Ice, Water

For Kyoshin, an excerpt on the subject of ice and water.

What does it mean to say that illusion and satori are the same?

What I always say is that satori becomes illusion,
and illusion becomes satori.
During zazen, illusions arise, go by, evaporate.

Westerners always make a distinction between illusion and satori.
They are always creating categories:
good on one side, bad on the other.
It's not so simple. Good can become bad and vice versa.

What is easy does not lead to happiness.

Losing one's illusions can lead to a great satori.
One of the sutras says that illusions become the water of satori;
the relationship is like that between ice and water.
Illusion becomes satori.
As it melts, a big piece of ice produces a lot of water,
and all the illusions melting away produce satori.

But it would be a mistake to believe that because one has
a lot of illusions one is going to have a lot of satori,
or any satori at all!

This is taken from "Questions to a Zen Master", a book of quotations from Taisen Deshimaru-roshi, who is to European (Soto) Zen what Suzuki-roshi is to American Zen. It a book absent the scholarly musings of other some authors, for example, D.T. Suzuki, and is all the better for it.

Deshimaru-roshi is a rebellious Zen spirit, whom I suspect when asked the question, "This must not be called a pitcher of water. What would you call it?", would kick the pitcher over.

It took me some time to come around to being ready for this book, for all its naturalness, directness, and simplicity.