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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 neeeds 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 emphasises 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 realised 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 have'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 referrant 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
recognise 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 tke
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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