How Do I Learn That?

CASE

A student asked Dainin Katagiri, “Western teachers are very good, their lectures are excellent and they use very accessible examples of their own life, but many Eastern teachers, even those not such good ones, have a certain warmth or faith or something. That is what I want to learn from you. How do I learn that?”

Katagiri Roshi answered, “When people see me today, they don’t see the years I spent just being with my teacher.”

COMMENTARY

Sometimes the shared life of teacher and student is the teaching. Hanging out together, taking care of the details of one’s shared life creates an intimacy which is not easily acquired by reading texts or hearing talks. Its very ordinariness may make it outwardly invisible.

Roles of spouses, children, parents, teachers, etc. when successful create a connectedness beyond and through whatever role is being played. How the incense is passed and received illuminates all the sutras. This is both manifest and not so visible.

VERSE by Dairyu

The play of awareness
Needs no sides
For a time someone talks and someone listens
One carries the Kotsu, one the incense
When the tea is poured
Its warmth pervades the earth’s stomach.