August 31, 1967
Thursday, August 31st, 1967Dated 67-08-31, Thursday
Rev Suzuki
September 1, 1967
Los Altos, Calif.
Zen story or Zen koan is very difficult to understand before you understand what we are doing moment after moment. But if you know exactly what we are doing moment after moment it is not so difficult to understand. There are many and many koans. Recently I talked about a frog (several times). Whenever I talked about a frog they laughed and laughed. When you come and sit here you may think you are doing some special thing while your husband is sleeping you are here practicing zazen. And you are doing some special thing and your husband is lazy. That is…maybe your understanding of zazen. But look at the frog. A frog also sits like this but it has no idea of zazen. And if you watch what he does…if something annoys him he will do like this (making a face). If something to eat comes he will eat (imitating a frog snapping at an insect) and he eats sitting. Actually that is our zazen. We are not doing any special thing. We should think that we are doing some special thing.