Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘What I want to talk about now is how to orient your mind in practice. For the beginner it is inevitable that there will be hard discipline, the observation of some rules. The observation of rigid rules is not our point. But if you want to acquire vital freedom, it is necessary to have some strength, or to have some discipline, in order to be free from one-sided dualistic ideas. So our training begins in the realm of duality or rules: what we should or should not do. These kinds of rules are necessary because before you start practice or realize the necessity of religious life, before you adore something holy; you are bound in the realm of necessity, you are controlled completely by your surroundings. When you see something beautiful you will stay there as much as possible. When you are tired of it you will go to another place. You may think that is freedom, but it is not freedom. You are enslaved by your surroundings, that is all! Not at all free. That kind of life is just material and superficial.

Because we have some idea of freedom, because of our true nature which wants to be free from our surroundings; we start to study something and we choose between good and bad, right and wrong. This will be a new kind of life called life seeking for freedom, which is not realized in a true sense. Some people may think: if we were like cats and dogs there would be real freedom. But this kind of desire will not satisfy our true nature or inmost desire. After striving and seeking freedom you will realize you cannot attain freedom by searching for it.’ (from the Suzuki Roshi Archive)