“Hakuin Wasan” is a “Zazen Wasan (The Song of Zazen)” by Hakuin who I mentioned in the previous part. This time, I’m going to explain about his Zazen Wasan including Hakuin himself.
In a poem from those days, Hakuin said “there are two great things in Suruga (Shizuoka Prefecture), one is Mt. Fuji and the other is Hakuin who lives in Hara (Numazu city)”. Hakuin was referred to as being as great as Mt. Fuji which was a Japanese icon. He was such a famous person…
Before he became very famous, he experienced some of the cataclysmic catastrophes which were similar to the ones that happened in these days. Do you know The “Hōei Eruption of Mt. Fuji”? Mt. Fuji irrupted about 300 years ago. Also, just before the eruption, there was a big earthquake of magnitude 9 which was the same level as the Great East Japan Earthquake. He was only 21 years old at that time. This Hōei Eruption of Mt.Fuji was the last eruption of the mountain in history. Since then, Mt. Fuji had never erupted and has been showing us its majestic figure up till now.
Also about Hakuin, he was suffered from zen mental sickness (kind an autonomic ataxia) while he was in his training for zen. Zen mental sickness was caused by their stress from trainings. In his book of “夜船閑話Yasenkanna 1757”, he explained about his experience in which he mentioned that he was suffering from the sickness and recovered from it by applying his unique which was called the “Naikan and Nanso methods (Breathing / guided imagery)”. I think that because he had various experiences (the catastrophes) since he was quite young, he created the Zazen Wasan.
I’ll explain the contents of “Zazen Wasan (The Song of Zazen)”, as I think that we can apply these phrases to the situations of modern days.
HAKUIN ZENJI ZAZEN WASAN
SHUJŌ HONARI HOTOKE NARI
MIZU TO KŌRI NO GOTOKU NITE
MIZU O HANARETE KŌRI NAKU
SHUJŌ NO HOKA NI HOTOKE NASHI
SHUJŌ CHIKAKI O SHIRAZU SHITE
TŌKU MOTOMURU HAKANASA YO
TATOEBA MIZU NO NAKA NI ITE
KATSU O SAKEBU GA GOTOKU NARI
CHŌJA NO IE NO KO TO NARITE
HINRI NI MAYOU NI KOTONARAZU
ROKUSHU RINNE NO INNEN WA
ONORE GA GUCHI NO YAMIJI NARI
YAMIJI NI YAMIJI O FUMISOETE
ITSUKA SHŌJI O HANARU BEKI
SORE MAKAEN NO ZENJŌ WA
SHŌTAN SURU NI AMARI ARI
FUSE YA JIKAI NO SHOHARAMITSU
NENBUTSU ZANGE SHUGYŌ TŌ
SONO SHINA ŌKI SHOZENGYŌ
MINA KONO UCHI NI KISURU NARI
ICHIZA NO KŌ O NASU HITO MO
TSUMISHI MURYŌ NO TSUMI HOROBU
AKUSHU IZUKU NI ARINU BEKI
JŌDO SUNAWACHI TŌKARAZU
KATAJIKENAKUMO KONO NORI O
HITOTABI MIMI NI FURURU TOKI
SANDAN ZUIKI SURU HITO WA
FUKU O URU KOTO KAGIRI NASHI
IWANYA MIZUKARA EKŌ SHITE
JIKI NI JISH O SHŌ SUREBA
JISHŌ SUNAWACHI MUSHŌ NITE
SUDENI KERON O HANARETARI
INGA ICHINYO NO MON HIRAKE
MUNI MUSAN NO MICHI NAOSHI
MUSŌ NO SŌ O SŌ TO SHITE
YUKUMO KAERUMO YOSO NARAZU
MUNEN NO NEN O NEN TO SHITE
UTAU MO MAU MO NORI NO KOE
ZANMAI MUGE NO SORA HIROKU
SHICHI ENMYŌ NO TSUKI SAEN
KONO TOKI NANI O KA MOTOMU BEKI
JAKUMETSU GENZEN SURU YUE NI
TŌSHO SUNAWACHI RENGEKOKU
KONO MI SUNAWACHI HOTOKE NARI
The rough translation is as below.
All of us are primitively Buddha. We aren’t just aware of it. It’s like water (=Buddha) and ice (=us). We can’t make ice without water, can we? The relationship between us and Buddha is something like the ice and water.
Despite that, something good is always around us, why do we try to go further? It’s like we are asking for water even if we are in water…
Even if you look happy enough from others’ side of view, you still complain as you think of how unhappy you are.
Isn’t it because of yourself that you actually can’t get out of the unhappy matters? Isn’t it because you are only thinking of yourself?
Complaining gets you nowhere. Why don’t you change your way of thinking? Yes, calming your mind may bring you something that you’d never expect before.
People do various activities, such as making a donation, joining a volunteer activity and so on….But all of the things including both good and bad things are inside of your mind.
So if you find out more about your own mind, you can call everything even. You will find out that everything, including bad things which happened to you were for you to know the truth. Getting to know the truth is actually the happiest thing for us.
Thankfully, when you hear the voice from your mind even once…you can become a type of person who can have a sense of gratitude, so you can be happy. It’s true…
That’s right, a key point is finding out more about your own mind. It opens a secret door. So you will get to know the truth. Also you will find out the fact that all of the things are delusions which you created and you will become able to be freed from all of your doubts.
When you open the door of truth, there is a world where the cause and result exist at the same time together. There is only one way of getting to the door ….This is it. Your happiness can be shown in various forms but it’s not something about this and that but it’s all about yourself.
You will be free when the various thoughts disappear and you feel calm. When it happens you can be extremely happy…everything will look beautiful.
When you get to this point, you will become not to demand anything anymore. Your mind really becomes calm. After all the seeking happiness, you will find that everything is there (inside of you).
I explained it in a very simple way……(Buddha, I’m s(^.^)o(-.-)r(__)r(-.-)y(^.^).
Have you noticed that the “Hakuin Wasan” sounds similar to “The Blue Bird” fairy tale? Tyltyl and Mytyl found in the end that their happiness was actually somewhere very close.
By the way, as for Steve Jobs who was the CEO of Apple Inc and recently died, the charismatic person was actually learning zen, too. He might’ve been getting his inspirations from it. Well, zen is interesting. However the one which Steve Jobs learned wasn’t Rinzai sect (Hakuin’s) but Soto sect though.
