Every time a thought arises, throw it away.  Just devote yourself to sweeping away thoughts.  Sweeping away thoughts means performing zazen.  When thought is put down, the original face appears.  The thoughts are like clouds; when the clouds have cleared, the moon appears.  That moon of eternal truth is the original face.

Buddhism is not about anything strange to us.  Its essence is simple; the perfect realization of man's "true face."  The great Hideyoshi once asked Kuroda Josui:  "What is the commonest thing in the world?"  He replied:  "A man."  Then he asked him:  What is the rarest thing in the world?"  He replied again:  "A man."  The old verse says:

          Many men, but not a man among them.
          O man, be a man!  O man, make yourself a man!

The teaching began with "all beings are from the very beginning Buddhas," and ends with "This very body is the Buddha."  After even thousands and millions of words, what after all is gained?  We have to answer that nothing is gained.  It is natural that in the end nothing should have been gained.  But if the reader has caught even a glimpse of Hakuin's true face, he will know the meaning of the poem of the Chinese poet Sotoba:

          Mount Ro and the misty raid, and the waves in the Setsu River--
          Before I had been there my thousand longings never ceased.
          Then I went, and came back.  Nothing special--Mount Ro and the
          misty rain, and the waves in the Setsu River!

The misty rain on Mount Ro and the waves of the Setsu River are famous.  Wishing to see them just once, after endless hopes and unbearable longing for many years, I made the journey and returned, and--nothing special.  The misty rain on Mount Ro and the river waves have not changed.  The misty rain and the waves do not change, and yet before seeing and after seeing, there is a great difference.  The time of longing and dreaming endlessly of them, and the time of "nothing special," when they have become part of me, are quite different.

What do we gain from seeing the true nature and attaining realization?  There cannot be anything gained.  As it is said: "The eyes at the sides and the hose straight in the middle, the flowers red and the willow green."  No special change or marvel has come about.  But the purpose of life is different.

The reader is already familiar with the concept of "original realization," but an example will illustrate this difficult point.  A nervous man, addicted to ghost stories, reads a well-written one late at night.  He gets the notion that the ghost he has been reading about is in the house.  He barricades the door; he trembles with fear and is in danger of a heart attack. 

In a way he knows it is all illusion, only something he has been reading about--this is his "original realization," which is never quite lost.  But in practice he accepts the ghost, and this affects him physically.  Every creak of the furniture and gust of wind reinforces his belief in the ghost.

From the point of view of original realization there is nothing which needs to be done, as the ghost has no existence; from the point of view of practical reality, to free himself from the fear which oppresses him, he must adopt a discipline of restraining his mind from thoughts based on acceptance of the ghost's existence, and return to his original realization. 

But if he should regard this regimen as a sort of spell to kill the ghost, he is again asserting its existence and obscuring original realization.  Even to say that the object of the practice is to free him from the ghost is not to the point; there never has been a ghost.  The practice of realization is its own end.  The furniture creaks and the wind blows, but the house is ever at peace.

When we sit in the cross-legged posture, we resume our fundamental activity of creation.  There are perhaps three kinds of creation.  The first is to be aware of ourselves after we finish zazen.  When we sit we are nothing, we do not even realize what we are; we just sit.  But when we stand up, we are there!  That is the first step in creation.  When you are there, everything else is there; everything is created all at once.

When we merge from nothing, when everything emerges from nothing, we see it all as a fresh new creation.  The second kind of creation is when you act, or produce or prepare something like food or tea.  The third kind is to create something within yourself, such as education, or culture, or art, or some system for our society.  So there are three kind of creation.  But if you forget the first, the most important one, the other two will be like children who have lost their parents; their creation will mean nothing.

Usually everyone forgets about zazen.  Everyone forgets about God.  They work very hard at the second and third kinds of creation, but God does not help the activity.  How is it possible for Him to help when He does not realize who He is?  That is why we have so many problems in this world.  When we forget the fundamental source of our creating, we are like children who do not know what to do when they lose their parents.

Bodhisattva has only one way.  His way is in each moment express his nature and his sincerity. We say railway track, but actually there is no such thing.  Sincerity itself is the railway track.  The sights we see from the train will change, but we are always running on the same track.

The Quality of Being. When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself.  When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.

The big mind in which we must have confidence is not something which you can experience objectively. It is something which is always with you, always on your side.  Your eyes are on your side, for you cannot see your eyes, and your eyes cannot see themselves.  Eyes only see things outside, objective things.  If you reflect on yourself, that self is not your true self any more.  You cannot project yourself as some objective thing to think about.  The mind is always on your side.

The mind is whatever your see.  Your true mind is always with whatever you see.  Although you do not know your own mind, it is there--at the moment you see something, it is there.  This is very interesting.  Your mind is always with the things you observe.  So you see, this mind is at the same time everything.

Moment after moment to watch your breathing, to watch your posture, is true nature.  There is no secret beyond this point.  We are pointing out mind which is always on this side, which is true mind.  Enlightenment experience is to figure out, to understand, to realize this mind which is always with us and which we cannot see.

The essence of heaven and earth is the same as the essence of self. Seeking a Buddha outside, rushing to get away from this world and find some ideal world somewhere else--it is like being in the water but forgetting the fact and moving about looking for water.  Being in the Buddha, surrounded by the Buddha, yet raising our voice and calling out for the Buddha! The living path to Buddhahood and liberation is to take the stand ever on the self, always and everywhere to be the lord and master, to concentrate on where one stands and bring to life what is before one.