Clear Crystal

Good evening!

On the way here I heard that the temperature was 80 degrees. It must, then, have gone higher in the daytime. We have a very warm, fine day with moistened air. The moon is going to be beautiful, bright, and almost full. We are also going to have our sesshin celebrating the spring equinox, ohigan (yonder shore), which means nirvana.

We have pure, pretty daffodils on the altar. The gorgeous amaryllis with many flowers has fallen down, but it is still showing beautiful, peaceful, and truthful forms. When we sit down, we become like flowers, trees, no crying and craving, just accepting things as they are.

That is what Ryokan said: “When it’s time to face disaster, it’s best to face it. When it’s time to die, it’s best to die.” It’s the same, perhaps, in meeting death. Sooner or later, flowers fall and become one with the earth. When we sit in zazen, we become completely one with the universe. The world becomes like a ball of clear crystal.

Everyone sits in the clear crystal world and becomes clear crystal in truth, peace, and beauty. We usually seek things outside, in other places and times. However, when we sit in zazen, we are right here and now in truth, peace, harmony, and happiness.

It is said, “One moment of a spring evening is worth a thousand pieces of gold.” When we sit in this precious moment here, we enjoy limitless life, light, liberation, and love, illuming and illuminating truth, goodness, and beauty in holiness.

Note: Quoted from the Great Fool: Zen Master Ryokan. Translated with essays by Ryuichi Abe and Peter Haskel (Honolulu:University of Hawai`i Press, 1996), p. 230.

“Eighth day of the twelfth month

To Yamada Toko in Yoita
The earthquake was truly terrible. Thankfully, my hut was spared and no one in my family was killed.

If I die without warning…
But spared, I go on living
Sorrowful witness
To untold misery

Yet, when it’s time to face disaster, it’s best to face it. When it’s time to die, it’s best to die. This itself is the wonderful method for averting disaster.

Respectfully,
Ryokan

Note: A severe earthquake struck Ryokan’s area of Echigo on the twelfth day of the eleventh month of 1828. Some fourteen hundred people were killed and nearly eleven thousand homes destroyed. Ryokan’s letter is dated the eighth day of the twelfth month, only several weeks after the quake”

3/17/11