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out." Relaxed, listening to the dance of the rain on the roof -- this is a right way of expressing the inexpressible. He is expressing utter relaxation, no concern even about nirvana, so silent....
He is saying, "I sit at ease, both legs stretched out" as if time has ceased, nothing matters. This is the space in which you can say you have come home.
Dogen wrote:
THE WORLD?
MOONLIT DROPS
SHAKEN FROM THE CRANE'S BILL.
Just a watcher, sitting silently, watching the world....
"Moonlit drops shaken from the crane's bill" -- nothing to do, nowhere to go, just silently... to watch the whole drama.
Question 1
Anando has asked:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT IS IT TO BE ORIGINAL? IS THE AWAKENED MAN, THE MAN OF ZEN, THE ONLY TRULY ORIGINAL MAN?
Anando, to be original simply means just as you were born -- fresh, uncluttered by any garbage, theology, religion, politics, etiquette, manners. As you grow up, around you much garbage grows. The society helps to grow it; the whole educational system exists to support it. By the time you are still young, you have already lost your original home. You know so much, but you don't know anything in fact. You pretend so much, you may even believe in your pretensions, but that does not make them true. The whole society up to now has been creating hypocrites.
The original man is just the polar opposite of the hypocrite. He is simply natural, unpredictable. The hypocrite is predictable. You know what he is going to do -- his reactions, his responses. You know his future, because he is a false entity not a living plant. You cannot predict in what directions the branches will go, on which branches the flowers will come. Everything is unpredictable, but with a plastic plant everything is known and predictable. Society wants you to be predictable, because its whole business depends on predictability.
The day I entered America, the first question the immigration department asked me was: "Are you an anarchist?" I had been told beforehand that anarchists are not allowed in America.
I told the man, "I am something more."
He said, "My God, for
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