Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘When a person takes on the Okesa, and begins practice wearing the Robe, we refer to that person as an Unsui, a wandering cloud. One not-knowing, moving about in the Dharma. Simply moving across the sky in the simplicity of what the sky is. Simply open and there, all of us. And we receive the sky in all its conditions. It is open and it is the same for all of us. Not discriminating. The sky is equal to all of us. Has different expressions in different parts of the world and it moves openly and is even for all of us. Place yourself within the same freedom of that as the sky. Not asking about itself, not observing itself, simply being.

We don’t call the sky good or not good. It is simply the sky. So, one who wears the Okesa becomes a wandering cloud, moving in this freedom of the Dharma, opening up and learning the freedom within the Okesa, While at the same time, if we observe the Okesa from the outside, looking at the Okesa we see all of the forms of practice and it looks quite tight, and then at the same time it’s an extraordinary freedom – that we cannot entirely comprehend. Ryokan-san calls it a life that is most complete and free. In moving about as a cloud, we learn to release ourselves from the boundaries and the blaming of perception and the notions of closed mindedness that hinder us from true experience of freedom.’ (Talk at Olympia Zen Center)