Dear Seekers of What Cannot Be Sought,
We will read the first 6 pages, to the end of page 98. For those on Kindle, that is a little less than half of the chapter, ending just before he really starts discussing in detail "If one riding in a boat watches the coast ... "
Okamura Roshi begins with a little review of the opening lines of the Genjo, beginning with the passage about the perspective of practice, delusion and realization, life and death, Buddhas and ordinary beings. Then there is expressed in the second line the great sweep of emptiness where all these separate categories wash away.
Then he comes to the third line in which they reappear, yet somehow changed. Okamura Roshi emphasizes that, here, each of these things fully stands on its own feet, and also fully contains its opposite (e.g., life is fully life, and death is fully death, and life fully contains death while death fully expresses life).
That is right. But in my book on the Genjo, I will emphasize one more meaning for this third line: That here, in a world of life and death, practice and realization, the second line is still fully present too. In other words "there is life and death, yet there is no life and death." In this way, somehow, we fully experience death in the time of death, and we know that death is just another face of life, AND ALSO we know that there is no birth or death at all! That fact leaves our experience of death very different, because ... by gosh ... there is not death at all!
There is, of course ... yet not. 
Next, he has those lovely words about delusion being our trying to force ourself on life, get it to meet our demands and expectations and be subject to our judgments. In enlightenment, in contrast, we just let the whole world be the whole world as it is, and to flow into the self.
Finally, he speaks about how, when most folks are starting on the road of practice in Zazen, they are hoping for some pay-off, to fix some problem or recover from some sickness etc. But, when we put down that hunting mind, the real repair and recovery is known. This is counter-intuitive perhaps, but so important, I feel.
He closes our reading this week with some descriptions of the "original person," and that "The entire universe is sitting, using this body and mind" in Zazen.
Any impressions?
Gassho, J
ST+lah
We will read the first 6 pages, to the end of page 98. For those on Kindle, that is a little less than half of the chapter, ending just before he really starts discussing in detail "If one riding in a boat watches the coast ... "
Okamura Roshi begins with a little review of the opening lines of the Genjo, beginning with the passage about the perspective of practice, delusion and realization, life and death, Buddhas and ordinary beings. Then there is expressed in the second line the great sweep of emptiness where all these separate categories wash away.
Then he comes to the third line in which they reappear, yet somehow changed. Okamura Roshi emphasizes that, here, each of these things fully stands on its own feet, and also fully contains its opposite (e.g., life is fully life, and death is fully death, and life fully contains death while death fully expresses life).
That is right. But in my book on the Genjo, I will emphasize one more meaning for this third line: That here, in a world of life and death, practice and realization, the second line is still fully present too. In other words "there is life and death, yet there is no life and death." In this way, somehow, we fully experience death in the time of death, and we know that death is just another face of life, AND ALSO we know that there is no birth or death at all! That fact leaves our experience of death very different, because ... by gosh ... there is not death at all!
There is, of course ... yet not. Next, he has those lovely words about delusion being our trying to force ourself on life, get it to meet our demands and expectations and be subject to our judgments. In enlightenment, in contrast, we just let the whole world be the whole world as it is, and to flow into the self.
Finally, he speaks about how, when most folks are starting on the road of practice in Zazen, they are hoping for some pay-off, to fix some problem or recover from some sickness etc. But, when we put down that hunting mind, the real repair and recovery is known. This is counter-intuitive perhaps, but so important, I feel.
He closes our reading this week with some descriptions of the "original person," and that "The entire universe is sitting, using this body and mind" in Zazen.
Any impressions?
Gassho, J
ST+lah
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