Talk Three: The Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage | The Hut of Stillness and Not-Knowing

Here we are, day three of the talk—but actually day five of sesshin.
So a lot of sitting. A lot of silence. A lot of things coming up.

It’s a simple process, but it’s not easy.

A lot arises that we want to push away. Sometimes, when something gets a little too close, we want to turn away or distract ourselves. But the instruction here is simple: open the front door and the back door of the mind. Let whatever comes, come; let whatever goes, go.

As Suzuki Roshi said: just don’t serve any of them tea.

Yesterday we opened into vastness. We saw that the hut, though small, contains the entire world.
Today we’re going to take up our abode in that vastness—not as an idea, but as our daily life, as our steadfast, ordinary way of being.

And that ordinary way of being can feel very loose, very ungraspable. The theme here is embodiment.

After realization, we don’t float away. We don’t transcend the ordinary. We sweep the floor. We patch the roof. We listen to the rain and the wind chimes. We return to the same hut—but everything has changed.

“Firmly based on steadiness, it can’t be surpassed.”

Here the poem begins to speak of stability—but not rigidity. It’s a kind of grounded ease.

It’s important to see that awakening isn’t an escape; it’s the return to our natural poise.

When we stop building our lives around the constructed self—its fears, its ambitions, its comparisons—what’s left is simply this: stillness.

And that stillness isn’t indifference. It’s the firm soil where compassion first takes root.

When we abide among the weeds, when we bear witness to what arises without pushing away or grasping, we manifest suchness.

Because we’re no longer trying to hold up the scaffolding of an identity, we can move freely through the world.
When the wind blows, we sway.
When suffering arises, we respond.

Dōgen once said: “When the mind is at peace, wherever you are is pleasant—whether in a marketplace or on a mountain.”

This is what Sekitō means by steadiness. When our view isn’t built on judgment or gain, we can be at home anywhere—even amid the heartbreak and noise of the world, even right here in this zendo.

This is the unsurpassable mind—not because it’s lofty or rare, but because it’s so utterly ordinary. It contains everything.

“A shining window below the green pines; jade palaces and vermilion towers can’t compare.”

Within this steadiness, there’s beauty.

Sekitō’s poetry, though simple, is never dry. It’s tender and luminous.

The shining window beneath the green pines is a symbol of sufficiency. It’s modest, but complete.
Within that sufficiency we discover a certain kind of opulence—the quiet abundance of enough.

There’s nothing for us to add, nothing for us to improve.
We might never even notice it; and yet, there it is—the splendor of our own life.

Sekitō contrasts this with “jade palaces and vermilion towers,” the symbols of human ambition—the endless building of monuments meant to outshine one another. We build our palaces of achievement, our towers of reputation, trying to prove our worth.

But beneath the pines and the hundred grasses, there’s already light.
And that light isn’t cast by jewels or by architecture; it’s the light of our very own presence.

Our presence includes everything.

There’s a passage in the Gospel of Matthew: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

This points to the same wisdom—the unadorned beauty of suchness.

When we drop the project of improving our lives, we find that life was already unfolding perfectly.
Every breath, every sound of wind through the pines, every fleeting moment is the shining window.

Even the arguments, the misunderstandings, the chores—when we’re fully present, each one gleams with that same light.

“Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest.”

Here Sekitō turns to the practice itself.

He’s not describing a trance or a withdrawal from life, but the natural posture of awakening.

When the hermit sits with his head covered, he’s sheltered in simplicity.
No storm can harm him, because he’s not apart from the storm.

We take refuge in simplicity—by dropping our grasp on images, roles, and expectations.
This simplicity brings peace.

We’re not sitting anymore for enlightenment.
Not for merit.
Not for calm.
We’re just sitting because sitting is the way the universe expresses itself through this body, in this moment.

“All things are at rest” doesn’t mean the world has stopped—it means we are no longer divided against it.
The rain falls, thoughts rise, birds sing; everything rests in its own nature.

When we see this clearly, we recognize the perfection and fullness of the present moment.
Compassion naturally flows from this recognition—because we see how inseparable we are from the world around us.

And that compassion begins right here, where the war of the self ends.

This rest is not escape—it’s reconciliation.
It’s coming home to ourselves, to our own authentic presence, and realizing it was always here.
There was nothing to battle, nothing to improve.

“Thus, this mountain monk doesn’t understand at all.”

Sekitō’s humility is radiant. After all these luminous insights, he says simply: I don’t understand at all.

Letting go of knowing is such a difficult thing to do—and yet it’s the heart of wisdom.

This not knowing—in Zen we call it fushiryo—means “beyond thought.” It’s not stupidity or confusion; it’s intimacy.

Every time we think we understand the Dharma, we step a little away from it.
But when we stop trying to grasp it, the Dharma makes itself known.

Not-knowing is the openness that allows reality to reveal itself directly.

It’s not ignorance; it’s the willingness to meet life before dividing it into subject and object.

When we can loosen our grip on needing to tie everything into neat conceptual packages, we become immediately aware of this infinite present moment.

And that brings peace—even in the middle of conflict, even in uncertainty.

Not-knowing is not a deficit; it’s freedom.
It’s the freedom to act and to move cleanly with life.
It’s the mind that meets each moment as if for the first time.

Every moment becomes new when we’re no longer stuck on the tracks of shame, doubt, and habit.
When we drop all that, we step into wonder.

“Living here, he no longer works to get free.”

This is the natural fruit of realization.

Freedom isn’t something we achieve—it’s what’s already here when striving ceases.

The hermit realizes there’s nowhere else to go.
Freedom isn’t a prize that comes after enlightenment—it’s the condition of being awake right now.

To “work to get free” implies there’s a prison. But the prison was always one of our own design.

Sekitō’s practice is to live freely within delusion, seeing it clearly as delusion, laughing at our striving, and gently returning to the present.

What we’re returning to is always this.

It’s a choice we make again and again throughout our busy day—to return, to be here.

Freedom isn’t far away. It’s what’s left when we stop trying to escape.

“Firmly based on steadiness, the foolish one arranges seats trying to entice guests.”

Here Sekitō smiles at us.

Even after awakening, the old habits return. The ego loves to redecorate.

In the imperial courts and great monasteries of China, elaborate banquets were held, with the host arranging the seats for honored guests.

We do the same in our own ways. We arrange the seats of our lives—what we drive, what we wear, how we speak, how we present ourselves.

The ego is forever arranging seats, trying to host its own importance.

But what are we hosting?

Everything already belongs.

In Zen language, host and guest also mean absolute and relative. When we arrange seats, we create a division—host here, guest there.

But in the hermit’s hut, that division is gone.
There’s no one to host and no one to visit.

The mind that divides the world into parts finally relaxes back into what holds them both.

When we stop entertaining our guests—the guests of thought, reputation, ambition—the true host returns to its proper seat: the still, luminous awareness behind everything.

Just stop decorating the Dharma. Sit down. See what’s always been here.

Then you’ll recognize its infinite expanse.

Embodiment and Return

These verses trace the full path:
From seeking to living.
From striving to stillness.
From understanding to not-knowing.
From separation to intimacy.

We no longer need to build palaces to protect the self. We can enjoy the palace that’s already present—the palace of grass and wind and moonlight.

When we see that there’s no freedom left to seek—because it was never missing—our practice matures.

There’s no one left to entertain. No one to persuade. No one to become.

The company of all beings is already here.

And this is where the path of the hermit opens into the path of the world.

We stop trying to arrive. We simply live.

Just sit. Just breathe. Just let it be enough.

You are enough.

And when your knees ache from long zazen, when your back protests, when your heart opens wide—this too is the shining window beneath the green pines.

This is the grass-roof hermitage.