Emptiness is Form

Shunryu Suzuki Transcript

Audio Problem Set
Sunday, June 29, 1969
Tassajara

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In our practice, which include everyday life, which I called with the right understanding part, man and nature. It is necessary to have confidence, you know, to follow the truth, and to continue our practice because truth is something which is beginningless and endless. So, our practice should be also beginningless and endless—endless one. And wherever we go, we should continue our practice. That is the first stage, first step, for you—for entering Buddha hall or Zazen hall.

That is, you know, the stage the form is emptiness. The form is emptiness means, you know, to have strong belief or confidence in emptiness, which is the truth itself—which is the real world. So, form may be—we are form, you know. Form is emptiness. So, form is directed towards emptiness, which is Buddha nature or emptiness or enlightenment. Form. This is the first step to—to the Buddha Hall.

And next one is emptiness is form. This is more advanced, maybe more difficult, you know, to understand and to accept. Form is emptiness. Or, emptiness is form. Emptiness is form.

It is easy, you know, to—to have direction and start our practice towards emptiness. Form is emptiness. Form is going to the emptiness. That is easy because you have some direction, you know. Even though it is difficult, as long as we have direction, it is easy.

But emptiness is form is more, maybe more difficult. And stronger confidence is necessary. Because emptiness is form—when we say emptiness is form, whatever it is, you know, everything is emptiness itself. It means that not only you [laughs]—everything. Not only something good, but also everything. That is more difficult to accept, you know. Because, you know, for usual people like us there is something good and something bad. There is something which we don’t like. And there is something which we care for. There is common people and the sage. Unless you stop your analyzing mind or thinking mind, it is, you know, rather difficult to accept it. You know, that is our—which we experience in our everyday life.

You see that is, but—but when you can say, emptiness is form, you have stronger confidence in your practice. But actually, you can do it. We are, you know, practicing right now—in San Francisco there’s a counting breathing practice. Just to count our breathing, that’s all.

And you may say, you know, it looks like very easy, but actually it is difficult. But you should know why it is so difficult. And for an instance, sometime—most of the time, in your everyday life, you will have something—something which you don’t like at all, you know. And it is difficult for you to forget all about it [laughs], even though that is not your problem—your business. But you, you know, you cannot help but to think about it [laughs].

But you have this kind of experience. Some—sometime you will be very angry with what someone else is doing. But that is not actually your business, you know. But if you spend your valuable time to—to think about something which is nothing to do with you—maybe something to do with you, but not directly. You cannot say. Nothing can happen without some relationship with you. But may have something to do with you, but [laughs] even though you think, it doesn’t help at all. You—you cannot help someone, which is not there’d[?] for you—related to you. If he is, you know, in other world, or in other dimension of world, it is almost impossible to help him.

But—and—but, you don’t know why—we don’t know why we have to—it is so difficult to stop thinking about it. Don’t you have this [laughs] kind of experience? It is very sore[?] time, actually. That is the world—that is a relative world. We say world of good and bad—world of right or wrong. But in your—if you—but if you can only practice counting breathing practice completely, you know, actually you—you can stop being worried about it. You can stop—you can cut off the relationship, unnatural—a wrong relationship with some world.

So, I think to be able to count from one to ten is very fortunate. So, if you—when you go from one to two, or two to three, until you count to ten, you should bow to Buddha, “Thank you very much.” And then you start count one, two, three. And that you can count your breathing in order, without mistake means your practice is complete.

The stage you can do it over and over again is the stage that emptiness is form. Emptiness is form. If it’s more, you know, advanced stage, then the first stage you can count, you know. You may think, "I must count." Anyway, I have to count from one to ten. But you may make some mistake, you know. When you you lose your counting, it means that you have some gap in your—in your continuity of your practice. So, it—that means you have gap. So, some worry will, you know, come to you through the gap. So, when the time you forgot your counting, the various thought will come over, through the gate [laughs]. Even when—you don’t know when, but when you realize the—even thought is already here [laughs]. That is maybe the more the stage that you have direction. Only you have direction, but the practice is not perfect. There—in your practice there is some gap.

So, to be able to count from one to ten means, you know, a lot. It means more than you thought. The power of counting from one to ten is very powerful. And that is the best way to be free from various confusion, which you may be easily involved in.

So, I think if you go back to your city life, you will have many things to think. But you don’t think just because you have to think, but because you are not able to stop thinking about it. Most of your thinking mind goes in that way. Most of the activity you take is not because it is necessary, but because you cannot—you are not able to stop doing it. And there is many things which you shouldn’t do. But most people are doing something they shouldn’t do. But to be able to stop doing it and to be able to waste our energy thinking about it and doing it, is—is very important. When you are able to do it, it means that your wisdom is opened—your mind is open. And your mind is as clear as a mirror.

Mirror may be—mirror is actually some emptiness. So, in that mirror everything will reflect in it—various image will appear in the mirror as it is. So, you may say, the emptiness is form on the pure polished up mirror. Everything is there—various form is there.

Student question: ??? people are escaping?

That will be deeper, and maybe difficult and—but deeper practice, or more polished up practice. So, counting breathing exercise may be the exercise for a beginner, and exercise for more advanced student.

The third one: form is form, and emptiness is emptiness. And here if I put order to them, the emptiness is emptiness is—form is form is more advanced practice. Emptiness is emptiness is—will be the practice next to emptiness is form. I think so, but now, I don’t know what other teachers will say but…. Form is form means, you know, later I will explain in some other way. But emptiness is emptiness means everything, you know, appears in the form of emptiness. Or it means that for people who practice our way that is a stage when we can accept everything equal as—as emptiness.

Emptiness comes to us when we are empty, when we stop thinking. When we are able to stop our emotional thinking activity. When we are not involved in any of the practice. When we are just sitting in some certain form. So, in that stage in our heart, that stage is more the stage you have in your zazen practice, you know, when—when you stop thinking and stop feeling some particular thinking—some particular think—things. That’s going to be the continuity of empty emptiness. Emptiness is emptiness.

But form is form is the practice which you will have in your everyday life, more. Form is form. When we say emptiness is emptiness or form is form, it means that emptiness only or form only, world of form only. We don’t think about emptiness when we say form is form. When we say emptiness is emptiness, we don’t think about form. We have no idea of form. Just emptiness. And form is—when we say form is form, you know, your—your everyday life as form is form should be based on zazen practice, even though you don’t aware of it.

If you have strong practice—power of strong practice, even though you don’t aware of it. You don’t know whether you have that kind of strength, or not. That is why we call it emptiness. If I—if you say, "I have this kind of power," that is not emptiness anymore [laughs]. That is already form, you know. If you say, "I understand, you know, what is emptiness is emptiness," then, you know, that is not emptiness anymore. That is the power you have even though you are not aware of it.

That power is a power which will be gained—acquired by everyday practice. By continuous practice. If you sit—if you just sit every day at starting time for one hour or more, you will have more and more the power of practice. Or, for you it is difficult to lose your power. That is a stage when you have this kind of power. Whatever you see, you know, the things, it’s thing itself. You can see things as it is. So, you—when you see things as it is, it is the world of form is form. And that is how we help others, you know. When, you know, when a children come, you will be the child, you know.

When an—an old man come, you will be an old man. That is, you know, the stage or life of form is form. And when you have this kind of life, as I said last night, that is the life of what it is [laughs]. You don’t know who you are. You may be a child. You may be an—an old one. You don’t know who you are because you may be a man and you may be a woman. You don’t know.

And you know that you don’t know. You appears as if you know everything [laughs], but you don’t know actually. It appears, you know, as if it has some form. But, you know, but as soon as it appears, it vanish, you know, since in reality it exist in that way. As soon as it appears, it will vanish. There is nothing which doesn’t vanish. Everything which appears is vanishing, like dishes. The time, you know, you served up when you cook the dish, it will disappear [laughs]. There is no food which doesn’t vanish. There’s no monk who doesn’t die. There’s no image which doesn’t vanish. So, it appears. To appear is not to appear, or to vanish, you know. So, we don’t know what it is. Anyway, to take care of things one by one. Like you come here maybe it’s the life of quality—what is it?

So, you don’t try to figure out what it is, you know. You don’t want any answer for that. Question is at the same time answered—what it is? That is OK. But we have to take—we have cook every dish one by one. Bread is bread, and soup should be soup, if—even though it will be mixed up when you eat it. But there’s no one who eat, you know, who prepare food with mix up [groans, laughs]. You should prepare each food, one by one. Like you count your breathing, for enough times, one, two, three. So, that you count your breathing, is the way you cook dishes or the way you walk, step by step. That is, you know, to have full appreciation of our life.

We should—shouldn’t be enslaved by anything else. You know, we should be always independent, and we should be free from everything. And we should be boss of everything, always—without trying to control, by doing things one by one carefully. So, because it is a kind of difficult task[?] for us—so we should be able, we should be very grateful, even you, you know, count from one to two. That is enough [laughs]. If you can count from one to, you know, if you reach five, you should bow to Buddha. Or, “I’m very grateful for you” [laughs] to let me count from one to five. In this way, if you count from one to ten, and with that can bring[?] joy. And you continue—if you continue, again from one to ten, and over and over again, that is—the last stage you will acquire by counting breathing such as this or our[?] practice. So, it is not at all the practice just for beginners.

Last night Jack asked me the question, what kind of character we use, you know, for form is emptiness? Emptiness is form. And, form is form and emptiness is emptiness. [ Japanese]

Anything form is emptiness. There are four characters. [Writing on a blackboard.] Form is itself. Form itself is empty. Emptiness is form. ????
[Stopping here because the rest is too difficult to decipher.]

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[69-06-29-bh] - Source: 69-06-29 digital audio archive from DC. Problem set. Thanks to audio work by AW, transcribed October 2012 by Bill Hackenberg. Further prep by DC.

Most of the last two minutes were unintelligible and indicated that in the transcript. I think Shunryu Suzuki was perhaps going into the four Japanese characters for form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form is form and emptiness is emptiness. He may have been writing at a board and got far away from the mike. Some of the audio seemed to indicate he was referring to aspects of the Japanese characters. Someone who understands Japanese may have better luck with the last two minutes. It would still be very hard to hear, but maybe worth a shot. - Bill

Verbatim version based on Engage Wisdom audio by Peter Ford 5/2025.
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File name: 69-06-29: Emptiness is Form (titled by pf) (Verbatim) Speeds up extreme toward end. Was originally located in San Francisco, but according to the tape cover and context, it was at Tassajara. Verbatim up to the point where the audio becomes too difficult. Most of the last two minutes were unintelligible and indicated that in the transcript... Someone who understands Japanese may have better luck with the last two minutes.

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