Opening the Hand of Thought - illustration

From "Approach to Zen" by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
in Book 1: The Reality of Zazen, Section 2: The Reality of Zazen:  Chapter 3: Waking Up to Life

[Steve Hagen described this in an essay titled "Coming Back"]

The zazen of the Buddhas and Patriarchs, the zazen of true life, is not like this. Because desires and cravings are actually a manifestation of the power of life, it's simply no good to hate them and try to extinguish them. But on the other hand, if, as a result of this, we are pulled around by desire and craving and chase after it, then life becomes fogged over. The important thing here is that we don't cause life to be fogged over by thought. Rather, we should see all thoughts, desires, etc., as things on the foundation of life, let them be as they are, and still not be dragged around by them. It's not a matter of making great effort to not be dragged around by desire. One just wakes up and returns to the reality of life. As applied in zazen, this means that, even if various thoughts like 'a' and 'b' occur to you, they will all vanish by 'waking up' to zazen. "Neither try to eliminate delusion, nor search for what is real.

page 38 I THE REALITY OF ZAZEN

This is because ignorance, just as it is, is the Buddha Nature. This worldly body itself which appears and dissappears like a phantom in this world is nothing other than the reality of life. When you actually wake up to the reality of life, there is not any particular thing which you can point to and say 'this is it.,, Yung Chia's Shodoka Even in the case where one is completely off the track and things develop to the point that a vivid figure like c, appears, C111 will disappear instantly when one wakes up to zazen. The person who is himself doing zazen is really made to experience with his whole body that thoughts are nothing but empty comings and goings without any real body. But this cannot be easily understood if you do not actually practice zazen.

To say that you cannot realize this without doing zazen is an extremely self-assuming expression, but the reason I say so is this. Usually we are quite unable to recognize that what we think about in our heads is nothing but empty comings and goings. We plunge our heads too far into our thoughts, and live too much in the world of thought. Once we think of something we want or like, we assume that the simple fact that we think we want it or like it, is the truth. Then, thinking that because this idea is the truth we ought to seek it, we chase after it everywhere and end up developing greed. Also, once we think of something we hate or dislike, we assume that the simple fact that we think we hate it or dislike it is the truth. Then, thinking that because this idea is the truth we ought to follow it, we chase after the idea until we finally turn it into anger. In other words, the activity in our every day lives is almost all the result of chasing after ideas like this. We cause a vivid image to become fixed, and then even more importance is placed upon this fixed delusion and desire. We only act by being carried away by delusions and desires. It would be even more correct to say that ordinary people are being flung about by desire and delusion

 continued from Book 1: 'The Reality of Zazen'  Page 39

without even knowing it. A man who is drinking sake (fantasy) knows that he is drunk, but when it gets to the stage that the sake is drinking sake and even further when the sake is drinking the man, then the man is forced to drift in fantasies without even knowing it and behaves accordingly. Almost all people and societies throughout the world behave by being carried away by desire and delusion. Just because of that, the zazen which we do comes to have a great significance. \Vhen we 'wake up' in zazen we are truly made to experience the fact that all the things which are developed in our thoughts may vanish in an instant. In other words, we almost always stress the content of our thought, but when we 'wake up,' we wake up to the reality of life and make this reality of life our center of gravity. It is then that we are made to realize that all the desire and delusions within our thoughts are nothing but empty comings and goings without any real body. When this kind of zazen experience becomes a real part of us even in our daily lives we will not be carried away by the comings and goings of life-like images. We will be able to 'wake up' to our own lives and begin completely afresh from the reality of life. Then, are desires, delusions, thoughts like a, b, c, etc., all things which primarily do not exist and should be denied? This is not at all so because even thoughts which produce desire and delusion are manifestations of the power of life. However, if one continues the thought and is carried away by desire and delusion, life is obscurred and stifled. Then we 'wake up' to ZZ' and from this standpoint of 'waking up' we can see that thoughts, desires and delusions are the scenery of life. If it's during zazen they're the scenery of zazen. There is scenery only where there is life. There is no scenery where there is no life. While we are living in this world, there will be happiness and unhappiness; favorable conditions and adverse conditions; interesting things and boring things. There will be pleasant times and painful times; times to laugh and times to be sad. Really these are all the scenery of life.

Because people plunge into this scenery of life, are carried away by it, and end up running helterskelter, they become frantic. Even though various life-like images appear to us during zazen, we can see the scenery of life for what it is by 'waking up' to ZZ'. Now let's try thinking about this in connection with the 'I' which is fixed by relationships with others the way I explained earlier. We can easily see that the 'I' which is determined from the outside is scenery in the life of the self. It's not at all that there is no such thing which takes the form of an 'I' which is fixed from the outside. Although it produces all this scenery, my own true life is the reality of life which I 'wake up' to without being carried away by the scenery. Zazen is the foundation of life where this reality of life is being real. In that sense, zazen is the reality of the self, the true self. "Zazen is the practice of the Buddha. Zazen is non-doing. This is indeed the reality of the Self. Nothing else is to be sought after in Buddhism." Shobogenzo: Zuinto11ki In other words, the most important thing in zazen is not to cut down delusion and craving and strictly become ZZ'. Of course there are times like this during zazen, but this too is one part of the scenery of zazen. Rather while aiming at ZZ', we have a tendency to go away from it. Even though we have this tendency, the very form of returning to ZZ' and waking up is most important in terms of the zazen which is the foundation of life.

In other words, we almost always stress the content of our thought, but when we 'wake up,' we wake up to the reality of life and make this reality of life our center of gravity. It is then that we are made to realize that all the desire and delusions within our thoughts are nothing but empty comings and goings without any real body. When this kind of zazen experience becomes a real part of us even in our daily lives we will not be carried away by the comings and goings of life-like images. We will be able to 'wake up' to our own lives and begin completely afresh from the reality of life.

Living out the reality of the life of the self

Rosseau wrote the following in Emile. "Any man whether he's a king, or a noble, or a millionaire, is born naked and poor, and when he dies, he must die naked and poor." This is certainly the absolute truth. However we aren't naked during the entire time from birth until death. We all wear some kind of clothes during our lifetime. There are people who wear splendid and gorgeous clothes like a queen's and people who must spend their whole life wearing poor, tattered rags. Some people wear army uniforms; others, prison clothes; and others, monk's robes.

Actually, these clothes aren't limited only to those made of cloth, but of course, there are the clothes of class, status, fame, and wealth. They're the clothes of nobles, company presidents, congressmen, and millionaires. I say these are clothes because there will always be a time when a man is stripped naked of things like class, status, fame, and wealth. There are also clothes called 'beautiful woman' and 'genius.' No matter how beautiful a woman is, there will finally come the time when she must change clothes and wear the garb of an old woman. And the genius must in the end change into the clothes called 'senility.' Likewise, there are the clothes 'superiority complex,' 'inferiority complex,' 'happiness,' and 'unhappiness,' and further the ones called 'so-and-so ism,' 'so-and-so race,' and 'so-and-so people.' Also people change from one system of thought or ism to the next, and when it's time to die, doesn't a man even take off his old clothes of racial distinction and die as a completely naked 'I'?

Even though these are just clothes that we wear in the interval between naked birth and naked death, almost all people are taken in by only these clothes. They think that the entire problem of living is out of all these clothes, which nice ones will they wear? And isn't it true that they never once ask the questions: "What is the self which is the reality of life?" "What is the naked self?" In other words, what I previously described as a relationship which is determined from the outside and balanced against other people and things is the same as the 'clothes' I'm talking about now. At any rate, while we are now certainly living out our 'I,' we are not in fact living out the reality of the true self. We are only concerned with the 'clothes' during the interval when we are alive, or the self which is determined from the outside and balanced against others. It seems we assume that this is all there is in life.

As long as this is so, it is not at all strange that people should find an emptiness in their lives. Whether they suffer from an inferiority complex (Figure 2.) or burn with the spirit of competition (Figure 3) or have a superiority complex (Figure 4) it's only natural that they all feel the same hollowness in their lives. "To rely on others is to be uneasy." A man can find no true peace of mind until he lives out the reality of the life of the self, until "The abode of the self is only the self."

not extinguish delusions and fantasy

Question: You said that because we are not like rocks it is only natural that thoughts come to our minds when we sit zazen,  but it seems that when I sit zazen an unusual amount of delusions and fantasies arises. 'What should I do?

Reply: It's not that an excessive amount of delusion and fantasy arises because we do zazen. Usually, we live surrounded by even more delusion and fantasy, but we are so steeped in it that we become numb to these delusions and fantasies. Therefore, we exist without even knowing that delusions and fantasies are arising. Conversely, because we become still during zazen, we clearly see in relief our own condition of being filled with delusion and fantasy. It only seems that we have more delusion and fantasy than usual. However, as I have repeatedly mentioned, zazen is never an attempt to extinguish these delusions and fantasies. Because even the arisal of delusion and fantasy is our life force, there is no reason to think that we should extinguish it. And yet, needless to say, to be carried away by the state of delusion and fantasy is to injure life itself. Because during zazen we let go of these thoughts, delusion and fantasy become something which exists and yet fades away. Therefore, zazen transcends ignorance and satori and goes beyond the sages and the ordinary man.

from Approach to Zen by  Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Approach-to-Zen.pdf

Life Force

Then, what in the world do you call this power? You don't call it desire; it's the life force. When the living bodies of plants or animals are injured, they heal naturally. Grass by the roadside which is being crushed by a rock pushes out from the side of the rock and continues to grow. Do you suppose that the power to heal and the power to transcend obstacles is desire? Not at all. This is the life force. The power with which we do zazen and practice is the same. Without having any goals or expectations, this power manifests and actualizes the reality of the life of the Self.

from Approach to Zen by  Kosho Uchiyama Roshi