One Teishoby Kyozan Joshu Roshi

edited by Shunko Clarke and Sōkō Humphries

If we ask, "What is it that Buddhismis teaching us?" we can answer that Buddhism is teaching us howto correctly view the "I am" self. Onthe one hand, Buddhism teachesthat we must discard the "I am" self;on the other hand, that it is veryimportant to correctly manifest our "I am" selves.

Science is an important field of study, but it is generally based uponthe "I am" point of view. Academicor scientific study is done by the "Iam" self. No matter how much westudy, however, the "I am" self doesnot disappear. If we study religionfrom an academic point of view, we can never move away from the "I am" self point of view. Buddhism teaches us that to the extent that we start from the "I am" point of view, wewill never come to the understanding of questions such as: "What is man?" or "What iswoman?" This is because we are doing our investigation from the "I am" point of view. Aslong as we hold to an academic point of view, we meet up with the human way of lookingat things–the human point of view. No matter how much we go into our studies, since weare doing it from an "I am" point of view, we never can reach the conclusion of our investigation into the "I am" self. In this regard, we must be careful because our studiescan influence our view of the state of being human.

Buddhism teaches us that the state that brings us truehappiness is the manifestation of the completed self.No matter how much we study, we will never lose our "Iam" selves. No matter how much we study the "I am"self – and to the extent that we do that from theperspective of the consciousness of a limited self – we will never manifest the true self.

Buddhism teaches us that we will never be successful if we try to catch the true self through our thinking. The true rescue, the true state of salvation, comes about when wedissolve the thinking self. In what way, then, does true ease of the mind and true salvationappear? I have been teaching you that "knowing" is a very important stage in beinghuman. If we take man to be the state of "being," then we can call woman "the state of nonbeing." I have been teaching you that being and nonbeing are opposite from eachother, yet inevitably they will meet. Tathagata Zen teaches that the male activity can be

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This distance is the start of the"I am" self: where does thisdistance come from?

said to represent one half of the world and the female activity to represent the other. It isinevitable, moreover, that they will encounter one other. If we personify these activities, wecan imagine them saying when they meet, "Oh, I am very happy to see you." In meetingone another, however, neither can claim the whole of the experience.

Zen practice also tells us that plus and minus, or the activities of male and female see andmeet one another without intention. Buddhism teaches us that if there is a God, that Godmust contain two parts, one male, the other female. Buddhism does not recognize acreator God. Buddhism rather teaches that God is an activity which contains the character of both male and female qualities. Buddhism teaches that God is the activity of plus andminus. In Buddhism we don't use the term God; rather we use the term, Dharmakaya. TheDharmakaya is comprised of the activities of plus and minus. The activity of Dharmakayaoperates following a natural principle, and for practitioners new to Zen practice, it is taughtthat they must study and investigate the way in which the Dharma activity functions.Tathagata Zen teaches that it is not enough to simply learn about the workings of theactivity that comprises the Dharmakaya: In addition to deep contemplation of plus andminus, we must also put them into practice.

The Dharma activity manifests the state of sittingstill without moving. However, in the human world,we cannot always just be sitting. We can not callit Zen practice if we are attached to just sitting;that activity of sitting must be broken up.

Tathagata Zen teaches that the state of just sitting will be broken up, and that from thatstate of just sitting, what we can call the left world and the right world will appear. Andwhen the left and right world appear, a space is created in between. So, we ask, "Whydoes it happen in that way? What principle is at work?" Buddhism teaches that this spaceor distance is the basis of everything. Now a question arises: if distance or separation isthe basis of the "I am" self, where does the distance come from? Does it come down fromheaven like rain, or does it rise up from the earth like water in a hot spring? How do youanswer this question? Tathagata Zen teaches us that the first person who understoodclearly the working of the universe was Siddhartha, the historical Buddha.

What is the Tathagata? It is made of the two opposing activities of tathagata or the plusactivity, and tathagata or the minus activity. Buddhism teaches that when plus activityexperiences minus activity and when minus activity experiences plus activity, that fromthis, perfect space will arise. We have the koan which asks: "How do we manifest our trueself when we see a flower?" Over the centuries, people have looked into koans in manyways, but now you should understand that a koan allows us to see the "I am" self in theproper way. How should we see it, then? In the state of the Tathagata, when plus andminus meet and unify, past and future disappear; the distance disappears and the true self is manifest. When plus and minus meet each other, they at once say, "Oh, I am happy tosee you." Simply meeting however, is not the manifestation of the perfect world.

The true easing of pain comes when the plus activity goes beyond the point of encountering and reaches the source of the foundation of minus activity. The minus activitydoes the same, passing through the encounter and entering the source of plus. When plusreaches the source of minus and minus reaches the source of plus, then the true easing of pain, a true peace of mind, is manifest. Buddhism teaches that this state is called th emanifestation of true love.

In Buddhism, true love is also called Nirvana. Simply encountering one's opposite,however, does not imply salvation. In this regard, Buddhism teaches us that we must be

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But God, or the Dharmakaya, dividesinto plus and minus, and in betweenthese parts, the "I am" self arises.

careful. When the place of encounter is broken through, plus then goes forward to reachthe source of minus and in the same way, minus reaches the source of plus. But each intheir turn have only experienced one half of the total world. Buddhism teaches that theactivities of plus and minus desire to experience true love, but that they have not yetexperienced authentic, true love. Buddhism teaches us that when we are saying, "I likethis but, I don't like that," it is not the real manifestation of true love.

It is often said that human beings cannot live without love. We need to experience a truelove affair; we will never reach enlightenment unless we experience true love. So, to returnto the essential point: male activity reaches the source of the female activity. The femaleactivity likewise goes beyond mere encounter and passes through into the source of plus.Plus enters the foundation of minus while minus enters the foundation of plus. Theseactivities, however, are working in opposition. This is very important; you must contemplatecarefully that when plus and minus are separated from each other, distance is created inbetween. Plus experiences minus and minus experiences plus, but this is not anexperience that arises free of limiting conditions.

What kind of space is created? What kind of distance is created? If we are talking about aman and a woman, they arise with a distanceseparating them and they appear inopposition to each other. Where does thedistance come from? This is a koan which youmight receive in your study of Zen Buddhism: "This distance is the start of the "I am" self:where does this distance come from?" It will perhaps sound strange, but at one time it wasthought that men have white blood and women have red blood. Nowadays, people wouldlaugh if you were to say this, but in the past, people struggled and tried very hard to makesense of the world. They came to this conclusion as a way of understanding that thequalities of male and female are different. It is no laughing matter, in any case, thatdistance arises when plus is at the source of minus and minus is at the source of plus.

Buddhism teaches that when plus and minus separate from each other, they each receivea minute fraction of substance–we might say of "blood"–from the other. Buddhism teachesthat this is the distance, this is the beginning of one's self which receives an infinitesimallysmall particle of white and red blood.

Everyone can understand that 0.001 unit of plus combining with 0.001 unit of minuscreates zero. Please try to understand this very carefully. If 0.001 unit of minus and 0.001unit of plus combine, it makes zero, that is, it is the imperfect zero. Perfect zero has perfectplus on the inside and perfect minus on the outside, so it is the case that these two zerosare different. Buddhism teaches that you and your parents are born at the same time. Weall tend to think that our parents' births precede our own, so when we hear the Buddhistexplanation we say to ourselves, "How could that be so?" However, if you understand thecreation of the world by God, or, as we call it in Buddhism, Dharmakaya, then you willunderstand that even within God are functioning the activities of plus and minus. If God didnot split into two, the human world would never arise. But God, or the Dharmakaya dividesinto plus and minus, and in between these parts, the "I am" self arises.

So Buddhism teaches us that when God divides into two parts–plus and minus, the worldof past, present and future, and you and your parents– all of us arise. I think this kind of logic is unique to Buddhism. Only Buddhism teaches in this way. People fixate God andbelieve that God is in heaven. But if God were to keep himself in heaven, how then couldthe human world arise? Buddhism addresses this problem by saying that if one is not

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People fixate God and believe that Godis in heaven. But if God were to keephimself in heaven, how then could thehuman world arise?

fixating one's self, then that self is with God. When God is in heaven, then I am in heavenas well. If I go to hell, then God will come along with me. If I do some stupid thing, thenGod does the stupid thing with me. From the beginning, Buddhism emphasizes theimportance of not fixating God.

The Dharma which forms all hasnever had a persona, but when welook upon it as a perfect personalitywe must look upon it as an activitywhich has no will or desire andhence as an activity free from theconcepts of good and evil.

The Dharma is always manifestinga single body

without birth or death.

The manifestation of the oneness of subject and object is not an objectof thought.So it is called, in Japanese,‘hishiryo’, the place of no thought.

From ‘Shin Jin Mei: The Song of ManifestingTrue Self’; an interpretive translation intomodern Japanese by Joshu Sasaki Roshi.English translation by Shinzen Young.©2004 RinzaiJi Inc.

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