Zen Is Right Here

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52 - verse

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A brief verse that has always been recited at the Zen Center goes like this:

Great robe of liberation / Field far beyond form and emptiness /Wearing Buddha's teaching / Saving all beings.

In the early sixties this was chanted only in Japanese. No one knew what it meant. One day a student went to Suzuki Roshi and asked, "What’s the meaning of that chant we do right after zazen?" Suzuki said, "I don't know." Katagiri Sensei, his assistant teacher, started going through the drawers looking for a translation. Suzuki gestured to him to stop. Then he turned to the student, pointed to his heart, and said, "It's love."

p.54. Mel Weitsman, Sokoji, 1964.