Student [Jeff]: Docho Roshi, if the Law is like the water flowing, it seems sometimes there are a lot of dams in the brain. And they don’t let the water well up from the hara like a spring. And it seems that the process of opening this well is a process of dying. And all the old habits and conceptions and assumptions and personalities are being washed away. And all the old ways of living are being washed away. And there seem to be a lot of monsters and kinnaras and nagas that are very full of hate and fear and pain. And can we truly die in this flow and just trust it to take its natural course and not disturb it? To be still? And be clear?
SR: Whatever you say, things are going as it goes. But we analyze things, discriminate between things. But that analytical thinking and discriminative feeling is also a flow of the truth. After all, we have nothing to say. The only way is to appreciate this great activity of the Buddha, moment after moment. We should not forget this activity, even though we analyze things and discriminate things. Don’t be completely involved in discrimination or thinking. You should have always freedom from everything, like Buddha. If you want to do so, you should practice zazen. Okay?
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the photo. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-09-00 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.