Homeless Kodo

"People call me Homeless Kodo, but I don’t think they particularly intend to disparage me. They say “homeless” probably because I never had a temple or owned a house. Anyway, all human beings without exception are in reality homeless. It’s a mistake to think we have a solid home...

A religion that has nothing to do with our fundamental attitude toward our lives is nonsense. Buddhadharma is a religion that teaches us how to return to a true way of life. “Subduing non-Buddhists,” or converting people, means helping them transform their lives from a half-baked, incomplete way to a genuine way…

Most people don’t act based on penetrating insights into their lives. They do things in a makeshift way, like putting a bandaid on their shoulder when they have soreness. To be born human is rare, and we should be grateful and use our lives meaningfully. It’s absurd to get depressed because you don’t have money. It’s rubbish to become neurotic simply because you’re not sitting in a VIP seat. It’s foolish to cry merely because you were rejected by your girlfriend. Rather, having been born human, we should live a life worth living…

Some students cheat in preparatory schools so they can get into college. But such students will also need to cheat to pass their university entrance exams. The degree of their stupidity is twisted and perverse; it’s ridiculously blind. However, our entire world today is engaged in the same kind of stupidity…

Because of developments in transportation, we feel planet Earth is getting smaller and smaller. But where are we going in our speedy cars? We play pinball; we gamble. We move so fast simply to do wasteful things. “I sat up all night playing mah-jong.” Some people take vitamins so they can overdo, almost tearfully, with red eyes…

When you steal other people’s belongings, you become a thief. This is very simple and clear. But people today think one becomes a criminal only after being arrested by a policeman, investigated by a prosecutor, sentenced by a judge, and confined in a prison. Therefore, corrupt politicians think they are men of virtue and skill if they can cover up their deeds and escape getting caught. They are heavily influenced by “group stupidity.” Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan were nothing other than great thieves. Hitler and Mussolini were greater robbers than the legendary thieves Ishikawa Goemon and Tenichibo. Although these dictators operated on a much larger scale, they were not fundamentally different from Kunisada Chuji, who said, “Let’s go as far as we can, no matter what.” And yet the henchmen of thieves think their bosses are respected. We’re always falling into ruts. Politicians and their followers, many schoolteachers, and opinion leaders work hard to manipulate people into biased, habitual ways of thinking. The ways we’re distorted are subtle, deliberate, and complicated. When we’re liberated from this distortion, we will find the true wisdom of Buddhism.

It is regrettable that some people spend their time sewing garments for dead children, or making funeral masks or building tombs as second homes, when life quivers before us! By seizing the sword of wisdom with its prajna point and diamond flame, we seize life afresh, authentic life, life at face value, here and now…

The asshole doesn’t need to be ashamed of being the asshole. The feet don’t have any reason to go on strike just because they’re only feet. The head isn’t the most important of all, and the navel doesn’t need to imagine he’s the father of all things. It’s strange though that people look at the prime minister as an especially important person. The nose can’t replace the eyes, and the mouth can’t replace the ears. Everything has its own identity, which is unsurpassable in the whole universe…

Most think that a religion is belonging to a group that shares a system of beliefs. In reality each individual has their own religion. Religion is the peace of mind felt when you are truly yourself. It structures your daily life, but it can’t be explained or shown to anyone. I think religion is this stability hidden deep in one’s self. Different for everyone, it’s what allows someone to keep to the way without anyone else’s help. It is obvious that if religion is our own essence, the disputes between different branches of Zen seem totally insignificant. Likewise, it is useless to try to imitate Shakyamuni or any other master. At other times there were other ways. What is essential is for everyone to seize their own peace of mind, here and now...

You can't exchange farts with anyone, right? Everyone has to live his own self. Who is good looking? Who is smart? You or I? There is no need to compare yourself with others...

Beauty is no guarantee for happiness. One beauty has been so popular with the guys that she's already had three kids who do not know who their fathers are. You're in love with each other? Maybe not for your whole life. Some have loved each other so much that they tried to commit suicide together to be united in death. But one of the two survived, and fell in love with someone else shortly afterwards... Human beings truly pitiful...

Because modern religious groups develop on a large scale, many people eventually think that these institutions represent true religion. A large number of believers does not make a religion true. If large numbers are good, the number of ordinary people in the world is immense. People often try to do things by forming groups and outnumbering the opposition. But they make themselves stupid in this way. Forming a party is a good example of group paralysis. To stop being in group paralysis and to become the self which is only the self, is the practice of zazen...

With the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), we enlarged Japanese territory and annexed Korea. We believed that it really happened. But when we lost World War Two, we lost everything and tuely understood that we had only incurred the enimity of other countries. People often ask about loyalty, but I wonder if they know the direction of their loyalty and their actions. I myself was a soilder during the Russo-Japanese War and fought hard on the battlefield. But since we had lost what we had gained, I can see that what we did was useless. There is absolutely no need to wage war...

After all their efforts, racking their brains as intensely as possible, people today have comeback to a deadlock. Human beings are idiots. We set ourselves up as wise men and subsequently do foolish things. In spite of scientific advancement, human beings haven't come to greatness. Since the dawn of history, human beings have constantly fought with each other. No matter how big or small a war is, the root cause is our minds, which have a tendency to make us growl at each other.

You should not forget that modern scientific culture has developed on the level of our lowest consciousness. "Civilization" is always the talk of the world. But civilization and culture are nothing but the collective elaboration of illusory desires. No matter how many wrinkles of illusory desire you have on your brain, from the point of view of Buddhism, they will never bring about meaningful advancement for human beings. "Advancement" is the talk of the world, but what direction are we going in?

Take a look sometime at the face of a dog who's just had sex. He just stares into space with strangely empty eyes. It's exactly the same with people – in the beginning they work themselves up into a frenzy, and in the end there's nothing at all. A man who understands nothing marries a woman who understands nothing, and everyone says, “Congratulations!” Now that's something I cannot understand.

In a part of Manchuria, the carts are pulled by huge dogs. The driver hangs a piece of meat in front of the dog's nose, and the dog runs like crazy to try to get at it. But of course he can't. He's only thrown his meat after the cart has finally reached its destination. Then in a single gulp, he swallows it down. It's exactly the same with people and their pay checks. Until the end of the month they run after the salary hanging in front of their noses. Once the salary is paid, they gulp it down, and they're already off: running after the next payday...

Because they are bored, in order to kill time, people are always agonizing , falling in love, drinking wine, reading novels, or watching sports; they are always doing things randomly and living from hand to mouth. For them this world is ukiyo (floating or transitory world). It is the place were people are always wobbling, window shopping, and going by detours. Everywhere in this world, people feel bored, so they go to war brandishing deadly weapons as if they were children's toys, saying, "Right Wing" or "Left Wing." They do so because they think there must be something to it. But there isn't. Only the grave waits for us.

Human beings boast that Man is the lord of creation, but in fact human beings don't even know how to take care of themselves and watch sports or pursue other vapid forms of entertainment to avoid facing themselves and then justify it all by saying that they are just like everyone else. When children nag about something, their parents scold them and tell them they are being unreasonable. These parents are also being unreasonable. This is Mumyo, ignorance of the true nature of existence, one of the twelve links in the chain of dependent origination...

During World War Two, I visited a colliery and went into a coal mine in Kyushu. Like the colliers, I put on a hat with a lamp and went down in an elevator. For some time, I thought the elevator went down steadily. Then I started to feel as if it were going up. I shined my light in the coal shaft and realized, "Oh! It's still going down." When the elevator starts going down, you actually feel that it's going down, but once the speed becomes fixed, it's possible to feel as if it were going up. That's the other side of the balance. In the ups and downs of life we are deceived by the difference in balance.

Saying, "I've got Satori!" is only feeling the difference in the balance. Saying, "I'm deluded!" is only feeling another difference in the balance. To say it's delicious or it tastes terrible, to be rich, to be poor, all are just feeling about the differences in the balance. In most cases, common sense only shows a difference in the balance. A human being puts his "I" into everything without knowing it. "Oh, that was good!" he sometimes says. What is good? It's just good for him, that's all. The reason that we human beings are often exhausted is that we do things with personal profit in mind...

Imagine thinking of your life after your death. You see it didn't matter."

~ Kodo Sawaki (1880-1965), known as “Homeless Kodo” due to his constant ramblings throughout Japan, was a Soto Zen priest and the teacher of the late Kosho Uchiyama Roshi and Gudo Nishijima Roshi. Sawaki Roshi was orphaned at a young age and adopted by his uncle. Following his uncle’s death, young Kodo was raised by Bunkichi Sawaki, a professional gambler. At 16, Kodo entered Eiheiji (the Soto Zen head temple founded in 1244 by Dogen) where he received ordination as a priest by Koho Sawada the abbot of Soshinji. Afterward, he was drafted in the Army and spent close to six years in China as an infantryman during the Russo-Japanese War.

He then moved from temple and hermitage to temple and hermitage until settling for a time at Antaiji Temple. As abbot of Antaiji Temple in 1949, Kodo Sawaki Roshi brought the practice of zazen (meditation) back into the forefront of daily temple routine, rather than the intellectual study of sutras and commentaries.  While the administrative work of the temple fell upon his student Uchiyama Roshi; Kodo Sawaki Roshi roamed around the country of Japan bringing extensive zazen practice sesshins to those who wished to practice in what he termed the “Moving Monastery”.