If one is attempting to go into Zen deeply, to understand the relationship between one's mind and the universe, then it becomes important to turn over and over again, going backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, many times over, the same refrain, the same theme. Not with the analytical intellect, nor with the mind of one who seeks explanation, but within the context of zazen, wherein intuitive insight can arise.
We begin with the thought that everything is just as it is, and that this in itself is totally remarkable, completely astounding, a condition of extraordinary improbability. Spring is coming, summer follows. Just now, this morning for the first time, everyone is arriving; the black-caps, the chiff-chaffs, the willow-warblers, the cuckoo. Summer follows and the days grow shorter. Autumn comes and then the season of ice and snow. Once more with the warming of the days, everyone returns.
Think how extraordinary this is. How it depends entirely on the way the planet revolves. This spinning globe, this planet in space turning at a certain rate determines the timing of the day and night. Darkness and light, facing the sun, facing away from the sun. And each respective season, tilting sunwards and then away from the sun, so that the heat of the sun on the surface of the globe swings now north, now south, bringing the seasons. Bringing everyone north and taking everyone south, winging their way across the deserts. An extraordinary precision of spin and oscillation.
Consider how it might be different. A little faster in revolution and days would change their duration. Spring and Summer would flash past with a faster oscillation. We could have five years in one or five hundred days in one year. Who set the pattern spinning? Inappropriate question! How did it get fixed at this rate? Quite arbitrary, maybe, or according to the laws which govern the speed of spinning globes spun off from a distant far off sun in ages long past. Everything is just as it is and everything is connected. The unfolding of the universe, and the setting of speeds, the law of interdependent origination and the laws of the universe. Emptiness taking form, form congealing out of space. Timed, shaped, processing itself through time. Emerging from being. Returning once more to being. Form to emptiness, emptiness to form. The oscillation, the manifestation of the Law, Tao, the ultimate logos, whatever.
Everything is as it is - and how extraordinary! Looking at the hillside as the flowers bloom, know this. There is nothing else. The hillside is It. Standing in the silent church looking at the altar, the altar and the atmosphere of the building, the silence, is It. On top of the cliff watching the swirling sea, is It. Futile to look elsewhere, God is not different from That. Buddha-nature is immediately before your eyes, there is no need to go anywhere. There is no need to go anywhere else. Everything is as it is and that is It. Do not seek elsewhere for that which is right now, before your eyes. Go very deeply into this. Penetrate the obscurities of wanting something else. So much of our dilemma lies in seeking elsewhere that which lies within the palms of our hands. So much dissatisfaction. So much wanting. So much seeking. God is always in somebody else's garden. The Buddha-mind is always in some other state of meditation. Paradise is in the heavens which are not here. Always this quest.
It becomes necessary to STOP. To go into it to recognise everything is as it is. Extraordinary! Everything before one's eyes is It. You are in It. Sometimes when the mind is so busy, so preoccupied, when samsara is spinning with the struggle of life, relationships, fear of death, the multitude dissatisfactions of industrial society, it is difficult simply to know that everything is as it is. Very difficult to know, because everything seems to be undesirable. What is wanted is the very opposite condition from that which is right in front of one's eyes. You haven't penetrated to the quality which brings out insight. Instead there is just noise and confusion. What to do?
Begin with gratitude. Notice simple things for which you can be thankful, anything. Each person is different. Notice the small things, the smile on a friend's face, a beautiful person walking in the street, birds overhead, flowers blooming, even the energy of roaring traffic in great cities, the pulsation, the force the drive. Feel wherever it may be, the gratitude for being there. After all there might be nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. You might never have been here to witness it. The uniqueness of this moment is extraordinary. If you are not grateful, the opposites have arisen and you are lost. In the quietness of the mind's eye make gasho. Bow down in gratitude for the universe.
Homage to the Buddhas in all worlds.
Homage to the Bodhisattvas in all worlds.
Homage to the scripture of Great Wisdom.
