The Zen Master's Dance - 6 - Fukan Zazengi (Middle of p. 29 to Middle of p. 32)

[Jundo]

Calling All Buddhas,

We will read from the middle of page 29 (the section, "And So, 'The Way of Zazen Recommended for Everyone'") until the middle of page 32, stopping right BEFORE "We can still see the traces of the Buddha Sakyamuni")

Please summarize briefly, based on today's reading and your own understanding, why in heck, if we are "already Buddha" and "the Buddha's truth is already all around, complete, and all-pervading" we still need to practice?

Try to respond before reading what other folks have written in response.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Houzan]

If you aim to reach the summit, you fall or get addicted. You loose your freedom.

If you forget the summit due to not wanting to climb, you’ll never get there. You lost your freedom and got more stuck.

If you know that the summit is on top of your head, you being the mountain, that summit is in each step, you are simply conceptualizing the summit, and this is still delusion.

If you see that the summit is simply the summit, a move simply a move, you are untethered. Ready.

So you simply climb. It’s only through this shinjin datsuraku - wholehearted climbing, fully taking care of each move - that summit is nothing other than climbing itself. Freedom.

Gassho, Hōzan
satlah

[Jundo]

420612.jpg Buddha climbing Buddha, which step is not Buddha?

Which step is not its own summit? Top to bottom, all Buddha.

Even so, step carefully, do not fall!


Gassho, J
stlah

PS - By the way, that photo is taken at the Giant Buddha in the town neighboring Treeleaf Tsukuba, Japan. ... Formerly No. 1, but now the Third Tallest Buddha in the World! Fortunately, Buddha has no need to be No. 1!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushiku_Daibutsu

Gassho, J
stlah

[Hosui]

Despite the fact of there being no knowing, least of all a knower, the more I sit with emptiness the more I appreciate how my practice is already enlightenment. The more I feel inseparable from everything around me, the more I realise this non-duality is the very expression of zazen. Pace Huineng, why would there be an end to the work that comes to me in the present of zazen? The enormity of this endless work becomes apparent in seeing how the wholeness of Buddha faces off with the wholeness of Buddha in those never-ending present moments, since everything in the universe is Buddha, including me. Which is why it makes zero sense to talk of a path to where I already am. The eye of zazen - or The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye - is that by which we see the endless work of facing Buddha off with Buddha is to be done. I will always have everything I need to work on right now, which in turn means that the universe itself is our practice since we are the universe - especially when there’s no knowing or no I to know. What the heck!

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah

[Jundo]

What the heck!

[Bob-Midwest]

Interesting timing for this assignment.

I have been wresting with a claim made by a non-dual teacher that spiritual practice is neutral at best and more likely runs a high risk of being harmful.

Decades of practice tells me he is correct that practice easily becomes an obstacle of pride (or other) and perpetuates the illusion that hard work gets us “there.” This goes for both the individual and group.

“Some people are proud of their understanding …,” so this week’s readings say.

But his suggestion of not doing practice because it does not help or because we can’t force waking up, doesn’t seem right to me.

Another teaching of, “it’s all grace, but we got to act like it isn’t,” seems truer to me.

Why do we practice, you ask?

My answer is we don’t, at least as far as practice is commonly understood and as Zazen goes. I just sit and do so these days, as Dogen suggested, with as little goal as possible.

It is all here, yes, but that “hair’s breadth gap” is anything but for me without sitting and carrying Zazen into my daily life.

This week’s readings also reminded me that all I am letting go of during Zazen and my more aware moments of daily life is also Buddha. Wow. These “obstacles” are not problems unless I treat them as separate, other.

bob
sat.lah

[Koriki]

I did a weekend stay at a Zen monastery years ago where we did lots of zazen and some working meditation. My task for the working meditation was to strip the paint off of a fountain. About halfway through my work I realized that this was a good metaphor for what I was doing in my practice. I felt like I was slowly chipping away at the layers of "knowing" I had accumulated in my life enabling me to experience reality more clearly.

Gassho,
Koriki
s@lah

[Jundo]

Thank you Bob. This practice can go wrong if we are too amoral about the "nondual" aspect, or too egotistical about our achievements.

image.png

Koriki, yes, and we are the fountain, and the old paint too, and always have been. But don't keep chipping and chipping looking for the "true fountain," like peeling and peeling an onion looking for the source of the pungent scent.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Hokuu]

Please summarize briefly, based on today's reading and your own understanding, why in heck, if we are "already Buddha" and "the Buddha's truth is already all around, complete, and all-pervading" we still need to practice?

Probably because we don't "practice to become," but "practice to be."
The analogy that comes to my mind is the Lion in The Wizard of Oz - he'd always been brave, but he "needed" to practice acts of bravery not to become brave, but to be who he already was.

Gassho
Hokuu
satlah

[Jundo]

image.png

[Furyu]

As everything is already Buddha flowing, whether we are aware of the flow or not, there is no obvious reason that humans need to practice anything. Is the buddha-universe aware of itself in the absence of sentient beings, and does that matter? It is intriguing to think that as we practice zazen, we are the universe, all Buddhas of all no-time, allowing itself to be and to unfold naturally, as a matter of intent and practice, knowingly. Of course, from a strictly human perspective, we are seeking the promise of liberation by radically letting go of the very idea of attaining anything, which naturally rejoins the sitting universe. In zazen, the ultimate vehicle is free and presents itself naturally. But what is the point of sitting and practice? I think there are several very human and humanistic aspects to the answer. Awareness of the true nature of things, impermanence, emptiness, paired with the vows, these things can reduce individual and collective suffering. From another perspective, I sit because the regular sitting allows me to extend the zazen mind beyond the zafu. It helps me. I hope it helps others. The answer if rooted in our relative perspective, from an ultimate point of view, nothing is needed, from a relative perspective, suffering and delusion are very real. This practice is a plausible response. I don’t feel there is a great metaphysical answer to this question. I hope I made some sense… this was Master Dōgen’s great question.

Gasshō
Fūryū
Sat and lah

[Jundo]

As everything is already Buddha flowing, whether we are aware of the flow or not, there is no obvious reason that humans need to practice anything. Is the buddha-universe aware of itself in the absence of sentient beings, and does that matter? It is intriguing to think that as we practice zazen, we are the universe, all Buddhas of all no-time, allowing itself to be and to unfold naturally, as a matter of intent and practice, knowingly. Of course, from a strictly human perspective, we are seeking the promise of liberation by radically letting go of the very idea of attaining anything, which naturally rejoins the sitting universe. In zazen, the ultimate vehicle is free and presents itself naturally. But what is the point of sitting and practice? I think there are several very human and humanistic aspects to the answer. Awareness of the true nature of things, impermanence, emptiness, paired with the vows, these things can reduce individual and collective suffering. From another perspective, I sit because the regular sitting allows me to extend the zazen mind beyond the zafu. It helps me. I hope it helps others. The answer if rooted in our relative perspective, from an ultimate point of view, nothing is needed, from a relative perspective, suffering and delusion are very real. This practice is a plausible response. I don’t feel there is a great metaphysical answer to this question. I hope I made some sense… this was Master Dōgen’s great question.

Gasshō
Fūryū
Sat and lah