Monday, December 12, 2011

Study Hall

"Student: You said that for an enlightened person it's very true, and for a non-enlightened person it's just talk.
Suzuki Roshi: What's missing? Practice is missing. Only when you practice zazen hard is it true. At the same time, even though you practice hard, your practice will not always be complete. There may be a big gap between the truth and your understanding or actual experience. Your intellectual understanding may be high, but your practice may be low. To have an intellectual understanding is easy, but practicing with emotions is difficult because we easily stick to something emotionally. So we say, 'It is easy to understand nothingness', and 'It is easy to destroy an intellectual understanding'. But to deal with emotional difficulty is as hard as splitting a lotus in two. Long strings will follow and you cannot get rid of them. The strings remain. With intellectual difficulty, it is as easy as breaking a stone in two. Nothing is left" - Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness, discussion after the sixth talk.

4 comments:

Myomon said...

splitting a lotus! strings attached! boy does this ring true....time to read Branching Streams again, clearly.

Shundo said...

How was your sesshin, then?

Myomon said...

Very settled, actually. Not that large (for us) but many experienced people who could do the entire week. We did a version of the SR memorial on Sunday for which I was kokyo, which moved me very much. Before that, Josho spoke during morning zazen, saying this was the 40th anniversary (and did not mention that she was sitting that sesshin which began as he died @ CC) and said simply, "He was in the United States for twelve years". Made me, at least, think, What have I done with any given 12 years...?"

Shundo said...

I have the same reaction thinking about the Beatles versus other bands...only they went Hamburg to split in ten.