Showing his daily activity from 3:30am. He has been sitting Zazen since he was 11 years old, for 93 years, not missing a day. He is always sitting before the younger monks.
Q-What is being thought inside the head and heart during Zazen?
A- Don’t think about anything. Wild thoughts and judgements of “before and after” are left aside, and just in that moment there is only this one breath and then this one breath. Thinking any more beyond that is just excess.
Q – When I sit, a bunch of thoughts pop into my head like wildly sprouting weeds …
A – Human beings are filled with thoughts of fame and social position, striking poses, selfishness. We should not be conquered by desires. That is Zazen.
Q – By continuing to sit Zazen, we can conquer such things?
A – We become one with the breath. There is no gap within which desires can arise.
Zazen is to be going straight. Make the back straight, make the head and muscles straight. Do not lean to left or right. To be straight is to be true, honest, Body and mind are one. If the body is made straight, the heart becomes straight.
Q – So, that is the posture of Zazen, yes?
A – Yes. Human beings are always thinking that selfishness is freedom and the like. Proper bearing should become a daily thing.
NARRATOR – All daily activities are spiritual practice. Cleaning etc. And that includes going back to take care of anything missed.
A – Dogen Zenji said that everything is Zazen. To become one with that one thing or activity is Zazen. Nothing is left out. Walking is walking Zen, talking is talking Zen. It is sitting but not just sitting. How you take off the slippers is Zazen. Don’t just throw the slippers around. If you treat the slippers badly, you treat yourself badly. You should fix it so it is right. So, with life and with the slippers, put it straight. All shows your heart. If your heart is straight, all things must become straight. It is not really spiritual practice, but really just common sense and the natural thing. There is nothing above it.
NARRATOR – His mother was living separately, and his father died, so he was placed in a temple at age 11 and began trainng. The temple is in Hyogo Prefecture … They rose each day at 3am for Zazen, He wanted to play, and did not understand his teacher’s always doing Zazen, so the strict life was hard.
A – I did Zazen from age 11 even though I did not like it. At first, I thought that there should be more than that.
NARRATOR – Wanting to study, and against his teacher’s wishes, he went to university. He was filled with doubts about the meaning of Zazen. But he was age 29 when his master died, and he returned and he sat through the night with the corpse of his dead teacher, and felt the reverberations of his teacher’s training
A – When I saw his still warm body I thought he had been a great person. Working with and eating the same food each day as the young monks in training. After all, his daily life was a model. It was not just words, but how he lived. I wanted to become like that. I wanted to copy his example each and every day, for my whole life.
NARRATOR – He became head of his teacher’s temple. He stopped thinking about the meaning of Zazen, and just sat Zazen.
Q – Hearing the bird call, I feel that we are always wrapped in nature.
A – Nature is fantastic. I kept a journal, “On a certain day of a certain month, the flowers bloomed, on a certain date the bugs began to sing.“ Almost nothing varies [year by year], the rules and discipline are proper. That is the Dharma. It is Great Nature that manifests the Dharma. Human beings should live copying the laws of nature. The world of human beings gets all confused by people following their human desires. Great Nature just acts, while being silent in words about truth and principles. It does not think to be praised by someone, it does not think of financial rewards. When the time comes, the flowers just bloom. All just goes on silently, whether there is praise or not. That is just doing, it is a teaching. It is Truth.