Spontaneous teisho talk, recorded live as spoken word, on a morning walk, 02.04.16.

Hear the audio here.

Morning walk.

The Buddha didn’t study the Dharma.

He was the Dharma.

He is the Dharma.

Just as you are the Dharma.

When the Buddha spoke, the Buddha didn’t speak at all.

It was the Dharma speaking. Through the Buddha.

When Ananda, some years later, began to record the sutras, because of his marvellous memory…

Did he record the words of the Buddha?

Or the words of the Dharma?

The Dharma is inside you, within you.

If you look, you will see it.

If you listen, you will hear it.

If you stop…

…and listen, without even a listener.

…if you allow the space to engulf you.

Leaving ideas behind.

Leaving expectations behind.

Sinking like a stone, sinking to the floor of the ocean.

When it comes to rest, where are you, who are you?

Who is here, now?

If you hear an answer, ask, who is answering?

If you hear a question, ask, who is asking?

If you hear a doubt, ask, who is doubting?

In all these years, some forty years, from his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, to when he left his earthly body, Buddha was said to have said “in all these forty years, I haven’t spoken even one word.”

Speaking now, I haven’t spoken even one word.

And if you are hearing, if you are truly hearing, now, then you have not heard even just one word.

Because the truth cannot be spoken, and it cannot be spoken of, except to point to it.

Because all words are the expression of it.

All speech is the expression of it.

All phenomena are the expression of it.

So look within, and listen.

Listen well my friends.

At first, you’ll hear your breath.

You will think it is your breath.

This breath doesn’t belong to you.

This is the breath of life.

This is the breath of life that is in all things.

We cannot own it.

It doesn’t belong to us.

Leave it behind, for a moment, and look in.

Listen.

Maybe you hear the beating of your heart.

This is your heart, but it is not you.

Don’t be distracted by it.

Between the beats of this beating heart, what is found?

Between the breaths of this breath of life, what is found?

Stay here.

If nothing is found, stay here.

This is your home.

This is the source of who you are.

This is the same source, as the one who is speaking now.

Not apart in time, in distance, in space.

Simply rest here.

The heart can go on beating.

The breath, can continue…

In…

Out…

These things are happening in you, not to you.

Perhaps you hear sounds.

I hear birds, bird song, the sound of their wings, beating.

But this hearing is happening in me, so these birds are happening in me.

This is silence.

This silence is who we are.

And when we keep quiet here, we realise the eternal.