_Make your skirt and upper garments into the seven- or nine- striped monks' robe; make your two-edged sword into your resting board or desk. Make your saddle your sitting cushion; make the mountains, rivers, and great earth the sitting platform; make the whole universe your own personal meditation cave. . . . Thrusting forth the courageous mind derived from faith, combine it with the true practice of introspection.14 _ If meditation bears no relationship to life, what good is it? It is merely self-centered gratification. This he condemned, pointing out that if everyone did nothing but meditate on his own inner concerns, society at large would fall apart. And ultimately Zen would be blamed. Furthermore, this inner-directed preoccupation with self-awareness is bad Zen. Hakuin similarly taught that a Zen which ignored society was hollow and meaningless, and its monks of no use to anybody. He was particularly stern with conventional Zen students, who were content in their own enlightenment and ignored the needs of others. "Meditation in action" for the monk meant the same as for a layman, with one significant difference. Whereas the layman could bring meditation to his obligatory life of affairs, the monk must bring the life of the world to his meditation. Just to hide and meditate on your own original nature produces inadequate enlightenment, while also shutting you off from any chance to help other people, other sentient beings. The ancient masters knew, said Hakuin, that a person truly enlightened could travel through the world and not be distracted by the so-called five desires (wealth, fame, food, sleep, and sex). The enlightened being is aware of, but not enticed by, sensual gratification. _The Third Patriarch [Seng-ts'an, d. 606] has said: "If one wishes to gain true intimacy with enlightenment, one must not shun the objects of the senses." He does not mean here that one is to delight in the objects of the senses but, just as the wings of a waterfowl do not get wet even when it enters the water, one must establish a mind that will continue a true koan meditation without interruption, neither clinging to nor rejecting the objects of the senses.15 _ But Hakuin asked something of a Zen novice even more difficult than that asked by the Chinese masters of old--who merely demanded that a monk reject the world, turn his back, and shut out its distractions. In contrast, Hakuin insists that he meditate while out in the world, actively immersing himself in its attractions. The older Ch'an masters advised a monk to ignore the world, to treat it merely as a backdrop to his preoccupation with inner awareness; Hakuin says to test your meditation outside, since otherwise it serves for nothing. And today Rinzai monks are expected to silently meditate during all activities, including working in the yard of the monastery, harvesting vegetables, or even walking through the town for their formal begging.