Kōshō Uchiyama

And some of his direct disciples, there are also books.

There's Uchiyama Roshi, who's one of his direct disciples.

Shōhaku Okamura was Uchiyama's disciple.

He'd done a number of translations of Dōgen.

Um, and a special welcome to anybody who's here for the first time, and also to anybody who's returning from having been away.

We are studying this book, "The Roots of Goodness." Um, it's a translation of Dogen's last fascicle, his last chapter, uh, and a commentary by, um, Uchiyama.

And we've been dividing up the various qualities.

There are eight of them.

Not mixing is without fixed views.

So to be diligent without fixed views, to proceed and not fall back.

Uchiyama's is living out one's life force completely and not mixing in one's own personal agenda.

And the one I am particularly fond of is from, uh, is Dale Wright's in the commentary on the Six Paramitas, and his is a life of disciplined energy and joyful ease, which is a f- long way away from just effort, I w- I'm thinking.

The Tay Show is selected and interpreted by Ilana, scribe for Daily Zen.

The title of this Teisho is The World of Intensive Practice, excerpted from Opening the Hand of Thought by Kosho Uchiyama.

Regardless of conditions...

What is essential in doing Zazen is just to sit, aiming at Zazen and waking up to Zazen.

When we live this way, not only Zazen, but daily life itself, is such that we cannot find the value of our existence in what other people say or in things that we want.

It is a life that is unbearable unless we discover the value of our existence within ourselves.

Kosho Uchiyama, 1912-1999 Reading this piece reminds me of listening to a piece of classical music.

Each moment transitions so skillfully into the next that we are barely aware that we have just entered a new room filled with new tempos and phrasing, all skillfully balanced around the theme of Zazen as the bedrock of our lives.

And so the way I try to actually practice that is to mostly pay attention to my aversions in my judgments and to try work on letting those go, you know, just as a step-by-step self-improvement program.

So, and then you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking of the book we read by Uchiyama Roshi, where he talks about discrimination.

And that we have to discriminate.

And I guess you could call that picking and choosing, but the way he's using it, I hear it as something a little bit different, but without preferences.

Um, we're using this book, "The Root of Goodness." It has four authors in it.

It basically has Shakyamuni Buddha, the first Buddha techni- so what, some-somewhat, and, uh, Dogen and Uchiyama Roshi's commentary and, uh, Thomas Wright's commentary.

And, and the intro is quite good, so I encourage you to look that over.

Um, let's see.

The story, um, [sighs] the story is wanting, wanting your love.

But looking at it more deeply is a fear of allowing myself to be vulnerable and the fear of non-acceptance, both powerful motivators that keep the story alive.

Uchiyama Roshi, in his commentary, said, "In the end, wanting to make progress or wanting to have some satori experience is just another desire." I, I also wanna make it clear that there's the other side to knowing one has enough, and that's like folks that are in war zones, living on the street, et cetera, that don't have enough.

There's always the other side.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who has become interested in Zen.

And we've been reading together Uchiyama Roshi's book, Opening the Hand of Thought.

And in that, Uchiyama Roshi talks about this story of... of squashes and i don't know that i'll remember the story particularly accurately but what it kind of amounts to is that the the squashes are all upset and angry and and then the the zen monk tells them to reach up and feel the vine that is connecting them.

And it leads the squashes to realize that they are one.

And this kind of gets back to what Rick was saying about the relative and the absolute.