"I see. This is it."

[Guest guest]

All-knowledge is what constitutes the essence of Buddhahood. It does not mean

that the Buddha knows every individual thing, but that he has grasped the

fundamental principle of existence and that he has penetrated deep down into the

centre of his own being.

 

D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966)

__________________

COMMENTARY

 

Daisetsu Suzuki can rightly be called the man who first brought Zen Buddhism

from Japan to the West. During his long life he spent a great deal of time

living, travelling and teaching in both the United States and Europe. A fluent

English speaker, he wrote many articles and books introducing Zen to the Western

mind.

 

Suzuki's own realisation of who he really was, his grasping of 'the fundamental

principle of existence' came when he was 26. He had been studying Zen for some

years but without much success. In 1896, however, he was selected by his

teacher, Soyen Shaku, to go to North America to help translate the Tao Te Ching.

The pressure of his imminent departure happened to be what was needed. He

realised that the Zen retreat scheduled for just before he was due to leave

Japan might be his last opportunity, in the immediate future at least, of

solving the koan he was working on. (A koan is a Zen riddle whose solution is

the simultaneous awakening to the secret of Zen - one's own true nature.) He

therefore threw all his energies into one final effort.

 

'Up until then he had been conscious of 'Mu' [the koan] in his mind. But to be

conscious of Mu is to be separate from it. Towards the end of that sesshin [Zen

retreat], on about the fifth day, he ceased to be conscious of Mu - "I was one

with Mu, identified with Mu, so that there was no longer the separateness

implied by being conscious of Mu."

 

'That was samadhi; but samadhi is not enough: "You must come out of that state,

be awakened from it, and that awakening is Prajna. [Wisdom.] That moment of

coming out of the samadhi and seeing it for what it is - that is satori." His

first words as he was awakened from that state of deep samadhi by the sound of a

small hand bell being struck were: "I see. This is it." '

 

[Extract from D.T. Suzuki. A Biography by A.Irwin Switzer. Published by The

Buddhist Society, London. 1985.)

 

 

Penetrating deep down into the centre of one's own being one finds a nameless

transparency, an awake space filled by all the world, from one's own thoughts

and

feelings and body to the stars in the heavens. This still, spacious no-thingness

is

the heart of everyone's being. Thus to find this no-thingness is to see that one

is

fundamentally united with all beings. At root there is only one - the One.

 

Awakening to the One is primarily a matter of actual seeing, of bare attention,

rather than intellectual understanding - vital as understanding is. As Suzuki

said,

"I see. This is it." This seeing is not yet another state of mind that comes and

goes. It is awake No-mind, the ground of being that underlies and is the source

of

all states of mind, including samadhi. The contents of mind come and go in

No-mind.

 

Seeing who you really are does not mean that you now know what everyone is

thinking,

or what is going to happen next year. You don't necessarily develop special

powers.

(They can be both confusing and a distraction.) Realisation is simpler and more

available than this. What is given in the present moment - given not to a

separate

person but arising within the edgeless space of awareness - is seen to be enough

for

that moment.

 

But one glimpse of one's true nature is not enough. We need to stabilise

awareness

(which means to continue attending to who we really are, whose nature is already

and

always stable). Awakening more deeply to our fundamental Steadyness, we realise

we

have never been rooted in any other place. Deepening this awareness involves all

our

energies, yet at the same time it is simply being natural. Growing into

adulthood we

became profoundly identified with our self-image. The discovery that this image

is

not our fundamental nature takes time to get used to. But this is a letting go

rather

than an accumulation of more information. We come to realise, again and again,

that

there is at root nothing to achieve, nowhere to go, nothing to be. As we keep

re-awakening to our Original Face as Zen puts it, to our no-face, our imageless,

still Centre - present in the very midst of our busy lives - we discover this is

a

natural and effective way of living. Though we discover there is nothing to do

at

centre, and no-one there to do it, we find plenty of activity issuing forth from

this

inactivity, this stillness, this absence.

 

Gradually, each in our own way we discover that living from the Source - which

often

feels like living from Not-knowing - has an uncanny wisdom about it. It can be

trusted. Suzuki's lay Buddhist name, "Daisetsu", means "Great Simplicity". In

later

years, however, Suzuki joked that it really meant "Great Stupidity". But this

isn't

only a joke. It is similar to the idea of the holy fool. It is what the English

philosopher Douglas Harding calls 'alert idiocy'. Grasping the fundamental

principle

of existence is recognising that deep down one knows nothing, yet paradoxically

this

no-thingness is the infinitely wise (and loving and dynamic) source of all

things.

 

Years ago I was in Berkeley, California, and whilst there briefly met a Korean

Zen

master whose teaching revolves around the idea of living from 'not-knowing'. My

friend introduced me by saying "This is Richard - he knows about not-knowing."

The

teacher replied: "Don't say you know about not-knowing. I don't know about

not-knowing!"

 

D.T. Suzuki lived to the ripe old age of 96. He was well-known for his

industriousness, right up to the end of his life. He was also known for his

deep-rooted warmth and optimism.

 

Suzuki's last words on his deathbed were: "Don't worry. Thank you. Thank you."

 

Richard Lang

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excerpt taken from:

http://www.netowne.com/eastern/buddhism/