Hi All,
I am going to take the pass of the baton from Shugen, who did such a beautiful job in hosting our reflections on the Heart Sutra.
We will now turn to the "Identity of Relative & Absolute," (or "Merging of DIfference and Unity"), the Sandokai, to page 218. The Sandokai is also one of the fundamental Chants and Teachings in our Soto Zen Tradition.
I want to say, however, that as I was rereading the Heart Sutra pages of the book, I noticed a bit of a difference in approach and flavor between how I sometimes express "Emptiness" (the focus of both the Heart Sutra and Sandokai) and how Okumura Roshi seems to express it. I have not really noticed so much before when I have read Okumura Roshi. Perhaps Okumura Roshi tended to emphasize primarily the freedom which comes in recognizing the impermanence and lack of self existence in things, and that "Emptiness" is also not a "thing," without speaking too much of what is "Emptiness" besides that. In contrast, I tend to add some very positive descriptions about Emptiness which you probably have heard from me before, e.g.:
Emptiness might be better expressed as the Flowing Wholeness of all things, as all of reality flows in out and as us. It is not a "thing," but is a lovely dance which the universe is doing, and we are that dance.
I did not detect that Okumura Roshi was quite so focused on this positive aspect of "Emptiness" in his Heart Sutra descriptions.
However, that is okay, and actually ties in very much with our discussion of the history of the origins of Zen Buddhism in China in this week's readings. Okumura Roshi describes some of the complex history, and early varied flavors of Zen. I must tell you that the story seems to have been even more complicated, with many teachers and Sangha ... often with very different approaches ... who only later were depicted as all under the umbrella of Zen.
My question is: Does it matter, or bother you, that there are so many flavors of Zen ... the same in Absolute nature, yet different in relative nature ... today or through the centuries? Or, does it add something to have so much variety? Can more than one flavor be "right"?
Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLAH
PS - I remind you of our next book in the book club:
"WHAT IS ZEN?" by NORMAN FISCHER and SUSAN MOON
We will start that in a few weeks.
I am going to take the pass of the baton from Shugen, who did such a beautiful job in hosting our reflections on the Heart Sutra.
We will now turn to the "Identity of Relative & Absolute," (or "Merging of DIfference and Unity"), the Sandokai, to page 218. The Sandokai is also one of the fundamental Chants and Teachings in our Soto Zen Tradition. I want to say, however, that as I was rereading the Heart Sutra pages of the book, I noticed a bit of a difference in approach and flavor between how I sometimes express "Emptiness" (the focus of both the Heart Sutra and Sandokai) and how Okumura Roshi seems to express it. I have not really noticed so much before when I have read Okumura Roshi. Perhaps Okumura Roshi tended to emphasize primarily the freedom which comes in recognizing the impermanence and lack of self existence in things, and that "Emptiness" is also not a "thing," without speaking too much of what is "Emptiness" besides that. In contrast, I tend to add some very positive descriptions about Emptiness which you probably have heard from me before, e.g.:
Emptiness might be better expressed as the Flowing Wholeness of all things, as all of reality flows in out and as us. It is not a "thing," but is a lovely dance which the universe is doing, and we are that dance.
I did not detect that Okumura Roshi was quite so focused on this positive aspect of "Emptiness" in his Heart Sutra descriptions.
However, that is okay, and actually ties in very much with our discussion of the history of the origins of Zen Buddhism in China in this week's readings. Okumura Roshi describes some of the complex history, and early varied flavors of Zen. I must tell you that the story seems to have been even more complicated, with many teachers and Sangha ... often with very different approaches ... who only later were depicted as all under the umbrella of Zen.
My question is: Does it matter, or bother you, that there are so many flavors of Zen ... the same in Absolute nature, yet different in relative nature ... today or through the centuries? Or, does it add something to have so much variety? Can more than one flavor be "right"?
Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLAH
PS - I remind you of our next book in the book club:
"WHAT IS ZEN?" by NORMAN FISCHER and SUSAN MOON
We will start that in a few weeks.
Or, like matter and energy perhaps, they are just the same (says Einstein) yet not.
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