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Teisho 7: Not Someone Else
Saturday, November 17, 2001
from the series “Turning the Wheel of the Way"
Commentaries of Dogen's "Gyoji: Continuous Practice"
Presented by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi
© Copyright 2001 White Wind Zen Community
What kind of person can Awaken to the Way? One of our Awakened
Ancestors, Yunju Daoying said, “If you want to realize this thing of Suchness, you
must be a person of Suchness.” Suchness, tathata or immo, is a way of trying to
speak of reality as it really is, reality on its own terms, what is true as such beyond
beliefs and ideas and perspectives. Suchness is what is Awakened to by the
Awakened Ones. Suchness is what really is and when we realize who we truly are,
then we are people of Suchness. But in order to realize this, we have to be a person
of Suchness, don’t we? Isn’t that what Yunju said? Does that mean that in order to
be a person of Suchness we already have to be a person of Suchness?  Yes. And we
are all already people of Suchness. Suchness is what and who we already are. To
realize this, we have to be who we are. 
When we wake up to who we truly are, we do not become someone else. We
are no longer who we were because we realize that the person of Suchness is not a
self. We realize that who we are is everyone and that everyone is who we are. But
we do not become someone else. We do not suddenly lose weight or gain height. If
we wear glasses, throwing them away would just leave us with blurred vision. We do
not suddenly have perfect pitch or the ability to read music. And we do not lose the
ability to read music either. We do not lose the capacities to think and feel. We do
not lose the capacity to choose tea over coffee or coffee over tea. We do not lose the
colour of our eyes, the length of our arms, the skin, meat, bone, and marrow of the
bodymind. We do not lose the inevitability of illness and death. 
But we do lose being bound within these conditions. We do not live inside the
dry sticks and twigs of our old nest of views, as Dogen zenji sometimes calls it. We
are not defined by thoughts and feelings. We are not located behind the eyes. We
are not inside the bodymind and we are not outside the bodymind. The bodymind,
this world of seasons and of ten directions and of birth and death arises within the
space of who we are. We are the ten directions but cannot be found anywhere. We
are the bodymind but we are also all bodies and minds. We are the Way of the
Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors and, in receiving their Transmission from our own
Teacher, we are all of the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors. But we do not become
someone else.
This is very important for us to understand. Practising Zen is not a matter of
pretending to be someone else. But it is also not a matter of just continuing to follow
our old habits and superstitions and tendencies. We cannot just imitate the lives of
the Awakened Ancestors to realize the Way. We cannot find it just by imitating how
our Teacher stands, walks, turns, moves, and speaks. But if we just go on standing,
walking, turning, moving, and speaking as we have always tended to then we will
never find it either because when we stand, walk, turn, move, and speak we tend to
be just following our tendencies and are not really present to the standing, walking,