The Sound of the Rain Needs No Translation

We've discussed the web from three points of view

As an analogy of the selective operation of our senses and mind

Whereby certain things in the world are picked out as significant according to certain game rules

The game that we are playing mostly is the survival game

That is to say the game ought to go on

Only, the way we play the survival game has a kind of element in it

Which makes it difficult

Because we tend to say, "The first rule of this game is that it's serious."

And that messes the whole thing up

So, you have to watch out in other words when you play

For contradictory game rules, self contradictory game rules

Because if you get mixed up into them

The game seizes to be worth the candle

You start straining at doing something when it just isn't worth it

Then the second thing that we observed

Was the web as an analogy of mutual interdependence

We could call it the idea that all existence is relative

That all existence is transactional

The transaction being typically exemplified by say the operation of buying and selling

In which there can be no buying without somebody selling, and there can be no selling without somebody else buying

That kind of interdependence of the inside going together with the outside

What is in you going together with what is outside you

Is absolutely fundamental to existence

It is existence

Existence is relativity, existence is relativity, existence is relativity

What is in you going together with what is outside you

Is absolutely fundamental to existence

It is existence

Existence is relativity, existence is relativity, existence is relativity

Then we explored the web as a trap

The spider's web, "Won't you come into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly

And we saw what- look at all of life from the point of view

That it is original selfishness and original hunger

And we found that if you take that point of view to its ultimate extreme

It dissolves

And it isn't so bad after all

Shakespeare says, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and theory, signifying nothing"

When it's put that way, it doesn't seem so bad after all

What is in you going together with what is outside you

Is absolutely fundamental to existence

It is existence

Existence is relativity, existence is relativity, existence is relativity

What is in you going together with what is outside you

Is absolutely fundamental to existence

It is existence

Existence is relativity, existence is relativity, existence is relativity

I remember that I had a Zen master friend who wrote a letter to a friend of mine, which was passed onto me

This friend of mine was aspiring to be a writer

And he was trying to write a novel that would put across Buddhism to people

Sugar the pill

And my Zen master friend didn't approve of this at all

He said, "Don't write any story to people, write it to the great sky"

Because all the real masters of literature, especially novelists and storytellers

Are great masters of nonsense

Think of Lewis Carroll

You can use Lewis Carroll, and he did use Alice in Wonderland as a Zen textbook

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe"

That's Zen

I had a discussion with a great master in Japan

We were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English

He said, "That's a waste of time, If you really understand zen," he said

"You could use any book, you could use the Bible, you could use Alice in Wonderland, you could use the dictionary"

Because he said, "The sound of the rain needs no translation"

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

So what does the rain say?

Evening rain

It is the banana leaf that speaks of it first

You see that's the point, and all the talk in the world

Doesn't get it unless you listen to the talk in a new way

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation

The sound of the rain needs no translation