A moment of Zazen is all things and everything and more.
Usually, we think of a world of separate things, for example, an "ant" and a "mountain." The little ant may crawl along or within the huge mountain, but the ant is not the mountain, the mountain is not the ant. Yet Master Dogen, the other great Zen teachers, and the Tendai and Huayan Buddhist masters who came before them, knew the interflowing, wholly-holding, complete embodying and interidentity of all things and moments.
To wit, the ant and mountain not only just interconnect, not only somehow interrelate, not only sometimes work together although remaining separate things, but the ant fully holds the entire mountain (the whole universe and whatever is beyond that, in fact) effortlessly within its tiny body down to the last mountainy grain of dust, and moreover, --is-- the mountain just as the mountain --is-- the ant (the whole universe and all beyond, in fact) in most literal sense, and all fully merges as, is totally held within and --is-- precisely sitting zazen. Every "thing" is everything, is all things, is one action that is all actions and all stillness, which is every moment and all moments while measureless and timeless too ... all people, plants, every star and atom, all events, each half second or endless expanse of time, the kitchen sink, the plumber and then some, each, all and each other ... all embodied to the last drop in each single moment that is all moments of timeless still-yet-flowing zazen sitting.
Do we sufficiently emphasize this state, so key to Shikantaza (key to understanding Master Dogen's wild teachings no less) in our "How to Sit" instructions? Do we merely pay it lip service, before returning to little more than sitting and following the breath?
Yes, it is hard to get our heads around, and seems to go against our common sense experience of the world, its separate things and passing time (some modern scientific ideas of a "holographic" universe in which every bit holds all bits are tantalizingly close to such a model). It is just another aspect of our practice that we should trust in until we can start to taste it, embody it. Much as our sitting embodies the Buddha, all Buddhas and Ancestors, sitting at rest under the Bodhi Tree in wholeness and completion (I discussed this in the last installment of this "Zen as Embodiment" series), a fact we may not fully experience at the outset of our practice, we must sit fully trusting that our sitting fully embodies and expresses all things, everything, every moment wholly in each moment of our own sitting here on this cushion. Then, perhaps, as the hard borders of 'self and other' soften or drop away, one may actually experience so.
As well, this "I am you and we are they" expressed within our sitting is both the root of Compassion, and the means by which our little sitting, so finite, actually "saves all the numberless sentient beings" as we save our selfless self. (More about that next time).
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
(Apologies, the whole universe is contained in three sentences, in one word, in ... )
Usually, we think of a world of separate things, for example, an "ant" and a "mountain." The little ant may crawl along or within the huge mountain, but the ant is not the mountain, the mountain is not the ant. Yet Master Dogen, the other great Zen teachers, and the Tendai and Huayan Buddhist masters who came before them, knew the interflowing, wholly-holding, complete embodying and interidentity of all things and moments.
To wit, the ant and mountain not only just interconnect, not only somehow interrelate, not only sometimes work together although remaining separate things, but the ant fully holds the entire mountain (the whole universe and whatever is beyond that, in fact) effortlessly within its tiny body down to the last mountainy grain of dust, and moreover, --is-- the mountain just as the mountain --is-- the ant (the whole universe and all beyond, in fact) in most literal sense, and all fully merges as, is totally held within and --is-- precisely sitting zazen. Every "thing" is everything, is all things, is one action that is all actions and all stillness, which is every moment and all moments while measureless and timeless too ... all people, plants, every star and atom, all events, each half second or endless expanse of time, the kitchen sink, the plumber and then some, each, all and each other ... all embodied to the last drop in each single moment that is all moments of timeless still-yet-flowing zazen sitting.
Do we sufficiently emphasize this state, so key to Shikantaza (key to understanding Master Dogen's wild teachings no less) in our "How to Sit" instructions? Do we merely pay it lip service, before returning to little more than sitting and following the breath?
Yes, it is hard to get our heads around, and seems to go against our common sense experience of the world, its separate things and passing time (some modern scientific ideas of a "holographic" universe in which every bit holds all bits are tantalizingly close to such a model). It is just another aspect of our practice that we should trust in until we can start to taste it, embody it. Much as our sitting embodies the Buddha, all Buddhas and Ancestors, sitting at rest under the Bodhi Tree in wholeness and completion (I discussed this in the last installment of this "Zen as Embodiment" series), a fact we may not fully experience at the outset of our practice, we must sit fully trusting that our sitting fully embodies and expresses all things, everything, every moment wholly in each moment of our own sitting here on this cushion. Then, perhaps, as the hard borders of 'self and other' soften or drop away, one may actually experience so.
As well, this "I am you and we are they" expressed within our sitting is both the root of Compassion, and the means by which our little sitting, so finite, actually "saves all the numberless sentient beings" as we save our selfless self. (More about that next time).
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
(Apologies, the whole universe is contained in three sentences, in one word, in ... )
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