December 30, 1965
Thursday, December 30th, 1965December 30, 1965
Rev. S. Suzuki
I found out that it is necessary…absolutely necessary to believe in nothing. We have to believe in something which has no form or no color…something which exists before every form and colors appear. This is very important point. Whatever we believe in…whatever god we believe in….when we become attached to it, it means our belief is based on, more or less, self-centered idea. If so, it is….it takes time to acquire….to attain perfect belief or perfect faith in it. But if you always prepared for accepting which we see.…is appear from nothing, and we think there is some reason why some form or color or phenomenal existence appear, then, at that moment we have perfect composure. When I have headache, there is some reason why I have headache. If I know why I have headache I feel better, but if you don’t know why, you may say, “Oh, it’s terrible I have always headache– maybe because of bad practice. If I…if my meditation or zen practice is better, I wouldn’t have this kind of trouble.” If you accept things….understand things like this. It takes time. You will not have perfect faith in yourself, or in your practice until you attain perfection (and there’s no…I’m afraid you have no time to have perfect practice) so you have to have headache all the time. This is rather silly practice. This kind of practice will not work. But if you believe in something which various….which exist before we have headache and if we know just reason why we have headache, then we feel better, naturally. To have headache is all right because I am healthy…healthy enough to have headache. If you have stomach ache your tummy is healthy enough to have pain, but if your tummy get accustomed to the poor condition of your tummy, you will have no pain. That’s awful. You are coming to the end of your life from your tummy trouble.