Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains by Tenshin Reb Anderson

Author:Tenshin Reb Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2010-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

Master Daokai said, “Green mountains are forever walking. A stone woman bears a child by night.”

If one knows one’s own walking, one knows the walking of the green mountains. There should be an examination of both stepping back and stepping forward.

—Eihei Dogen, Mountains and Rivers Sutra

I’VE BEEN TOLD—but I don’t know for sure—that you’re like me. If I could speak for you, I would say that you have a deep longing for oneness, a deep urge to return to your original face before your parents were born.

The sutra just quoted talks about “the mountains and rivers of the immediate present.” How can you return to the immediate present? These mountains of the immediate present are the self before the emergence of subtle signs. Your existence in the immediate present is the self before the emergence of signs.

When we try to chant “The Merging of Difference and Oneness” during morning service, sometimes there are great differences in the pitch of our voices. When we feel the painful difference, we yearn for oneness. Some of us, in trying to make the oneness happen, just make more difference. It’s so discouraging to try to make difference turn into oneness: you can’t do it. Difference is difference and oneness is oneness. But in the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, difference and oneness are merged.

Anything we dream of is something we want to be reunited with. Everything we see, we hear, and we touch is what we want to be reunited with. Everything we experience we are separated from. Turning around, stepping back: this is practice. Once we step back, we naturally step forward. But before we step back, we don’t know what to do. We’re not settled, we’re not satisfied. When we step back from the world, we step back from where we are, and if we have any reservations at all about where we are, we cannot step back. When you and I are willing to be right here, right now, wholeheartedly, we can step back. We can turn around.

I’m expressing an aching heart. My heart is like water trying to return to the ocean. If I can simply accept this, it’s enough. “What does this pain ask of me?” “What does this person ask of me?” “What does this bird ask of me?” An answer may come. The answer may be, “Turn it around.” Or “Let go.” Or “Come home.” Or “Scratch my back.” You may get an answer; that’s okay. But don’t stop questioning. “What does this ask of me?” is simply a way to talk about unambivalent presence. It’s a construction to help you let go of constructions. But it is not really a way back: you’re already there.

You may think I’m explaining something to you, but I’m just expressing myself. Hearts are meant to bleed: that’s what they’re built for.

There are about eighty people in this sesshin, and we are all packed into one room, so, unfortunately, some of the seats are not so good. Some of the people who got bad seats were moved to other bad seats.

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