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CBT – Bon Odori, Euclid, Ohio
Newcomer: I am a newcomer.
Please give me guidance.
Zen Master: Did you eat breakfast?
Newcomer: Yes.
Zen Master: Did you wash the dishes you used?
With this, the newcomer was enlightened!
“I am a newcomer. Please give me guidance.” The newcomer’s spirit is important. Most people come to this temple to learn, to grow. But they are full up to the top of their heads. They come with their heads filled with ideas, knowledge, concepts and such things. They often have been crying a lot. Because of these preconceived ideas and their strong feelings, they hardly hear me. So make yourself empty. Then I will share my time and energy with you. I’ll assist you. Come here to these introductory meditation classes at least 10 times. Then leave and you can do some good in the world.
Something made you come here. You used your time, gas, energy, your car and you are here. That’s great! But do not waste the energy that brought you here. I have great respect for your efforts. I have great respect for your intellectual powers. I will listen to what you say. I feel a responsibility. I feel I have something to share. I have poor English, but I’m trying my best. When I feel you are not sincere, I think I might as well be at a Japanese restaurant enjoying myself! Don’t get mad and ruffle easily. If you leave mad, it will be hard for you to come back.
It takes enormous energy and time to make oneself like the newcomer in the story at the beginning of this talk. This spirit of the newcomer is saying “I am a newcomer. Give me guidance.” Because the newcomer in the story had the spirit, when Zen master said “did you wash the dishes?” The newcomer was enlightened right there!
You know someone has to do the dishes. What would happen if no one did the dishes? What does the story mean to you? Your answer is your truth at this moment. So it is. Don’t be embarrassed about your answer, your truth at this moment. We’re changing from moment to moment. We’re changing and becoming. Even if you say “I don’t know” during two different meditation classes, the second time the energy will be different.
Yes, someone has to do the dishes. This is a reality. We are so conditioned to see things from a rationalistic way of thinking, that we cannot see reality. This is a fact of life. In traditional Zen training, students are given three different bowls of three different sizes, one for soup, one for rice, and one for pickles. We are each a container with different capacities. Since this is so, why not be the best of yourself? Help yourself along. I ask you, “Did you eat breakfast? Did you wash the dishes?”
We are each different. Yet we each have the opportunity to become free from egoistic thinking. There is no separate so-called Buddhism. There is no separate so-called Christianity. There is no separate so-called Judaism. It doesn’t matter what you call yourself. When you walk in the rain, you get wet. When you walk in the snow, you get cold. This is true for all people whether they call themselves Buddhist, Christian, Jew or Muslim….
…At the temple we practice sitting Zazen, walking and chanting. The practice encourages you to be the best of yourself. It does not matter by which religion you label yourself. It is hard to be this way, but there are two phrases which you need to tell yourself over and over. One is Drop it! You need to say this with conviction, with your whole self. Drop your conceptualized ideas about what is right and wrong, good and bad. Then you can see things as they are. The second phrase you need to say is, go through and through and through. Keep marching on, marched on through your life. We are all on our way to becoming. We are all learning, growing and becoming.
Tonight when we sit, sit.
When we walk, walk.
When we chant, chant.
In this way, you’ll be able to see. We are all born in this world. We all have the potential to see reality. Whether you like it or not, good or bad or right or wrong, there is no doubt you are sitting in the chair right now.
Did you eat your breakfast?
Did you wash the dishes?
So you are enlightened.
Excerpt from a Zen Shin talk by Rev. Koshin Ogui given at the Cleveland Buddhist Temple in the last decade of the 20th century at Euclid Avenue location. Zen Shin Talks. Compiled and edited by Mary K. Gove. (Cleveland, Zen Shin Buddhist Publications, 1998)
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