Lecture 15:
When you take it for granted…
In the case when you start to create a reason about studying Tao which are given to you…. you can create any reason if you want it.
The typical pattern will be like this…, "because the teacher wanted to give for himself not for me". Thinking this way will be easier for yourself, also you do not need to feel that you got something and must not pay it back.
Or in the case when you are given something special, then you will create some special reason like " I was chosen!" You go to different way in this point…like staying a customer or becoming a pupil and take over the tradition.
In case you are staying as a customer, you will create reasons and then feel like taking it for granted. You think that it is natural because there are some reasons to be given. If it so, then it must be natural way of thinking, right?
Do you understand? Sorry I`m taking more time about this but this is a really important point. Do you all understand? I have to make this clear if there is anybody who doesn't understand.
Ki is getting heavier if you only receive
In subconsciousness, you have some feelings that you have to pay back for the grace you received. In subconsciousness. Deep in your mind.
So if you just keep receiving, then, unconsciously you start feeling bad about not paying back anything.
Receiving the teaching of Tao is totally different from what's taught in school education, that is selling knowledge and technique. It is very special as if you receive the life of the universe itself. To tell the truth, it is too deep to pay this grace back.
In fact, you know deep in your heart, in subconscious level that this is truly what you should appreciate.
But you also feel sin toward yourself in deep in your self if you receive it for granted in one way and not do any action of devotion.
Besides, when you try to suppress this feeling of sin instead of appreciation, on the contrary, you start looking for the seed of dissatisfaction against teachers and teachings. And you try to use it as the excuse for not devoting.
If it happens, ki becomes heavy.
What is included in the heaviness of ki
Heavy ki includes blame subconsciously.
This blame is toward the teacher, but in much deeper level, you are reflecting to the teacher the blame to yourself.
It is hard for me because I receive this heaviness directly.
Originally receiving teaching is receiving devotion by the teacher.
If you take this devotion by the teacher for granted, just receiving one way and not having gratitude or the devoted action to Tao, as a result, your ki will get heavy and you suffer from it.
So, to have some reasons, to take it for granted, no devotion, to become heavy, these are completely together. It is in the same stream. Then the more you receive, the more you have to pay it back. If not, you become heavier. This is the law.
OK? The more you receive, the more you were given, the heavier you become if you don't pay it back by devotion.
As I said before, if people who receive more from the nature that makes them alive but if they don't pay anything back to the nature, it will lose the balance and as a result they will suffer. It is the same reason. And also the same when the teacher treated you in special way. Even if not, if you study longer with the teacher, this means you have received more.
Because you received the devoted action and a lot of ki from the teacher for such a long time if you stay as a customer in learning for a long time, your ki become heavier and heavier, actually.
Then, you suffer when you feel heavy. You start looking for the seed of resistance or dissatisfaction. You will look for the reason of heaviness not in you but to the teacher or to the way. After for a while, you get confused and lose your way. Well, then, Tao Shiatsu leave from you, and finish the relation.
I guess they think they stop doing Toa Shiatsu by themselves, but in my opinion, Tao Shiatsu decided to fade away from them.
After finishing the relation with Tao Shiatsu, if Tao Shiatsu is great, you feel you left from something great. So in some parts of your heart you feel you failed and this gives you a hard time. In some cases, you start saying ill of Tao Shiatsu so that somehow you make a balance in yourself.
Or you may interpret in your way and cheat your heart one way or another. Well, many different cases happen.
Heavy ki is yellow signal
In the case that you receive so much but not carry the Way as a pupil and keep trying to be a customer, thinking to get as much as you can, ki gets heavier and you will have a hard time.
That is because it follows the process that I explained to you just now.
In fact, this wasn't clear before. But it is clear now, and I hope you won't go to the direction of being heavy, if you can. Well, when it happens, it's your business. (laugh)
But I think it is much better for you and the world if you go to the direction of carrying the Way. So it is a pity. Although you met the Way, you get heavier because you keep being as customer.
If you are still the customer and getting heavier, your ki is a yellow signal, so try to adjust your way to carry the Way, and have a larger viewpoint that the teaching for mankind is also for myself.
If you really think so, you will change and feel you want to do something for other people. This is, the second turning point.
Painfully want to give
If this happens, what we did last month the experience of a kind of pain, pain that everybody felt. Everybody felt it, didn't you?
This pain is not only just pain but becomes pain of wanting to give to people.
This is really the beginning of heart of Tao Shiatsu.
Your pain changes to the feeling of wanting to give, give painfully.
This heart will appear when you start realizing the heart of teacher how much they devoted for you.
You purely realize that the teacher only has the feeling of truly wanting to give.
So your heart follow to be the same and you really feel that you want to give painfully.
So, you start carrying the Way instead of the teacher.
This is how it happens. The heart to succeed the Way is born from this point.
To carry the Way is to be carried by the Way
I told about the heart of Buddha last Wednesday.
The heart of Buddha is "carrying all being as my luggage"
This means to carry all beings on your back as your weight.
Carrying means because all beings are Tao Shiatsu.
Carrying this on your back and accept it as your own weight.
It is the same. Carrying the Way and carrying all beings, and it is interesting, but carrying the Way on your back means, in fact, being carried by the Way. This is why heart will open Not talking about the weight, on the contrary, it becomes lighter. Ki becomes much lighter.
You can drop your luggage that you have been carrying all the way through from your past life. It is a great paradox.
If you say, " I carry", the image of you carrying the world sounds like tragedy. Is this the influence by Christianity? But it is not so.
On the contrary, in fact, because of this, you will be embraced by something great and you can breathe at ease at the first time. You will feel much lighter.
It is the relation between the world and you, and it is the relation between Tao Shiatsu and yourself. The relation between you and Tao Shiatsu is also the relation between you and God or Buddha.
Inherit the tradition
Anyway, here, appears the awareness as a pupil at the first time.
Well, Dogen said," the pupil becomes the real pupil when he becomes greater than the teacher." It is also paradox. Because carrying the Way inherits the tradition.
You can be more under when you go deeper.
I am saying about myself. In the relation between you and me, to tell the truth, I stay always in the lowest.
So, everybody, please try to be the same as me. We are the same human being, so you can also do the same.
Put yourself in the lowest and take the responsibility towards the Way.
In the relation between the world and you, put yourself in the lowest and carry the Way. Why don't you have the same heart?
To inherit the tradition is like this. It is not taking or being given the part. It is not the part but the whole, all of it. All dwells in you. That's why, all of this tradition appears as the treatment to others or other various ways.
When you inherit this tradition, you will take the responsibility to pass it to others.
I think that it is the returning to what you were given by the teaching. And it will spread to the world. I am doing in this way (paying the devotion back to the teacher).
And if it spreads concretely, it also happens in ki world at the same time.
So, please think carefully the meaning why you are learning Tao Shiatsu.