Stop Showing Off

Excerpts from
To you
by Sawaki Kôdô Rôshi

Translated from Japanese by Jesse Haasch and Muhô

“We often wonder who here is really better? But aren’t we all made out of the same lump of clay?

Everyone should sit firmly anchored in the place where there is no better and worse.

Your whole life long you’re completely out of your mind because you think it’s obvious that there is a “you” and “the others”. You put on an act to stand out in a crowd, but in reality there’s neither “you” nor “the others”.
When you die, you’ll understand.

Buddha-dharma means seamlessness. What seam runs between you and me? Sooner or later we all end up acting as if a seam separates friend and foe. When we get too used to this, we believe that this seam really exists.

Poor and rich, important and unimportant – none of that exists. It’s only glitter on the waves. Still there are some who curse buddha because they’re stuck in unhappiness or because someone else is happier than they are.

Happiness and unhappiness, important and unimportant, love and hate – the whole world makes a big deal out of these things. The world where all of this doesn’t exist: that’s the world ofhishiryō .

In the West they say, “Man is the wolf of man.” The first step in religion must be that the wolves stop biting each other.

In the buddha-dharma it isn’t about winning or losing, love or hate.

Some want to show off with their “satori”. Yet it’s clear that something which you can use to show off has nothing to do with satori.”