English.pd

To say it clearly and exactly, Kassan means, “there is no you, and there is no I.”
There is no you, there is no I, there is no mountain, no stars, no sun, there is no universe
at all. This is what Kassan is saying.
But what is important here to note is that Kassan is not speaking on this level of
“Everything is empty” – which is often employed in Zen. The “really” I was talking
about is precisely this. The “real“ meaning of “absolutely nothing” is that the whole
world of phenomena that extends in front of my eyes is at the same time this fact of
“absolutely nothing.” I am now writing this sentence facing my computer. The
computer in front of my eyes as such is “the reality of nothing at all.” Don’t take this
lightly as something which many people, imitating Yamada Koun Roshi and using his
words, say, “The computer in front of me is completely empty.” I am not talking about
that level of language.
The Dharma combat that ensues between Rakuho and Kassan is something that
I see as Kassan’s own attempt to transmit to Rakuho what I am saying here.
Rakuho shouted, “Kaatzu!” Kassan said, “Stop it, stop it.
Don't be so careless and hasty. Clouds and the moon are the same;
valleys and mountains are different from each other. Rakuho used the
famous “Kaatzu,” which he had directly received from Rinzai. But this trademark
“Kaatzu” is lightly brushed away by Kassan. “Stop it, stop it.” Why do you scream like
that? It’s only a big racket. Perhaps you may be seeing “the clouds and the moon are
the same”, but you do not see “valleys and mountains are different from each other” at all.
Wrong, wrong!
To only see “the clouds and the moon are the same” means that you only see
“there are no clouds, and there is no moon.” You don’t see what I said before, namely
that the clouds and the moon really don’t exist. The clouds and the moon really don’t
exist as such is the world of “clouds and the moon are the same, valleys and mountains
are different from each other.” As I said before, the world of phenomena itself is “the
clouds and the moon are the same.”
It is not difficult to cut off the tongues of the people under
heaven. But how can you make a tongueless person speak?” Kassan
is only saying what I have been saying here, in a different way. To cut off the tongue of
people under heaven is to see the world “without tongue.” It is to realize the world of
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