LIVING by VOW: The Heart Sutra - pp 164-170 (Stopping at Dongshan’s Nose)

[Meishin]

Please swim or fly your course or speak your lines or dance your steps with grace and skill.

That's so elegant.

Gassho
Meishin
Sat today LAH

[Eva]

Thank You, Shugen .

Yes, the sands shifting .. never settling .
stepping into mid-air .. never to land .
being at home in no Home .

Thank you
Gassho
eva

I sat and lah

[Meishin]

Can you think of a time when the sand shifted under your feet? How did it feel? Was there fear? Was there joy? Something else?

Our son had a stroke when he was six and for several days was in a coma. During that time we experienced incredible fear alternating with emotional exhaustion. We had been told he could die at any moment. But eventually he opened his eyes and was back with us. Subsequent tests revealed no neurological damage beyond the site of the bleed. The pediatric neurologist said he almost never saw such a positive outcome. Today he's a grown man with children of his own to worry about.

The way that relates to Shugen's question is that in thinking about that event, the prevalent memory is that there have been few times when I have felt as completely alive as I did while he was in the coma. I was absolutely attentive moment by moment -- the way i suspect someone would feel hanging from a precipice. Yes it was a "bad" event, but my mind was not drifting off to the usual irrelevancies I worried about in those days. It had nothing to do with my hopes for a positive outcome. Truth be told, I was prepared for the worst.

The sands shifted, and there was complete surprise. Fear, sadness, joy all intermixed. Very little sense of self.

Gassho
Meishin
Sat today LAH

[AlanLa]

Te be literal here, because that helps me, "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" is the sandcastle, and "emptiness is not form" is knocking down the sandcastle, thus don't get too comfortable, too fixed in place in your views, because practice will erode them, thus practice leaves you feeling a lack, which is not a bad thing at all because practice is all about letting your "self" open up by dropping borders to everything, including (and maybe especially) your self. Ok, got it, piece of cake

I've been afraid of some of the rapid changes that life brings, but I don't ever recall being afraid during zazen. Reluctant maybe, hesitant, but that happened mostly early in my practice. These days I am usually fascinated by what I find and sometimes joyous when I see through something going in my life, that new perspective that Okamura talks about. As a paraplegic with a lifetime of disability behind me, I have long felt like I lived in an unstable world, so shifting sands don't bother me too much. I am no good at standing anyway

[Seishin]

I found this section and folks comments very insightful, as Meitou said it describes the fundamentals of practice - with my normal caveat of easier said than done. I guess like most folk life's been full of ups and downs just like a desert landscape shaped by the wind, always changing, shifting, never static and frequently not quite as planned or envisioned.

Thought this seemed fitting.

[Onkai]

There are a couple of sections from the Genjo Koan that touch on this "When the Dharma completely pervades this body and mind, we feel something is lacking." The following is my version, and a comment, from the book I am working on ...

--------------

Buddhas are those with such great understanding of the nature of delusion. Alas, confused beings are those who are greatly deluded about the what and where of enlightenment. Moreover, because life is not a stagnant thing, so a Buddha must continue to realize realization upon realization, while ordinary folks just fall into delusion after delusion.

When you manifest Buddha, it is simply in each Wise and Compassionate thought, word and deed you do in daily life. It is not something fancy and fixed that you have to stick a flag on, make a big show about or hire a marching band to proclaim. It is wondrous, yet quite ordinary. I personally see “Buddha” manifesting all around me, not as Golden Bodies with Shining Halos floating High in the Sky, but in the simple acts of generosity, peace, love, kindness and harmony by ordinary people in this world. Whenever a human being acts in generosity and altruism rather than selfish and excess desire, brings peace where before there was strife, sees though division to the unity of all things, then she is bringing Buddha to life in this world and time, here and now.

...

So, when dharma does not truly fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient and that you can stop. Rather, when dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that there is always something more and so we keep moving forward.

Don't be one of those folks who hits some round, empty purity and calls it “Nirvana”. That would be like a sailor in the open sea, only open water all around, thinking that the whole world were just so and he can stop right there forever. Be wise, and welcome all the complexity and diversity, broken edges and impurities of this world as just that same “round empty purity” in different guise. Welcome all of this life, even the hard parts, as if just various rooms in a mansion, shining pearls on a string, varied flowers in a garden, the moon reflected in endless forms in varied pools of water … and that goes for both the parts of life we love, and those we do not.

...

Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, and in every drop of water. Practice never stops because the features and variety never stop, so practice right here where you come to be.

In this place and setting, in this facet of the whole, your practice brings life to life. This is the stage upon which we dance, the sea in which we swim, the sky where we fly. We are the life of this earth, and like the fish of the water and birds in the sky who bring water and sky to life, and in turn, all this world is our extension, not merely our location. What is more, this is your place, your life right here, and you cannot be elsewhere than where you find yourself so long as alive. Thus, please live it well, and experience this place wisely. The possibilities, if not quite endless, are greatly up to you. Please swim or fly your course or speak your lines or dance your steps with grace and skill.

Gassho, J

STLah

I'm just going through the threads on Okumura's chapter on the Heart Sutra, and was struck by this post. It is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it, Jundo. I look forward to the book.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/LAH