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                      INNER TRUTH - TANKS AND PEARS

  This text addresses some of the most fundamental and delicate 
  religious issues.  Therefore, it should be read, quoted and analysed 
  in a mindful way.

  Teisho by John Tarrant, Roshi
  Originally published in MOON MIND CIRCLE, Spring 1991
  Copyright 1991 (c) by John Tarrant and Sydney Zen Center,
     251 Young St., Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038, Australia.


  Sometimes it is good to ask ourselves "What is the most important 
  thing?" I think the most important thing is the sense of inner truth, 
  the knowledge that when you begin to set things right at the centre, 
  you can then trust that other things will fall into harmony. When we 
  set things right at the centre, our hearts are at ease, and we may 
  leave the rest to the Tao. And if things are not right at the centre, 
  somehow they don't go well at the periphery.

  In one of his novels, Milan Kundera has a young Czech man talking  
  about his point of view and his mother's point of view. He is always  
  very focussed on the tanks coming over the central European horizon, 
  as they always are, and endlessly concerned with this and involved 
  with the great events, with his friends. And his mother is always 
  focussed on the bowl of pears on the kitchen table. And from her point 
  of view, tanks are small insect-like things crawling far off, way 
  behind these enormous pears, not relevant to her deep and intimate 
  concerns. After many years of scorning his mother as an ignorant 
  peasant, this man was beginning to see, he said, her point of view. In 
  a sense this is what we do in zazen. We attend very closely to the 
  pears. And I think the idea of garden produce is a very appropriate 
  metaphor. Another image I have for zazen is of a garden, that we make 
  a garden. At least initially we make a medieval walled garden, hortus 
  conclusus, I think, that has a fountain at the centre, that energy 
  that comes out of the centre of the universe and various other things, 
  usually a unicorn or a maiden. Perhaps a lamb.

  Zazen is rather like this, I think. Attention to the garden is the 
  important thing and we do it for its own sake and there the spiritual 
  life flourishes. We can't really measure what we get from the garden, 
  although if we do attend to it, our lives will change for the better 
  in subtle ways and even the lives of those around us will change for 
  the better in subtle ways, especially if we are not trying to get them 
  to change. And in this garden our desire, which is so ragged, always 
  diffused and scattered all over the earth, wanting so many things, 
  begins to become focussed.

  It is said that all love is the love of the way and this is true, and 
  in the garden this becomes obvious, that all the things we wanted were 
  really this one thing. Our love is for our true home and also I think 
  for the journey home, which is itself precious. And this is why we 
  meditate, out of that great love and desire, and the meditation 
  channels and deepens the desire. And we begin to understand that the 
  object of desire and the desire itself and the one who desires are 
  one. The three wheels, as they say in Buddhism, are pure. There is no 
  difference between the desiring one and Tao itself.

  So, especially in difficult times when the tanks are on the horizon, 
  it is good not to neglect the pear and the garden. This will not 
  always help with the tanks. One famous Zen teacher, Yen-t'ou, was run  
  through by barbarians while sitting in zazen in his temple, a long 
  time ago. But in a sense he is still teaching. He was willing to be  
  run through by barbarians. It helps with the most important thing,  
  the inner truth.

  Inner truth happens to be the name of one of the hexagrams in the I 
  Ching, number sixty one. And a couple of the notes on this situation 
  are relevant here. "The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface 
  of the water. The visible effects of the invisible manifest 
  themselves. This indicates a heart free of prejudice and therefore 
  open to truth." The character for truth used in this hexagram is the 
  picture of a bird's foot over a fledgling, and suggests the idea of 
  brooding.

  I have, in a casual sort of way, begun to collect images for zazen 
  that people give me in dokusan. I've had the image of zazen as a 
  lover's arms, and I just gave you the one of zazen as a garden. And  
  there is the image of zazen as a mother holding you, or sitting on  
  the nest, hatching the egg, brooding. So in a sense we do have a way 
  of brooding over and nurturing the truth within us, and there is 
  something patient and full about this process. We know in time it will 
  come to fruition and we just have to keep that brooding process going.

  Ramana Maharshi was an Indian teacher, who died about forty years ago, 
  who had a very clear sense of inner truth. "The ultimate truth is so 
  simple", he says, "it is nothing more than being in the pristine 
  state. That is all that needs to be said." However, he went on: "All 
  religions have come into existence because people want something 
  elaborate, attractive and puzzling. Each religion is complex and each 
  sect in each religion has both its adherents and its antagonists. For 
  example, an ordinary Christian won't be satisfied unless he is told 
  God is somewhere in the far off heavens, not to be reached by us 
  unaided. Christ alone knew humans, Christ alone can guide us. Worship 
  Christ and be saved. If he is told the simple truth that the Kingdom 
  of Heaven is within you, he is not satisfied and will weave complex 
  and far-fetched meanings into it." He said, "Only mature minds can 
  grasp the simple truth in all its nakedness." So he emphasizes the 
  simplicity of the inner truth so that when we overshoot, it's nearly 
  always because we are looking further than our noses.

  Another aspect is the playfulness of the inner truth. I think of a  
  friend of mine who died recently. This story requires another little  
  story before I tell it. Many of you know the altar figure at Koko An  
  is a Bodhidharma looking very fierce, sitting in an old Chinese-style  
  chair giving teisho, and it's a precious antique. Soen Nakagawa Roshi 
  and Aitken Roshi once walked by it in an antique store window, and 
  Soen Roshi said, "Why don't you buy that for the temple you will 
  have?" Aitken Roshi had no idea at all about having a temple and he 
  thought this was kind of crazy, but he loved Soen Roshi and bought the 
  Bodhidharma. And, lo and behold, eventually a temple came, following 
  this representative of inner truth.

  Well, perhaps the first time I was ever Tanto in a sesshin at Koko An, 
  and responsible for the dojo, before I understood that the dojo has 
  its own evolution and development and is responsible for itself, I 
  came downstairs one morning about four a.m. and found this tall, 
  gaunt, elderly, very senior student, far more mature than me in his  
  practice. He had had a stroke and was difficult to communicate with 
  because if he didn't want to hear you, he would pretend he hadn't. And 
  he was carrying Bodhidharma in his chair out the door of the dojo into 
  the morning mist and drizzle. At first I was not sure if I had awoken 
  but then I realized I had, and I looked at him and he had a beatific 
  smile on his face, so I asked, "Where are you going? " It seemed the 
  most appropriate question. And he looked at me as if there was 
  something strange about me and he said, "I am taking him for a walk in 
  the garden."

  And so that very simple truth he had seen, that inside and outside had 
  become one, that Bodhidharma needed a breath of fresh air and to smell 
  the flowers and to be taken out. Very lovely. So that little 
  apparently-walled garden that we start out with when we are always 
  coming back to the koan and keeping other thoughts out, eventually 
  expands to include the whole universe. A friend recently wrote to tell 
  me that this Bodhidharma-carrying Bodhisattva had died. His health had 
  always been bad. He just said it was a lemon, his body was a lemon. He 
  said that he was waiting to turn it in. And he said it had been one of 
  his great teachers. And my friend, who was also at that sesshin said, 
  "Now he is gone out into the garden and he won't come back."

  So I always think of him and his statue and that playfulness. If you 
  have the high walls around the garden, you really can have the 
  unicorns inside. I think the high walls are things like sitting still 
  in zazen and coming back to the koan. And this apparent rigidity 
  allows this great freedom and spontaneous power. Gary Snyder once said 
  "In a sesshin everybody looks alike but inside they're all different. 
  Outside everybody looks different but inside they're all alike."

  Another friend of mine who died late last year is also with me. His 
  name was Issan he he was a Zen priest and ran a small interesting 
  zendo in San Francisco in the gay district and he had been dying for  
  quite some time of AIDS. Both these stories are about people who have 
  died, but I think in both cases it felt to me it was in the Tao that 
  they died, it was somehow okay as well as sad. When it became clear 
  that Issan really was dying this time, because there had been a few 
  false alarms, there was a big Zen gathering and he handed over the 
  abbotship of his temple to one of his close friends, another priest, 
  and everybody came to say goodbye to him. They put on their flowery 
  robes and things. One of his fellow priests helped him to the 
  bathroom. Issan was very weak and thin at that time. His friend helped 
  him back and was half-carrying the frail body of his old Dharma friend 
  he loved when he became overwhelmed by his feeling and his sorrow and 
  his love and said, "I'll miss you, Issan." And Issan, in his measured 
  way, looked at him. Issan had enormous eyes and he would look at you 
  and you would fall into them, and he looked at his friend with his 
  large eyes and said, "I'll miss you too. Where are you going?" HE 
  wasn't going anywhere, he was just going to die. And a few days later, 
  he did.

  So it's important not to slight the difficult times. Even in the 
  garden we're allowed to have difficult times. From the point of view 
  of inner truth, the difficult times can be very important and it's 
  good in difficult times to hold up your light even if it seems small, 
  and to touch the light, especially if it seems small and sometimes 
  that is all we can do and that is okay.

  Ramakrishna, another Hindu teacher, said "People weep rivers of tears 
  because they do not have a child or cannot get money, but who sheds a 
  teardrop because he has not seen God?" A very deep reason to grieve.

  But it is not just that in difficult times it is important to hold up 
  our light. Difficult times themselves hold the light. The difficulties 
  really do turn to gold if they are sincerely undergone. There is 
  something - the light is there within the pains of the way, not after 
  they are all over.

  Rilke wrote a version of his tenth Dueno Elergy and then scrapped it, 
  but the scrapped version is also very interesting and here is Steven 
  Mitchell's translation of a few lines of it:


     How dear you will be to me then, you nights of anguish.
     Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you, inconsolable sisters,
     And surrendering, lose myself in your loosened hair?
     How we squander our hours of pain,
     How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
     To see if they have an end.
     Though they are really seasons of us,
     Our winter enduring foliage, ponds, meadows, our inborne landscape,
     Where birds and reed-dwelling creatures are at home.

  The pains of zazen and of the Way are just the winter and without 
  winter, what kind of summer could we have? In one of Shakespeare's 
  plays, he has a line, "How sweet it is to talk about old suffering," 
  but it's different from that, I think. That is true but there's 
  something more than that here. It is that the sufferings of the Way 
  and the joys of the Way are not clearly distinguishable from each 
  other. Everything becomes precious, everything is golden, each 
  smallest thing is marvellous and the suffering brings us to live in 
  the ordinariness and to find in the ordinariness the greatness of the 
  Way. Much of our suffering is because we are trying to stumble past 
  the ordinariness to get into what is really important, but it is 
  always there in front of us. The great encounter of zazen is with the 
  marvellous but we find that the marvellous is within the ordinary and 
  the ordinary within the miraculous. We become transparent and the 
  world shines through.

  Yun-chu constructed a hut on San Feng Mountain. He passed ten days 
  there without coming to the meal hall. Master Tung-shan sent for him 
  and asked, "Why haven't you come for meals these past few days?" A bit 
  of a busybody, looking into it all. "Because regularly every day 
  heavenly spirits bring me food," replied Yun-chu. The Master said, 
  "Until now I thought you were an exceptional person but still you are 
  concerned with such matters. Come to my place late tonight." Later 
  that evening, when Yun-chu went to Tung-shan's room, the Master called 
  out, "Master Yun-chu!" When Yun-chu replied, the Master said, "Don't 
  think of good, don't think of evil. What is it?" Yun-chu returned to 
  his hut and peacefully took up his meditation. From then on, the 
  heavenly spirits were completely unable to find him. And after three 
  days they ceased appearing, so he too was released into coming down 
  and eating supper, into the truly human realm. And in that truly human 
  realm, what do we have? When we do not ask the angels to do it for us, 
  what do we have? We have our own work, and even the struggle for  
  enlightenment, perhaps especially the struggle for enlightenment is 
  part of the truly human realm. Ramana Maharshi says, "If the mind is 
  happy, not only the body but the whole world will be happy." It is 
  like Hsueh-feng saying, "Today the village of Tortoise Mountain became 
  enlightened." So it is important to find out how to be happy for 
  ourselves. Ramana Maharshi also said, "Wanting to reform the world 
  without discovering your true self is like trying to cover the whole 
  world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. 
  It is simpler to wear shoes."

  The judgement for the hexagram of inner truth is rather interesting. 
  It says, "Inner truth, pigs and fishes, good fortune. It furthers one 
  to cross the great water." So, inner truth is a great undertaking and 
  is the only condition suitable for great undertakings, the only 
  referent that is reliable for great undertakings. But "pigs and 
  fishes," what on earth does that mean? Well, the Wilhelm-Baynes 
  translation which I use says, "Pigs and fishes are the least 
  intelligent of animals and therefore difficult to influence. The force 
  of inner truth must grow great indeed before it can extend to such 
  creatures. In dealing with persons as intractable and difficult to 
  influence as a pig or a fish, in other words, people like ourselves, 
  the whole secret depends on finding the right way of approach. One 
  must rid oneself of all prejudice and let the psyche of the other 
  person act on one without restraint. Then one will establish contact 
  and understand that person. When a door has thus been opened, the 
  force of truth will influence that person." He is really talking about 
  the only way of connecting, not only of teaching, but I think the way 
  of loving. He said, "Even the most dangerous things can be undertaken 
  in such a way. "

  In the sangha, the bonds that develop come from this openness. Sanghas 
  are very good at bringing up the wonderful free creative parts of 
  ourselves but they also bring up the pig and the fish pretty often as 
  well. In Zen communities, these aspects come up and from one point of 
  view, this intractable stubbornness is a great nuisance but from 
  another, it's a wonderful place to practice, very acute and powerful 
  place to practice.

  The I Ching says, "It's important to understand the force of inner 
  truth. This force is not identical with secret bonds or simple 
  intimacy. Close ties may exist among thieves. It is true that such a 
  bond acts as a force but it does not bring good fortune." He is 
  talking about deals and collusion here, or the book is. "All 
  association on the basis merely of common interest holds up only to a 
  certain point; when the community of interest ceases, the holding 
  together also ceases and the closest friendship may change into hate. 
  Only when the bond is based on what is right and on steadfastness will 
  it remain so firm that it triumphs over everything." I think this is 
  very clear and lovely. It is not the kind of connection that we think 
  will bring us advantage that is the important one. It is the same in 
  our inner life, we are in negotiation with our own pigs and fishes. If 
  we are to be serious about the Way, we always have to do this 
  negotiation. Some parts of ourselves are so difficult and never really 
  want to cooperate. The harder we do zazen, the more we lose our 
  temper, that sort of thing. We must not have too much prejudice about 
  this. "We must open the psyche to the other," it says, "and let it act 
  upon us."

  We must not think we already know who we are and where we are going 
  and then the great Way will open to us and the right Way will be 
  clear. It will not be just a pre-existing prejudice. Often when we 
  think of the right way, it is in what Flaubert used to call "received 
  ideas", with a curl of his lip. It is just something that we have 
  never examined and do not own in our hearts. But when we do walk the 
  right way, we'll find it is generous; the images of the wind over the 
  lake, the image of inner truth. "Thus the superior person discusses 
  criminal cases in order to delay executions." I hadn't thought of the 
  benefits of law taking so long. "But the superior person tries to 
  penetrate people's minds with understanding," says the I-Ching, "in 
  order to gain a sympathetic appreciation of their circumstances. The 
  deep understanding that knows how to pardon is considered the highest 
  form of justice and this springs not from weakness but from clarity."

  Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish teacher who lived about two thousand 
  years ago, said "When a righteous person searches for the nature of  
  all things, an admirable discovery is made. Everything is God's grace. 
  Every being in the world and the world itself manifests the blessing 
  and the generosity of God." I think the bond between us in the Sangha 
  are very important. The inner truth hexagram also has something about 
  kindred spirit here. It is the second moving line: "A crane calling in 
  the shade, its young answers it. I have a good goblet, I will share it 
  with you." This refers to the involuntary influence of a person's 
  inner being upon persons of kindred spirit. "The crane need not show 
  itself on a high hill, it can be quite hidden when it sounds its call, 
  yet its young will hear its note, will recognize it and give answer. 
  Where there is a joyous mood, there is a friend who will appear to 
  enjoy a glass of wine. This is the echo awakened in people through 
  spiritual attraction. Whenever a feeling is voiced with truth and 
  frankness, whenever a deed is a clear expression of sentiment, a 
  mysterious and far-reaching influence is exerted. At first it acts on 
  those who are inwardly receptive but the circle grows larger and 
  larger. The root of all influence lies in one's own inner being. Given 
  true and vigorous expression in word and deed, its effect is great but 
  the effect is the reflection of something that emanates from one's own 
  heart. Any deliberate intention of an effect would only destroy the 
  possibility of producing it." This the way of zazen. We are not trying 
  to bring anything about. We are just following the way of the inner 
  truth.

  Huang Po, who was the teacher of the great Lin-chi said, "This pure 
  mind which is the source of all things shines forever with the 
  radiance of its own perfection. Most people are not aware of it and 
  think that the mind just sees, hears, feels and knows and that's all  
  it is. They don't perceive the radiance of the source. If they could  
  eliminate their conceptual thinking, the source would appear like the 
  sun rising through the empty sky and illuminating the universe."

  So here we are in the midst of that radiance in eternal sesshin. I  
  think we all know how beautiful zazen can be by now, as well as how 
  difficult. I should like you in your zazen not only to raise up the 
  love of the Way and to keep trying to keep it alive, keep the 
  possibility of change and more opening there. But also to allow that  
  sense of play and lightness that is so characteristic of zazen, that  
  "wandering out into the garden" quality. It is not necessary to be  
  clenched and grim. We are in a place where we can trust our own  
  hearts. All we need to do is to bring our attention to bear and the  
  Tao will naturally carry you, will align with you, will open of   
  itself, and then, as Huang Po says, "The sun will rise."
  
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