you have faith, when you suffer, you suffer in that way.
It's thoroughly bitter. “This is one of the divine practices and enlightenment.” Suffering, for example, when you
are in thorough pain, there is no room for any other thoughts. You' re there just for the pain, so
you can be saved. People who have been sick, had surgeries, and experienced all
kinds of things know it well. It is the same with poverty. When you are so poor
that you have nothing left to throw away, you can be saved. In common parlance,
such a thing is called that a cornered rat bites the cat. A cornered rat bites
the cat. It's the other way around. Normally, the cat takes the mouse, but
something out of the ordinary comes out. Power comes out. As long as you are
poor and still have the desire to be rich, you will suffer, but when you are
bottomless poor, you have nothing to lose. That is good. There is such a world.
People are saved when they become bottomless poor. That's why, they are
cornered, and when they are cornered, they will go into personal bankruptcy.
That's the kind of system we have in our society. You throw away everything in
personal bankruptcy, things you own. Isn't it right? If so, you are not going
to be ill-treated any more, right? Like a debtor's hell. In return, you
probably won't be able to get a loan, even if you go to a bank. You'll be on
the black list. However, as long as you have this one body, you can continue to
live. There is such a system, isn't there? “One
of the divine practices and enlightenment” There is such an interesting
world.
“It is the divine practice and
enlightenment which springs out from the calyxes and springs out from the
roots.” Can I say that there is no such thing as bound, connected, or
inconvenient? What inconveniences people is solely their own way of thinking. It'
s our own way of thinking that cripples us, binding us. It' s like we're all
connected, unbreakable, and hard to break. In fact, it's not true. In reality,
there is not such a thing. We live a life of complete detachment from such
things. If you think it is a lie, you simply look at this painting of the
Buddha entering nirvana hanging here, and look at the stove, look at the wall,
look at it like this, and what happens when you look at it like this is that
because you properly accept it one by one, the previous thing is freely
separated, and you are able to see it properly like this. You are formed like
that. There is nothing that you can't see the next time you see it, because
what you saw before is in the way. However, if something comes to mind, even
just a glimpse of it, “Oh that is” such kind of thing arises, you can't see it
even though you should be seeing it.
It is the same with people's talks. If you try to understand what people are
saying and listen to them by doing various things, you will not be able to hear
what they are saying. If you really listen to what is being said, it is
unconditional. You don't need to grope for what the other person is saying.
Just stay with what you hear. Then you'll understand things. I'm sure of it. You
think you can't understand what is being said, so you twist your brain while
listening, so you can't keep up with what is being said. What I was talking
about here, you keep making it an issue, I'm talking more and more and more,
but you keep making it an issue only here. When I finished speaking, I asked
what it was like, but you couldn't understand what I said. The context is not
connected. That's the way it is in most everyday conversations. Now that I am
talking with effort, if you stay in silence, you can hear everything being said
as it is. You are formed that all are audible to ears. If you listen with your
thoughts and thinking, or various things attached to it, it becomes a mess. It's not what the other is saying. You change
it to your own way of receiving, or your own way of understanding, it is replacing
the sweet fruit by the bitter fruit, which is mentioned a little while ago. In
such way, people suffer, being bound by their own way of thinking. We can be
more liberated.
You're not supposed to walk in front of people like this, it's just OK to turn
sideways and walk past them. They say that it is common sense when crossing in
front of people, or we should not cross in front of others, it is not so. We
are bound by common sense. Why is it that when it's a child, you let them go by
like this, you let them scamper about with smile. When an adult pass by, it won’t
be that easy. There are sweets like this. When a child comes in and eats a
piece of it, they say, "Oh, " and when an adult eats it, they say,
"How did he grow up?” They even say they want to see the faces of the
people who raised them, and the faces of their parents. It's interesting.
When so many people are seated in a row like this, depending on where you sit,
problems may occur. When we are invited to other places, such as a wedding
banquet, there is a table there, so we can sit anywhere we want, but if we sit
in a wrong place, we will get into trouble. In fact, there are no rules. Someone
else has the rules, and the rules in their head make them inconvenient. Once
you are free from such kind of thing, you will have a fun. It is the divine
power that human beings have. We all have it. It is nothing special. Nowadays you
will be questioned if you perform a medical procedure without the qualification
of doctor. In the old days, when medical care was not yet advanced, parents
would do what they could to help their children if something happened there. And
even if they lost a life because of it. Well, there are various things, just to
name a few.
Nowadays, there are so many rules and regulations, and these rules and
regulations have made it difficult for people to get around, even in various
facilities. I heard that even in nursing homes, it is really difficult. If
someone who uses the service asks a staff to buy something to eat, he or she can'
t do it. It's not that they can' t do it, they can, but they have the promise;
the rule. The staff says, “I could do it, but there is a rule. I did it and
went back to the office and report them, I would be scalded why I did it. So, I
cannot do.” It has become a crippled world. They can' t even do cleaning. When
a user asks that as the room is dirty, please clean it, the staff answers that
is not part of the deal. While the staff is staying for one hour, the user can
receive whatever she wants as she pays wage. They don't do things without
promises. That's funny. In such a situation, a person with divine power can
deviate from such things and freely do things that make people pleased. They
have that kind of power, don't they? Well, that is the true meaning of divine
power, isn't it? It's not like jumping over the top of Mt. Fuji.
“This has been said that sentient beings
suffer, and more, there are suffering sentient beings.” Do we read like
this? Sentient beings are all living things. We are all part of it. If we don't
know things well, we will suffer from very little things in our life. “Sentient beings are not self and they are
not the others.” The person next to you has nothing to do with you, that’s
not true. We're already here together, living like this right now. This is
what's going on in our own flesh and blood. Look at each one of us. But this
brain here (pointing his head) understands that this is just me, and the others
are all other people. If we take another look, we can see that there are so
many of us here, who is doing this? To put it very simply, this is what your eyes
are seeing right now. It's not what other people's eyes see. So much so that
all of this is the content of your own life. This is it. To be able to see that
there are so many people here. It means that our eyes are acting vividly right
now, that's it. It's not about the others. So, it's not that we don't care.
It's all our own content, and that's why we learn from it. It is really a
wonder. When someone falls down there, if we happen to touch the way he fell,
this thing will respond. We don't know where we learned it. We do not go in
ignorance, do we?
I know many of you drive cars, for instance, there is a crosswalk here. There's
an old lady standing there. We were driving along here for a while. We drove
casually, but we could see the crosswalk and the woman standing. While we were
driving, I talked with the driver, he said that he was not able to know whether
the woman would cross the crossing or not. He was driving. When driving, he was
very concerned about, he said. He said, “If she wants to cross, she can do so,
if she doesn't, she won't,” it would be good if she could express her will
properly. “I cannot know. Because I cannot know so that I am nervous and
scared.” At that time, I said to him, “You know well. You are so clear. You
know clearly that the old woman is hesitating to cross, and yet, because you
have a strong sense of your own way of thinking, I'm sure you'll say something
when you bump into her because she doesn't give you a proper sign. It's not
like that. You who are on this side know how the situation is.” We know better
than that. When we know that something is dangerous, we should go carefully,
but that we say, "That one.”
For example, there is a hedge over here.
You can see the shadows flickering somehow. You know it. But you couldn't
understand it, you said. It's strange, isn't it? Although you don't know who
was there or what's there, you do know that there was some movement. But you say
you are not sure. You say you don't know. That's why you say he or she popped
out of nowhere. No, it is not so. No, it' not. We know that. It's an amazing
ability. But because we say “we're,” sometimes things get worse.
The car in front of you stopped. If the car in front of you stops, something
must be going on. When the car stops and you think you can pass on the right,
you hit a person walking or a bicycle with a bang. You knew it, you knew that
the car in front of you stopped. If the car stopped like this, even if it does
not come into your eyes, even if you cannot see the other side of the car in
front of you, the most obvious thing is that the car in front of you has
stopped. You said it stopped suddenly. That's right, it stopped suddenly,
didn't it? In any case, things rarely turn out the way you think they will.
Yet, we are formed that our bodies can understand everything that is not as we
think it is.
We do various works and when there is a
person to work with, if I am here and I touch his or her movements like this, I
can know all about them. Although we understand everything, there are many
people who don't want to go along with a movement that is different from what
they want. Isn't that kind of a problem? That's what these places are all about.
“Sentient beings are not self and they
are not the others” “Furthermore,
there are suffering sentient beings.” or “Thus it has been said that
sentient beings suffer, and furthermore, there are suffering sentient beings.”
After that there is the phrase, “ultimately
it is impossible to deceive others.” This is what I have just told you.
There is no such thing as being deceived by others. No matter what it is, it is
settled properly. If you don't like what that person is saying, it means that
you've been properly listening to that person before, and that's why you've
been able to make that kind of decision. When you're listening properly, you're
not listening to something that you don't want to hear, so you can hear it
properly. After listening, you try to process it with your own way of thinking,
which causes many things to happen. It is said that ultimately it is impossible
to deceive others, isn’t it? I guess it means not to be deceived.
CLAP! (He claps his hands) When I
have you hear this sound, CLAP! If I
ask you how you heard it, and people say all kinds of things about it, your own,
CLAP! the sound you are now hearing
with your ears is not deceived by others at all. It's really clear. It' s fine,
without anyone's help. What, it sounded like that? People might say variously,
but when you hear like that, CLAP!
you are not deceived by others at all. That's how they are made. That's how
it's made to be properly heard. This is the point which we should see on
practice.
The Four Abodes of Mindfulness is
four thoughts. Now, the second one. We are studying the part, “It is the observation that feeling is
suffering.” The next part says that what is sweet is totally sweet and what
is bitter is totally bitter. But “suffering
should not be easily groped.” When you have worries, pains, and other
things in your life, you need to see what's really going on, what the problem
is, and how it's happening, and treat it as a teaching material in your
practice.
“We should ask ourselves,” he says that you should ask yourself. The other said something like
this, CLAP! (He claps his hand) if
the other person says something like this, it will be heard as such. That's the
first thing. After that, what will happen is that you will come up with your
own way of looking at things, your own way of thinking, and various thing, then
you start dealing with them, and they will bother you. The other side said this,
CLAP! Isn't this the thing that
makes you suffer? What do you think? As I mentioned earlier, the ears can only
hear while there is vibration. Who cares about what you don't hear? After
hearing it, hold on to it, and make it matter, who is doing such? I guess it
hurts when someone slaps you like this, but then the pain goes away. But
because the slap is still in your memory, when you see that person, you want to
say a few words about what he or she did to you the other day. Now, if you are
asked if the pain that you were hit with at that time is still in your body, it
is nowhere to be found. It means what is the problem? You have to ask yourself.
“We should ask ourselves,” he says, “What
the hell is suffering?” “What is
suffering?” Suffering, we say we suffer, but what the hell is suffering?
There is nothing to lose if you stop thinking about all the things you are
thinking about when you are suffering. If you didn't think about it, your life
would be a mess, and a lot of things would be lost, that's not true at all. It's
easier when you're not thinking about unnecessary things. Is it more fun to
hold on to suffering all the time? Is your life worth living if you have to
deal with it? Is that why you spend so much time on it? Do you spend a lot of
time doing things you've already done and fixing them to your liking? That's
not practice, is it?