When you become one with Buddha, one with everything that exists, you find the true meaning of being.
 When you forget all your dualistic ideas, everything becomes your teacher, and everything can be the object of worship.
 When everything exists within your big mind, all dualistic relationships drop away.
 There is no distinction between heaven and earth, man and woman, teacher and disciple.
 Sometimes a man bows to a woman. Sometimes a woman bows to a man.
 Sometimes the disciple bows to the master. Sometimes the master bows to the disciple.
 A master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
 Sometimes the master and disciple bow together to Buddha.
 Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs.
 In your big mind, everything has the same value. Everything is Buddha himself.
 You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything, just as it is.
 In your practice, you should accept everything as it is,
 giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha.
 Here there is Buddhahood. Then Buddha bows to Buddha, and you bow to yourself.
 This is the true bow.
 If you do not have this firm conviction of big mind in your practice, your bow will be dualistic.
 When you are just yourself, you bow to yourself in its true sense, and you are one with everything.
 Only when you are you yourself can you bow to everything in its true sense.
 Bowing is a very serious practice.
 You should be prepared to bow even in your last moment.
 When you cannot do anything except bow, you should do it.
 This kind of conviction is necessary.
 Bow with this spirit, and all the precepts, all the teachings are yours,
 and you will possess everything within your big mind.
 Sen'o Rikyu, the founder of the Japanese tea ceremony, committed harakiri,
 ritual suicide by disembowelment, in 1591 at the order of his lord Hideyoshi.
 Just before Rikyu took his own life, he said,
 "When I have this sword, there is no Buddha and no patriarchs."
 He meant that when we have the sword of big mind, there is no dualistic world.
 The only thing which exists is this spirit.
 This kind of imperturbable spirit was always present in Rikyu's tea ceremony.
 He never did anything in just a dualistic way.
 He was ready to die in each moment.
 In ceremony after ceremony, he died, and he renewed himself.
 This is the spirit of the tea ceremony.
 This is how we bow.
 My teacher had a callus on his forehead from bowing.
 He knew he was an obstinate, stubborn fellow, and so he bowed and bowed and bowed.
 The reason he bowed was that inside himself he always heard his master's scolding voice.
 He had joined the Soto order when he was thirty, which for a Japanese priest is rather late.
 When we are young, we are less stubborn, and it is easier to get rid of our selfishness.
 So his master always called my teacher "you lately joined fellow" and scolded him for joining so late.
 Actually, his master loved him for his stubborn character.
 When my teacher was seventy, he said, "When I was young, I was like a tiger, but now I'm like a cat."
 He was very pleased to be like a cat.
 Bowing helps to eliminate our self-centered ideas.
 This is not so easy.
 It is difficult to get rid of these ideas, and bowing is a very valuable practice.
 The result is not the point.
 It is the effort to improve ourselves that is valuable.
 There is no end to this practice.
 Each bow expresses one of the four Buddhist vows.
 These vows are,
 "Although sentient beings are innumerable, we vow to save them."
 "Although our evil desires are limitless, we vow to be rid of them."
 "Although the teaching is limitless, we vow to learn it all."
 "Although Buddhism is unattainable, we vow to attain it."
 "If it is unattainable, how can we attain it? But we should."
 That is Buddhism.
 To think, "Because it is possible, we will do it," is not Buddhism.
 Even though it is impossible, we have to do it because our true nature wants us to.
 But actually, whether or not it is possible is not the point.
 If it is our inmost desire to get rid of our self-centered ideas, we have to do it.
 When we make this effort, our inmost desire is appeased and nirvana is there.
 Before you determine to do it, you have difficulty.
 But once you start to do it, you have none.
 Your effort appeases your inmost desire.
 There is no other way to attain calmness.
 Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity.
 Real calmness should be found in activity itself.
 We say it is easy to have calmness in inactivity.
 It is hard to have calmness in activity.
 But calmness in activity is true calmness.
 After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress.
 Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little.
 It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet.
 In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet.
 But as you keep walking, you get wet little by little.
 If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, "Oh, this pace is terrible."
 But actually, it is not.
 When you get wet in a fog, it is very difficult to dry yourself.
 So there is no need to worry about progress.
 It is like studying a foreign language.
 You cannot do it all of a sudden.
 But by repeating it over and over, you will master it.
 This is the Soto way of practice.
 We can say either that we make progress little by little, or that we do not even expect to make progress.
 Just to be sincere and make our full effort in each moment is enough.
 There is no nirvana outside our practice.
 Nothing special.
 I do not feel like speaking after zazen.
 I feel the practice of zazen is enough.
 But if I must say something, I think I would like to talk about how wonderful it is to practice zazen.
 Our purpose is just to keep this practice forever.
 This practice started from beginningless time, and it will continue into an endless future.
 Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice.
 There is no other way of life than this way of life.
 Zen practice is the direct expression of our true nature.
 Of course, whatever we do is the expression of our true nature.
 But without this practice, it is difficult to realize.
 It is our human nature to be active, and the nature of every existence.
 As long as we are alive, we are always doing something.
 But as long as you think, "I am doing this," or "I have to do this," or "I must attain something special,"
 you are actually not doing anything.
 When you give up, when you no longer want something, or when you do not try to do anything special,
 then you do something.
 When there is no gaining idea in what you do, then you do something.
 In Zazen, what you are doing is not for the sake of anything.
 You may feel as if you are doing something special,
 but actually it is only the expression of your true nature.
 It is the activity which appeases your inmost desire.
 But as long as you think you are practicing Zazen for the sake of something,
 that is not true practice.
 If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain a wonderful power.
 Before you attain it, it is something wonderful.
 But after you obtain it, it is nothing special.
 It is just you, yourself, nothing special.
 As a Chinese poem says, "I went and I returned. It was nothing special."
 "Rozan famous for its misty mountains, Seco for its water."


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