BOOK OF EQUANIMITY- case 26

[AlanLa]

The longer I am on this path the more I lose, the more I realize how I am being fooled, the less "self" I have to dwell in, and the closer I get to white on white, though I am still so very far, and all of that is ok. It's like peeling the onion. At first there may be tears, but it tastes so good once cooked and served with life.

a kind of answer to you all and thank you so much for your patience and wisdom:

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?8692-Baike-5

gassho


T.

I am refresh ... thank you Taigu.

Gassho
Shingen

[Taigu]

a kind of answer to you all and thank you so much for your patience and wisdom:

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?8692-Baike-5

gassho


T.

[RichardH]

No point swinging my arms around looking for nothing to hold, or leaving them limp and stupid. I'll just put these hands where hands can hold ...where there are handles. The snow piled up overnight and I can't wait for spring for it to melt. Got to shovel to get the car out this morning. Fix the leaky roof. Wipe after going to the toilet.

Not a single thing is lost. not a single thing is given up. There is only ordinary gain and loss..and absolutely nothing else... ever

Just blabbing.. Gassho,Daizan

[Ed]

"A true man of no rank." Eyes hear, fingers see.
In gassho,
Thanks.

[andyZ]

How do you enjoy being fooled again and again and loosing so much?

gassho

Taigu

Thank you Taigu.

Painted rice cakes, as Dogen called them. Sometimes they satisfy hunger, sometimes they don't but knowing the limitations of the painted rice cakes always brings a huge relief and lets me just breathe with no agenda whatsoever.

[Shugen]

How would you go beyond? How would you not dwell? How do you put up with this mad path that asks you to give up everything in exchange of a big heap of nothing you don't even look as being your own? How do you enjoy being fooled again and again and loosing so much?

You just do. Sometimes the losing brings tears, sometimes laughter - always it brings something.




Shugen

[Gen01]

Thank you Taigu.

Apple eats the worm.

Gassho. _/|\_

[Myoku]

Taigu,
I know not much about "going beyond", really. But ...

How do you enjoy being fooled again and again and loosing so much?

Its a habit, and it feels like it felt yesterday and not too bad. Again and again the mind produces ideas which to follow seem to be "right", seem to be easy, seem to be freedom ... doing what you want ... great ... No ? No ! I'm so lazy. And only vaguely guess what I loose. So just another go, knowing I'm only on a merry-go-round, but hey, everybody else is too. But it not feels _really_ right, thats why I'm here.

Your questions and the explanation of Shishin Wick are great, thank you
Gassho
Myoku

[Shujin]

I am greatly appreciative for the passage about superheroes. Before I began sitting, I used to think that I didn't believe in dramatic concepts like this. As thoughts have unfolded, however, I realize that there has been this desire for a heroic narrative for longer than I can remember. I've wanted so badly to quantify certain aspects of my life - struggle! sacrifice! virtue! It looks like an especially awful Communist propaganda poster.

Playing with my sons today, I experienced one of those rare (for me) moments where I felt whole-heartedly engaged. It will pass, of course, and I will let it go. But being able to experience something special, something amazingly immediate and genuine, is what enables me to contend with the planner, the super hero and the fool.

Gassho,
Shujin

[Heisoku]

Each moment comes and goes and in each new moment I am born into that moment, again to only to pass away and die to it. In each moment the sun shines and I smile in the sunshine. The sunshine and smiling are not two. But the smiling is never the same. What will happen in the next moment, what or who is around the next corner? I do not know nor do I need to care, as the sun is shining and I have learned to smile.

Thank you Taigu ... and glad to hear you are on the mend.

Gassho
Shingen

[Taigu]

The mending is fine,thank you Shokai, and thank you for your post.



gassho in the mud

T.

[Shokai]

How do you enjoy being fooled again and again and loosing so much?

Because it is what it is (as it is.) IT includes so much good that, once you realize, one doesn't have time to wallow in the mud.

Thank you Taigu, How's the mending coming along?

Gassho, Shokai

[Taigu]

like a silver bowl filled with snow
like a heron hidden in the moonlight

Tozan Ryokai, Jewel Mirror Samadhi

On a quiet evening in my tatch roofed hut,
alone I play the lute with no string.
Its meloddy enters wind and cloud,
mingles deeply with a flowing stream,
fills out the dark valley, blows through the vast forest, then disappears.
Other than those who hear emptiness,
who will capture this rare sound?

Ryokan ( Sky Above, Great Wind, Kazuaki Tanahashi)

Nagarjuna appeared on his seat and taught the verse:

This body manifests a full moon
expressing the bodies of all Buddhas,
teaching that has no particular shape,
expressing that revealing is neither sound nor form.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Buddha nature (Kazuaki Tanahashi)


Kyozan points to a snow lion and says: "can anyone go beyond this color?" Ummon says:"right then, I'd push it down for him" and Seccho later adds " he only knows how to push it down, not how to raise it up."

in the Appreciatory Verse it is written: (...) Though pure light illumines the eye, it is like being lost from home. Though clarity turns the body, it falls into a rank. We Zen students have nothing to rely on! (...)


As many people have pointed out, we are full of ideas, stuffed with opinions and views. That's what the human world claims from us, that's what we think we should offer people. The way out is to go beyond, leap out of this bag of skin and flesh, merely a bag of smelly thoughts, leap into what is not known and what we cannot even rely on. The original color, the original and primary sound, stringless lute of Ryokan, merging of form and emptiness of Tozan, cannot be bottled or processed.Here and now, what is our true form? Here and now, how do we give it a go, a chance to bloom? What is the meaning of "to go beyond"? As a very young Zen sitter, I used to think of something really great, like the action of a superheroe getting somewhere after an incredible flight, I used to imagine a beyond, manufacture a beyond in which I could eventually land. As I grew smaller and dropped ideas of making and doing, the beyond felt just as close as my nostrils. The beyond was nothing but this here and now without the extra, the bagage, the stories, the garbage, the plots, the "I wish I could", without was the way where everything could be with me.

Not even being attached here to this. Not to dwell anywhere is key. Could be another trap, and we would then go dead circle.

How would you go beyond? How would you not dwell? How do you put up with this mad path that asks you to give up everything in exchange of a big heap of nothing you don't even look as being your own? How do you enjoy being fooled again and again and loosing so much?

gassho


Taigu