Continuing with the commemoration of Suzuki Roshi's arrival in America 50 years ago, here is a video of Roshi teaching.
Roshi's teachings on the Sandokai
At Tassajara Zen Mountain Center during the summer of 1970, Suzuki Roshi delivered a series of twelve talks on the meaning of an 8th century Zen poem by Zen Master Sekito Kisen known as the Sandokai. This Youtube video is an excerpt from one of those talks. Students who were there say that Roshi took great delight in presenting these teachings. The talks are collected in Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai by Shunryu Suzuki. "The poem addresses the question of how the oneness of things and the multiplicity of things coexist—or, as Suzuki Roshi expresses this complex thought, 'things-as-it-is'." (From the book jacket of Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness; edited by Mel Weitsman and Michael Wenger)
Shunryu Suzuki Digital Archive
Roshi's Sandokai teachings are among the hundreds of recordings and transcripts available online at Shunryusuzuki.com To access this archive, you need to request a free password from the site. Thank you to whoever is responsible for amassing this treasury of dharma.
Sandokai
Harmonious Song of Difference and Sameness
The mind of the great sage of India
is intimately communicated from west to east.
While human faculties are sharp or dull,
The Way has no northern or southern ancestors.
The spiritual source shines clear in the light;
the branching streams flow on in the dark.
Grasping at things is surely delusion;
according with sameness is still not enlightenment.
All the objects of the senses
interact and yet do not.
Interacting brings involvement.
Otherwise, each keeps its place.
Sights vary in quality and form,
sounds differ as pleasing or harsh.
Refined and common speech come together in the dark,
clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light.
The four elements return to their natures
just as a child turns to its mother.
Fire heats, wind moves,
water wets, earth is solid.
Eye and sights, ear and sounds,
nose and smells, tongue and tastes;
Thus with each and every thing,
depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth.
Trunk and branches share the essence;
revered and common, each has its speech.
In the light there is darkness,
but don't take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light,
but don't see it as light.
Light and darkness oppose one another
like front and back foot in walking.
Each of the myriad things has its merit,
expressed according to function and place.
Phenomena exist; box and lid fit.
Principle responds; arrow points meet.
Hearing the words, understand the meaning;
don't set up standards of your own.
If you don't understand the Way right before you,
how will you know the path as you walk?
Progress is not a matter of far or near,
but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way.
I respectfully urge you who study the mystery,
do not pass your days and nights in vain.
