Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘When you practice our way, there is teaching – teaching comes out from practice. And that teaching will accord with the teaching which was told by Buddha. That is how we get our transmission. Transmission is not something which is handed down from Buddha like some treasure. It is something which you will — which you have, which you will actualize, which you will realize. And which will be proved by Buddha. That is transmission. So in one way, it is something which was transmitted from Buddha. On the other hand, it is something which is acquired by yourself, in its true sense. This is our teaching, and this is how we get transmission, and how you transmit our way.

Human being is human being because we know how to communicate and how to hand down our culture or civilisation by calculating, by indicating in various ways. So, cultural heritage can be transmitted from ancestor to descendant. But that is not perfect. The true way of — to receive the heritage of our ancestors is just only by this kind of practice. Only through this kind of practice, without any restriction, you will live in your trans — tradition.

Nowadays the young generation does not lead the framework of old tradition. This is because the way of handing down our true culture is not right. In our practice, in our way of receiving transmission, it is no restriction, because it is something — it will be something which our patriarchs and Buddhas experience already, and taught in various ways already. Actually, whatever you experience, whatever experience you have, almost all the experiences you have, will be already told by some of our patriarchs. They are waiting for you to experience something always [laughter].’ (from the Suzuki Roshi Archive)

The Monday study group has been working through the talks from the first sesshin at Tassajara, a set of talks that I was particularly interested in when we released the updated Suzuki Roshi archive (you can see my notes on the talk if you click the link at the end of the quote). There are many aspects to this particular talk, as I touched on in that essay, and members of the group highlighted several of them as being striking for them. I wonder how that original group of Tassajara students found it…