If you go to Japan and visit Eiheiji  -- Eiheiji monastery, you will  --  before you enter the monastery, you will find out  -- you will see the small bridge called Hanshakukyo. “Hanshakukyo” means "half dipper bridge," "half dipper bridge." Whenever Dogen Zenji, the founder of the monastery, used  -- dipped water from the river, after he used half of it he returned the water to the river again without throwing [it] away. That is why we call that bridge Hanshakukyo -- Half dipper bridge.
In Eiheiji monastery we do not use  -- when we wash our face we do not fill the basin. We just use 70% of the basin and after we wash it we do not throw the water away  this  --  this way [away from the body]. We empty the basin in this way [toward the body]. It means to respect water. It is not just -- this kind of practice is not based on just economy. It may be pretty hard [to understand] why we  -- why Dogen Zenji returned the water after he used half of it. It is -- this kind of practice is beyond our thinking. When we feel the beauty of the river, or water, we have  --  we intuitively we do it in this way. That is our nature. But when our nature is covered by some economic idea [laughs], you may think it doesn’t [make] any sense to return the water back in the river.
The other day I went to Yosemite and I saw Yosemite National Park, and I saw a huge waterfall [laughs] one thousand  -- thirty  --  one thousand thirty  -- it was thirteen hundred forty feet high - the first one. Next cascade was six hundred something. And last one, even the last one was three thousand  -- three hundred. When I saw the first, highest waterfall, I saw the water coming down like a curtain which was thrown from the top of mountain. It comes  -- it doesn’t come down swiftly, as we  -- as I expected. It comes down very slowly, because of the distance I see [it from].
And the water comes down in some group, you know [laughs]. Water does not comes down as one whole river, or water. It  -- the water separated in many groups. It comes down like a curtain. I thought it may be very hard experience for the  -- each water to come down [laughs] such a high mountain, from top to the bottom. It takes time, you know, it takes time so  -- it takes so long until it -- the water reach to the bottom of the waterfall.
And I thought our life is maybe like that. We have many hard experience through our life. But at the same time, I thought, the water is not originally separated. It is one whole water. When it is separated like that, the water has some feeling. When it is one whole water, the water do not have any feeling - at least it looks like so. When it is separated in many pieces it start to have some feeling, or to express some feeling.
When the water is running as a one whole water, we do not feel the living activity of the water, but when we dip a part of the water in dipper, we feel the value of the water and we feel some feeling of the water. When we are separated in this way, we have feeling. But before we were born, we had no feeling [laughs],  we are one piece of the universe. That is called mind only, or essence of mind, or big mind, before we have feeling to  -- to us. After we are separated in this way, like a water falling down from top of the waterfall to the bottom separated by the wind or rocks, then we have feeling. The water  -- even the water must have feeling. And this kind of, not feeling -- fact -- this fact is very valuable. So our birth  -- birth and death is the same thing. So when we realize this fact we  -- we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no fear  -- no actual difficulty in our life.
If you think why we have difficulty in our life you will understand how to accept the difficulty. Before you are, you do not realize that we have originally one piece of water, or one piece of universe. You have fear, you have difficulty, because you have feeling. You have attach to the feeling you have just now, without knowing how this kind of feeling is created.
So to dip the water from the river is to feel the value of the water, the value of each individual, the value of the person who use the water. At the same time when we become aware of individual  -- individual feelings we have the value  --  the feeling of value of the water. So we -- because of this feeling we cannot use the water just material. It is living being. Originally it was with the big river. So if the water becomes one with the big river, the water will  have  -- will not have any feeling to it. It will resume to its own nature. By resuming to its own nature they have composure, they will be very glad to came back [laughs] to original water. If so, when you die, what feeling will you have? I think it is like a water. We are like a water in the dipper.
So if someone take  -- take us to the original river, the dipper -- water in the dipper will be very glad. So if we came back to original home, we will be very glad. We have composure there - perfect composure [laughs]. It may be too perfect [laughs, laughter] for us just now. Now we have some -- because we are so much attached to the individual existence like this, so we have attachment. For us, just now, in this way we have some feeling of fear, or fear of death, but after we resume to the  -- our true nature there [is] nirvana. That is why we say "to attain nirvana" when we die. It is same word. We say "to take nirvana" is to pass away. "To pass away" is not [laughs]  -- not so adequate expression.
Student: To pass on.
SR: Uh-huh, "to pass on," maybe, or "go on" or "to join" [laughs]. "To join" - I don't know. Would you find out some good expression to it -- more adequate expression? And at the same time you will have quite new interpretation to our life. Like I saw the water in the big waterfall. Imagine it is thirteen hundred feet. If you say it is fear, you  -- and you cannot stand for it. But if you think, that is water, originally one with  --  originally one piece of water, there is no fear, and it has beauty and it has feeling. That feeling is quite new feeling, quite different feeling which water -- the water will have when -- before they do not feel, they do not know, it is  --  it was one whole water. So we say, "from emptiness everything comes out" - from emptiness. One whole piece of water, or one sole mind, is emptiness. When we reach to this understanding, we will  --  we find true meaning of our life. When we reach this understanding we can see the beauty of the flower, beauty of the human life. Before, we do not realize this fact. All what we see is just delusion. Sometime we overestimate the beauty. Sometime we underestimate or ignore the beauty, because of our small mind, which do[es] not accord with the reality.
To talk about [it] in this way is quite easy [laughs], quite easy, but to have actual feeling is not so easy. But, by our practice of our zazen, when we can sit with our body and with our mind, and oneness of our mind and body, under the control of the big mind, we can easily attain this kind of right understanding - quite. Your life  -- everyday life will be renewed, without being attached to the old [laughs] erroneous interpretation of life. When you realize this fact, you will [laughs] find out how meaningless our interpretation of life was, how useless difficulty we have had, how useless effort we had been making. And you will find out true meaning of life, and you will enjoy your life, even though you have difficulty of falling upright to [laughs] bottom of the waterfall from the top of the mountain [makes sound like falling]. I couldn't hear even the sound of the waterfall there.
Student: Couldn't you walk down to the valley (?) [two or three words unclear].
SR: Maybe it is so far away from the  --  at least I didn’t feel the hearing of the sound. That is  -- should be our life: like the water falling down from the top of the mountain.