Okumura Quotes

Shohaku Okumura ~ We cannot expect any ecstasy greater than right here, right now—our everyday lives.

He's so stupid he'd forget to die even if he got killed.

SHOHAKU OKUMURA ~ If we feel we’re becoming enlightened, that’s delusion.

Within nirvana we can appreciate both positive and negative experiences as simply the scenery of our lives.

Shikantaza is not a practice carried out by the individual. It is, rather, a practice in which we let go of the individual karmic self that is constantly seeking to satisfy its own desires.

SHOHAKU OKUMURA: We human beings have the ability to think of things not in front of us. We create stories in our minds in which the hero or heroine is always us. We evaluate what happened in the past, we analyze our present conditions, and we anticipate what should happen in the future. This is an important ability. Because of it, we can create art, study history, and have visions of the future. Without it, we couldn’t write or enjoy poems or movies. Almost all of human culture depends on seeing things not in front of our eyes. This means almost all culture is fictitious. Our ability to create such fictions is the reality of our lives. We cannot live without it. But this ability leads to many problems. We have certain expectations of our stories. If things go as we expect, we feel like heavenly beings, but if not, we feel we’re in hell. Often we desire more and more without ever experiencing satisfaction, like hungry ghosts. It’s important to see that it’s not life that causes suffering but our expectation that life should be the way we want. We can’t live without expectation, but if we can handle the feelings caused by the difference between our expectations and reality, that’s liberation. Zazen practice as taught by Dogen Zenji, Sawaki Roshi, and Uchiyama Roshi is taking a break from watching the screen of our stories and sitting down on the ground of the reality that exists before our imagination. When we’re not taken in by our fictitious world, we can enjoy and learn from the stories we make.

Pain was simply pain, pleasure was simply pleasure; for him they were no longer part of the cycle of suffering.

All we can do is to try in each moment, whatever we are doing, to practice the Buddha Way; we just keep opening the hand of thought and continuing to practice. There is no time when one can say, “I’m finished—now I have finally reached the level of an enlightened person.

Genjō means “reality actually and presently taking place,” and kōan means “absolute truth that embraces relative truth” or “a question that true reality asks of us.” So we can say that genjōkōan means “to answer the question from true reality through the practice of our everyday activity.

People often ask me, “What is the Sōtō Zen view of rebirth?” This is a difficult question because Dōgen Zenji, I believe, advocates “not knowing” in this case. Rather than offering us a consistent view on rebirth, he teaches that we should let go of our limiting concepts and beliefs and simply practice right here, right now.

SHOHAKU OKUMURA: In chapter 30, Sawaki Roshi and Uchiyama Roshi talked about people who chase external things and lose sight of themselves. In this chapter they discuss how one’s own opinion is not valid. On the surface, these two are contradictory. How can we seek ourselves without having our own opinion? When the Buddha, Sawaki Roshi, and Uchiyama Roshi talk about “self” they don’t mean the image of ourselves created within the framework of separation between I as subject and others as objects. In Harischandra Kaviratna’s translation of the Dhammapada, the Buddha says, “The self is the master of the self. Who else can that master be? With the self fully subdued, one obtains the sublime refuge, which is very difficult to achieve.” Self is master of the self, but the self still needs to be subdued. In the Japanese translation of this verse, “subdued” is more like “harmonized” or “well tuned.” In Genjokoan, Dogen said, “To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.” To study the self, we need to forget the self. In these sayings, self is not a fixed, permanent entity separate from other beings. Self is our body and mind, that is, a collection of the five aggregates: form, sensation, perception, formation, and consciousness. These aggregates are always changing, but somehow we create a fixed self-image based on our past experiences and relations with others. We grasp this image as I. This I is an illusion, yet we measure everything based on the tunnel vision of this fictitious self. When we see fiction as fiction, illusion as illusion, they can be useful. Although no map is reality itself, when we know how a map was made, what its distortions are, and how to use it, the map can be a useful tool for understanding reality. However, if we don’t see a model’s limitations, we build our entire lives on a delusion.

The Buddha taught that the atman or self does not ultimately exist. He said that everything living or existing is a collection of different elements that are constantly changing. Our lives are dependent on other beings and elements that allow us to be alive as the person we are in this moment. So if one of these things that we depend on changes, whether it is within or outside us, we also must change. This is in fact what the Buddha meant when he said that everything is impermanent and without essential existence. This is the basic reality of our lives, but it is difficult for us to accept.

I am a Buddhist priest and I am also my wife’s husband and my children’s father. When I am with my family, I am a father, so I play the role of a father. When I give a lecture, I am a teacher so I do my best to talk about Dōgen Zenji’s teachings in an understandable way, though I don’t know if I succeed. These roles are like clothing I put on in different situations, and I define who I am according to the role I am doing my best to fulfill at the time. But when I sit facing the wall, I am neither a father nor a Buddhist priest. At that time I am nothing. I am empty. I am just who I am. This is liberation from my karmic life.

The Buddha Way includes both self and objects. The Buddha Way includes both people sitting and the sitting they do. They are actually one thing. This is very difficult to explain, yet it is an obvious reality of our lives. This reality is not some special state or condition that is only accomplished by so-called “enlightened” people. Even when we don’t realize it, self, action, and object are working together as one reality, so we don’t need to train ourselves to make them into one thing in our minds. If self, action, and object were really three separate things, they could not become one. The truth is that they are always one reality, regardless of what we do or think. To study the self is to forget the self.

Another point we have to understand is that Dōgen uses language to negate language and to go beyond its ordinary limits. For Dōgen, language and thinking can function as tools to help us to awaken to the reality beyond language and thinking. This is what Dōgen calls dōtoku (being able to speak). When we truly see reality, we can say that the mountain is moving, the boat is moving, or both are moving simultaneously; all of these are expressions of reality. We can say the wind makes the sound, the bell makes the sound, the mind makes the sound, or the entire universe makes the sound, and all of these can be expressions of reality as well. This is what Dōgen meant when he wrote, “When the Dharma is correctly transmitted to the self, the person is immediately an original person.” In other words, an “original person” meets reality as it comes, without clinging to any particular fixed concept of reality.

The teachings of impermanence and lack of independent existence are not difficult to understand intellectually; when you hear these teachings you may think that they are quite true. On a deeper level, however, you probably still identify yourself as “me” and identify others as “them” or “you.” On some level you likely say to yourself, “I will always be me; I have an identity that is important.” I, for example, say to myself, “I am a Buddhist priest; not a Christian or Islamic one. I am a Japanese person, not an American or a Chinese one.” If we did not assume that we have this something within us that does not change, it would be very difficult for us to live responsibly in society. This is why people who are unfamiliar with Buddhism often ask, “If there were no unchanging essential existence, doesn’t that mean I would not be responsible for my past actions, since I would be a different person than in the past?” But of course that is not what the Buddha meant when he said we have no unchanging atman or essential existence. To help us understand this point, we can consider how our life resembles a river. Each moment the water of a river is flowing and different, so it is constantly changing, but there is still a certain continuity of the river as a whole. The Mississippi River, for example, was the river we know a million years ago. And yet, the water flowing in the Mississippi is always different, always new, so there is actually no fixed thing that we can say is the one and only Mississippi River. We can see this clearly when we compare the source of the Mississippi in northern Minnesota, a small stream one can jump over, to the river’s New Orleans estuary, which seems as wide as an ocean. We cannot say which of these is the true Mississippi: it is just a matter of conditions that lets us call one or the other of these the Mississippi. In reality, a river is just a collection of masses of flowing water contained within certain shapes in the land. “Mississippi River” is simply a name given to various conditions and changing elements. Since our lives are also just a collection of conditions, we cannot say that we each have one true identity that does not change, just as we cannot say there is one true Mississippi River. What we call the “self ” is just a set of conditions existing within a collection of different elements. So I cannot say that there is an unchanging self that exists throughout my life as a baby, as a teenager, and as it is today. Things that I thought were important and interesting when I was an elementary or high school student, for example, are not at all interesting to me now; my feelings, emotions, and values are always changing. This is the meaning of the teaching that everything is impermanent and without independent existence. But we still must recognize that there is a certain continuity in our lives, that there is causality, and that we need to be responsible for what we did yesterday. In this way, self-identity is important. Even though in actuality there is no unchanging identity, I still must use expressions like “when I was a baby ..., when I was a boy ..., when I was a teenager. ...” To speak about changes in our lives and communicate in a meaningful way, we must speak as if we assumed that there is an unchanging “I” that has been experiencing the changes; otherwise, the word “change” has no meaning. But according to Buddhist philosophy, self-identity, the “I,” is a creation of the mind; we create self-identity because it’s convenient and useful in certain ways. We must use self-identity to live responsibly in society, but we should realize that it is merely a tool, a symbol, a sign, or a concept. Because it enables us to think and discriminate, self-identity allows us to live and function. Although it is not the only reality of our lives, self-identity is a reality for us, a tool we must use to live with others in society.

We usually think of abundance (arising, realization, buddhas) as positive, and we consider deficiency (perishing, delusion, and living beings) as negative. When we understand Buddha’s teaching in this commonsense way, it seems that we should escape from samsara, which is something bad, in order to reach nirvana, which is something good. We think nirvana is a goal we can achieve in the same way that a poor person can work hard and become rich. We may think that practice is a way to reach nirvana in the same way that working hard is a way to attain wealth. The common understanding of Buddha’s teaching is that since ignorance turns the lives of deluded beings into suffering, we should eliminate our ignorance so we can reach nirvana. If we simply accept that teaching and devote our lives to the practice of eliminating our ignorance and egocentric desires, we will find that it’s impossible to do. Not only is it impossible, but it actually creates another cycle of samsara. This happens because the desire to become free from delusion or egocentricity is one of the causes of our delusion and egocentricity. And the idea that there is nirvana or samsara existing separately from each other is a basic dualistic illusion; the desire to escape from this side of existence and enter another side is another expression of egocentric desire. When we are truly in nirvana we awaken to the fact that nirvana and samsara are not two separate things. This is what Mahayana Buddhism teaches, especially through the Prajna Paramita Sutras; it teaches that samsara and nirvana are one. If we don’t find nirvana within samsara, there is no place we can find nirvana. If we don’t find peacefulness within our busy daily lives, there is no place we can find peacefulness. This is why the Heart Sutra “negates” the Buddha’s teaching; it attempts to release us from dichotomies created in our thoughts. If we understand Buddha’s teaching with our commonsense, calculating way of thinking, we create another type of samsara. Eventually we feel more pain as our desire to reach nirvana creates more difficulty in our lives. This desire to end our suffering is another cause of suffering, and the Heart Sutra presents the Buddha’s teachings in a negative way in order to avoid arousing this desire.

In our practice we just sit with our bodies and minds in the zendo, and we aim to practice the Buddha Way in our activities outside the zendo as well. In practicing the Buddha Way there is no separation between the self that is studying the self and the self that is studied by the self; self is studying the self, and the act of studying is also the self. There is no such thing as a self that is separate from our activity. Dōgen Zenji defined this self as jijuyu-zanmai, a term that Sawaki Kōdō Rōshi described as “self ‘selfing’ the self.

In this book, I am communicating through this writing, and I hope my communication is an expression of impermanence and lack of independent existence. But if I mistakenly cling to my egocentric ideas and write about my understanding only in order to convince others of my views, I am not expressing prajna. My communication becomes only an expression of my self-centered desire. (I try not to do this, but I am not sure that I am truly expressing prajna—so please don’t trust me!) You must be really free from what I say and you must inquire into prajna and practice prajna yourself. What I can communicate to you is only my own understanding from my reading, my practice, and my daily life; I cannot communicate an understanding of the reality of your life. You must inquire into your life for yourself.

釋迦出山相 1 [599] 腰頭帶箇風流袋、 奪得松風且出内、 更賣臘梅拈一枝、 往來天下圖人貸。

[599-600] 六年苦行、 一坐成覺, 瞥地起來笑具、 是什麼破木杓。

Thought is just a secretion from our brain.

Receiving gifts or blessings from our practice is no problem as long as they aren't our motivation; if they are, then we're only doing "halfway zazen.

When we have difficulties, we might start to practice zazen to find a way out. Some people seek worldly success with meditation, using it as training in concentration, spontaneity, or bravery. Others aspire to be released from everyday life by some kind of enlightenment experience. Either way, we search because we feel a lack. When we practice zazen with this attitude, what happens in our minds is the same as when we struggle for fame and profit. As long as we practice zazen with seeking mind, we create samsara within our practice.

There may be no war within this country, but if there is fighting somewhere else this country cannot be peaceful, because everything is connected. We have to work together with things inside and outside ourselves. This attitude is bodhisattva practice.

But according to Buddhist philosophy, self-identity, the “I,” is a creation of the mind; we create self-identity because it’s convenient and useful in certain ways. We must use self-identity to live responsibly in society, but we should realize that it is merely a tool, a symbol, a sign, or a concept. Because it enables us to think and discriminate, self-identity allows us to live and function.

When we wear the okesa, we are also farming. This is the meaning of “robe of virtuous field” (fukuden-e). This body and mind is the field we work. It is not a field of fortune from which we can expect to receive blessings without practice. We have to cultivate our life.

If rebirth exists, that is all right: I will simply try to continue practicing everything good and refrain from everything bad through my next life. If there is no rebirth, I will have nothing to do after my death and I will have no need to consider my practice. This was my view of rebirth for most of my life as a Buddhist.

You trusted me. So I'll trust you too. That's what being friends means, doesn't it?

Right here” is the reality of interdependent origination, the reality in which everything, including human beings, exists within the vast network of causes and conditions.

Zazen should not be defiled by our desires—even the desire for enlightenment or becoming a buddha.

If we're ambitious and desire to become rich and cannot do so, that's a failure. But if we have no such desire, there can be neither failure nor success.

It's important to see that it's not life that causes suffering but our expectation that life should be the way we want.

As all rivers flow into the ocean, when we die we return to oneness. In fact, we always live within this ocean even though we experience our lives as separate.

When we see a flower, for example, the flower is really there and we may think, “This flower is now in front of my eyes. It is very beautiful, but it will wither and fall someday.” Although we believe this thought, in undeniable reality as we see the flower there is only the flower blooming; there is no falling. But we may think, “This flower is blooming now but in the past it was a seed, and it will fall someday to form seeds for the next generation of flowers.” Or we may think, “This flower is here but it is empty, impermanent; there is no fixed substance to this flower.” This is how we think and understand the Buddha’s teaching when we study

become angry. Weeding is one of the main jobs of Buddhist priests in Japanese temples, especially in the summer, and the weeds grow so quickly!

Within this world of likes and dislikes, we do not perceive the myriad dharmas as they really are.

When practicing shikantaza, we do nothing but sit with the whole body and mind. We do nothing with the mind, so this is not actually a meditation practice. In this zazen we don’t practice with a mantra or contemplate anything. We don’t count or watch the breath. We don’t try to concentrate the mind on any particular object or use any other meditation techniques; we really just sit with both body and mind.

We may cultivate, for example, our reputation as a sincere and virtuous practitioner, instead of simply practicing sincerely and nurturing our virtues

If we open the hand of thought that grasps “this person” (that is, our self) as the center of the world, then our lives broaden and our hearts open to all beings. This is the basic teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha.

When Dōgen says in Shōbōgenzō Shōji (Life and Death) that “life and death is Buddha’s Life,” he means our life in samsara is nothing other than nirvana.

The present moment is the only reality we experience because the past is already gone and the future has not yet come.

Just sitting, which is good for nothing, is the ultimate posture of freedom from greed.

If we don't worry so much about evaluations by others, we're more free to walk a straightforward path, and even if we stumble or limp along, that's okay.

Because I practiced good-for-nothing zazen with devotion, I felt my life was justified. Yet this intensity of practice was possible only when I was young, strong, and healthy. In this way I discovered arrogance in a deep layer of my mind.