Question
Dear Stéphane,
I have read the various exchanges between Roland and you, and I am
really glad you can talk together, as you told me
in your reply. You are very different, but I remain convinced that
you received the same marrow and that both of you are trying
to pass it on as best you can, each in your own way. I do not expect perfection
from you, just the absolute: that you embody Buddha in a living way. Just
that!
As for news, following my question about spiritual pride, we have
(finally) been kicked out by our leader. Here we are alone, without a home, naked
before heaven and earth. Feeling as though our guts are
exposed, wanting to throw everything away, and also filled with immense hope.
Alone before the world, inhabited by all sorts of contradictions.
If we are being thrown out for failing to conform to what claims to be
an orthodoxy of Zen and right conduct that this leader cannot even
clearly articulate or practice as an example, and to what
we are supposed to follow to look like a Buddha, then we can do
nothing but recognize that we are inhabited by karma, an ego,
our total imperfection and supreme qualities, our immense wisdom
and profound stupidity. And by entering this dimension that is both
dark and luminous, living within us, we invite God and the devil
to our table.
That is our rule for practice today!
It feels good and hurts like hell. We understand and do not understand,
but here we are. Just so.
But how could we stop loving, even if some people do not
believe in it and think they need to exclude us to feel protected
from the fear of losing what they think belongs to them, which can only be
unlimited and universal: the Way? Even if we think we should not
reinforce their mistakes, and that refusing to agree
with them is an act of love. Even if we are furious, even if we feel murderous,
we want to be able to keep loving even those people. Even if in ten
seconds I betray this vow, I know I have always wanted it
to pursue me forever if I fail to pursue it.
We do not want to look like Buddha. We want to be Buddha, become
like him, become Him.
No more, no less.
Yes, I am upset. I cannot manage zazen on my own, I cannot
live alone, and I accept that. Because even if I could, I would not want to!!
Otherwise, why would I have become a monk? Why would I have left home??
Why would I be talking to you now, even from behind this screen and keyboard,
which I hope will become organs for transmitting the Way??
One thing makes me happy: seeing that people still believe
dialogue is more important than focusing on our differences. And I hope
all these discussions about the future—not of the AZI, the Soto
Shu, or the AVZD, but of Zen—will preserve that and make it a rule
more absolute than any other. Because that is what the world needs.
And in any case, what I need, as a small part of this world. For me, that is
the universality of Buddhism.
Since that is what we are talking about.
I have never chosen who I am by eliminating someone else. I simply
choose who I am so I can be with them. Besides, I no longer want
to follow anyone. I just want to be with all of you, without
anyone following anyone else, but because we are traveling together.
And if my throat tightens as I write this, it is because I am not yet
free of a great deal of suffering. But that is me, just as I am.
There it is.
Now I will ask again a question you did not have time to answer,
but to avoid duplication, I will write it out again:
When the master and the monk do sampai face-to-face, is there still
a human being left to awaken??
Because one day, the man who taught me zazen unfolded his zagu completely
in front of me while we were celebrating the anniversary of my ordination. And I
realize that I received everything that day when, with him, I was no longer anything
special, simply with my forehead on the ground facing his. And the monk he is
then became for me a true master of transmission, and he helped me
remain a man by teaching me to make that man a Buddha. And it
continues. I hope.
Thank you to everyone who allows That to continue.
With all my best wishes for the holidays and the new year, to you and to
everyone!!
YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH… CHEERS!!!
Laurent
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
MU!
Kosen