Desire and Freedom

*** WARNING beautiful teaching / sexual abuse allegations WARNING ***

“A man thinks, "What a beautiful woman she is." A woman thinks, "What a strong man he is, just like King Kong." If you know that the beautiful lady is yourself, that King Kong is yourself, then you have no need to desire anything more. When you don’t completely realize that King Kong is yourself, then you have the desire to melt into his big hairy chest. (Laughter)
Sa! This is te ish o.

Having desire means that you like or dislike the objective world. You long for the world because it has everything that you don't. Every man likes every woman, whether she is beautiful or ugly, because woman has something that man does not. The same is true of woman, for man has something that she does not, so women like men.

Shakyamuni said that human consciousness doesn't work perfectly; that is why humans hate or long for the objective world. If human beings do not train themselves to manifest as perfection itself, they cannot be free. As I told you, however, absolute being doesn't belong to the objective world. The absolute world embraces subject and object together. The human being, believing he belongs to the subjective side and standing in the small mind, observes absolute being as object. Actually, that absolute being cannot be an object. Shakyamuni said that absolute and to throw has no color, no form, no voice and exists as nothingness or emptiness. Absolute being works as complete, perfect emptiness embraces subject and object. If you want to see God or Buddha, you must manifest yourself as emptiness. At the moment you manifest your imperfect consciousness as nothingness, your imperfect consciousness becomes perfect and illuminated.

The first step of Zen practice, therefore, is manifest yourself as nothingness. The second step is to throw yourself completely into life and death, good and evil, beauty and ugliness. Shakyamuni said that if you want to be free, you must not prefer only good or dislike evil. Well, now, what about you? You are educated all your life to venerate God and reject evil. Zen education is totally different: it teaches you how to swallow God and the devil all at once. You are able to give yourself completely and make your home in a beautiful woman or in lice or in a man with a twisted nose. That is Zen practice.

Mumon gives Joshu Osho as an example of someone who can live inside of a snake, louse or ant and who can swallow God and the devil at once. If you understand that Joshu Osho is free, that he can dwell in life and death, in God and the devil and swallow thelTI both, then you can understand this teisho perfectly. Now my teisho begins.

Joshu Osho was a Zen master of the Tang dynasty, about 1100 years ago. Once Joshu Osho and a Zen monk were talking. A Zen monk is different from a Catholic monk. A Catholic monk devotes his entire life to God. Once you become a Catholic monk, you have to stay in the monastery and follow its rules all your life. A Catholic monastery creates a different, separate world. Zen students do not have much to do with that isolated world. In a Zen monastery you practice self-realization for a few years and then go back to the world and, after a while, come back again to the monastery.

So Joshu Osho and a Zen monk were talking about bussho (Buddha nature). Shakyamuni said that all sentient beings have Buddha nature. While Joshu Osho and the monk were talking, a puppy dog trotted up. The Zen monk picked up the puppy and asked Joshu Osho, "Does this puppy have Buddha nature as Shakyamuni said? Is he manifesting Buddha nature now?" Of course, any cat or dog manifests Buddha nature, Shakyamuni said it. But Joshu said, "NO!" Of course "NO." Everything manifests Buddha nature. Everything is illuminating as emptiness or nothingness.

If you think you are beautiful or rich or special, then, poor thing, you cannot illuminate as emptiness. There isn't a more pitiable thing than a rich man or a beautiful woman. In Japan there is a proverb that a beautiful woman has an unhappy life. She is unhappy because she cannot manifest her true nature.

So Joshu Osho stared at the monk and said, "NO!" This dog is manifesting as nothingness, as "NO!" Do you understand? I do not think the monk understood, just like you, because you are still looking for God and enlightenment as objects. God and enlightenment don't belong to the objective world.

Enlightenment is shining on your fingertips and on the end of your nose. Please walk carefully and don't fall down on this mountain.”

~ Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Buddha is the Center of Gravity
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki (1907 –2014) was a Japanese Rinzai Zen teacher who lived in Los Angeles.

As early as 1997, it was put forth by members of his Mt. Baldy Zen Center that Sasaki Roshi was engaging in sexual misconduct with his female students. Sasaki was 90 years old at that point.

Leonard Cohen talked about Joshu Roshi as his guru:

“The quality of relationship that is possible with Roshi is very instructive. You know, he’s both the friend and the enemy. He’s just what he is. And of course he’s going to be an enemy to your self-indulgence, an enemy to your laziness, and a friend to your effort. He’s going to be cutting, he’s going to be charming, he’s going to be lovable, he’s going to be deceptive. He’s going to be all the things that he has to be to turn you away from depending on him. And finally you just say: This guy is absolutely true. He really loves me so much, that I don’t need to depend on him. His love is a liberating kind of love. His company is a liberating kind of company. So he’s only interested in you making an effort to be yourself. So that’s a very very helpful kind of friend, and that’s the kind of friend we should try to be to each other.”