The Sound of the Rain Needs No Explanation

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

[Chorus]
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
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 happens when you 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 [Laughs]

[Chorus]
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
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 but 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