And then you find that the water holds you up. And you have to know how to breathe in the right way. And to swim you relax, you let go, you give yourself to the water.

And the only thing to do under those circumstances is to learn how to swim. The only way to survive in the water-and this refers particularly to the waters of modern philosophical confusion where God is dead, metaphysical propositions are meaningless, and there’s really nothing to hang on to, because we’re all just falling apart. And when you’re thrown into the water after being accustomed to living on the dry land, and you’re not used to the idea of swimming, you try to stand on the water, you try to catch hold of it. It is fluid, it is transient, it is changing. And in water-you know, when you get into it, there’s nothing to hang on to.

Actually, the fish of reality is more like water: it always slips through the net. And it’s not a philosophy in our sense that is to say, a set of ideas, an intellectual net in which one tries to catch the fish of reality. There’s nothing you’re supposed to believe in. Now then, if one must try to say something about what Zen is-and I want to do this by way of introduction-I must make it emphatic that Zen, in its essence, is not a doctrine. So that any concepts, any ideas, any words that I shall put across to you this evening will have as their object showing you the limitations of words and of thinking. Because Zen is a way of life, a state of being, that is not possible to embrace in any concept whatsoever. Because if I allow you to leave here this evening under the impression that you understand something about Zen, you will have missed the point entirely. But I somehow have the feeling that, since you have contributed to the support of the Zen Center in expectation of learning something, a few words should be said-even though I warn you that, by explaining these things to you, I shall subject you to a very serious hoax.

And if I addressed you in the manner of the ancient teachers of Zen, I should hit the microphone with my fan and leave. It would be, of course, much better if this occasion were celebrated with no talk at all. “It is,” said the teacher, “but it’s a pity to say so.” “Isn’t that right?” he said to the teacher. The lines of the hills are the pure body of Buddha. The voices of torrents are from one great tongue, Once upon a time, there was a Zen student who quoted an old Buddhist poem to his teacher, which says:

Japanese zen quotes