Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘The main point of my lecture this afternoon is that the usual understanding of practice as the guide to enlightenment is limited in our world and is not the true practice handed down to us from Buddha. It is not just a teaching told by someone. Even before Buddha our teaching was true. lt is immortal and exists everywhere. So we call it original enlightenment or emptiness.

This comprehension of teaching is wider and deeper than the teaching which is for guiding practice. Of course that guidance is teaching, but the enlightenment that you think you will attain after practice, the meaning of that enlightenment you think you see coming from practice, is quite different from the true understanding of enlightenment and practice. This much must be intellectually understood if you are to practice Buddhism in its true sense.’ (from the Suzuki Roshi Archive)

This quote is actually from the Wind Bell version of this talk – the talk that was chosen to represent the first sesshin at the end of the first Practice Period at Tassajara. We have been discussing it in the Monday group. He praises the students for being open to hearing things such as they might never have heard before, and I imagine this section would have been a part of that.