8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

[Jinyu]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

This, if you ask me, is great wisdom. The great tapestry of infinity is nothing more than the present moment (attend to your sentences! Forget the great book!), and the great sutra is written in our very own flesh and blood in the here and now.

Parshva appears to have attended to each sentence. It’s the same teaching as attending to each breath.

The beauty of what Parshva teaches us is that it is never too late to learn this: even our very last breath isn’t too late!

Lovely really, and so true!
Thank you Soen!!

gassho,
Jinyu

[Jikyo]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

Birthless, deathless - the is-ness of it/us all. Sometimes I feel like this body is 140 - does that count?

Gassho, Jikyo

[Myoku]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

I think what Keisan wants to emphasize in his Teisho is the need to really put effort into the practice, to take it serious.

_()_
Peter

[BrianW]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

Born here, dying there - nothing but chapters and phrases.

Once you see it for what it is, a book is nothing but chapters and phrases.
But where do you come in?

Good question...are we the chapters and phrases? Is there more to us? Reminds me of one of Jundo’s talks on how our lives are like the light from a movie projector being projected on to a screen. And what can be said about that screen?

The “Great Mother Sutra” as Hixion states is “always turning, always unrolling and rolling back up. No place to come from, no place abide, no place to go.” He adds it is “simultaneous evolution and involution.” I’ve been sort of stuck on the concept of time lately and the way the turning of the scrolls is presented here is reminiscent of a Dogen quote, “Do not think flowing is like wind and rain moving from east to west.” In short, time flows, it is dynamic, but not only in a linear manner. Usually we would think of scrolls turning and sutras being moving in a linear fashion, they roll forward but also they “roll back up” and the “Great Mother Sutra” has “no place to come from....no place to go”

Gassho
Jisen/BrianW

[Jinyu]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

Hi everyone!
I was "surfing" on Dogen's shobogenzo two minutes ago and I came to the chapter 71 in Nishijima's translation: Nyorai Zenshin - the whole body of the tathagata.
I was reading the description and a part of it make me think about what Soen beautifully said earlier.

The great tapestry of infinity is nothing more than the present moment (attend to your sentences! Forget the great book!), and the great sutra is written in our very own flesh and blood in the here and now.

Here is a part of the introduction of the chapter 71.

In this chapter , Master D?gen teaches that Buddhist sutras
are Gautama Buddha’ s whole body, using the word “sutras” to express the
real form of the universe. Thus Master D?gen insists that the universe is
Gautama Buddha’ s whole body.

The chapter is quite short but very synthetic, I like the way Dogen expresses is view of the whole universe being the Tathagata's sutras.
There are other chapters where Dogen exposes his view on sutras ( chapter 21 - Kankin and chapter 52 Bukkyo ( and I think that there is another one I can't find...).

I'm very happy that the reading of the denkoroku helped me to return to shobogenzo's study. I'm also quite interested in the fact that Keizan kept the same interpretation of the sutra.

Well, sorry for these messy thougts... I'd better get back to my cushion...

gassho,
Luis/Jinyu

[Dosho]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

Hi all,

I'm back reading this week, although I only had a chance to go through the two chapters while waiting for my wife at the hospital while she had some minor surgery (she's fine). So, I don't have much to say since my mind was focused elsewhere, but hopefully this post will get me back into the swing of things. Some of the reading is very abstract, like poetry...something my far too literal brain can have trouble understanding. But I'm here for the duration!

Gassho,
Dosho

[Fuken]

Re: 8/27 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Parshva

I know I'm way behind on this book club thing. This is a great one to go to in times like now for me.

Hear I see another case where Keizan's teisho encourages us "...you
must proceed diligently and forget fatigue, surpass others in your
aspiration for enlightenment..."

Today we don't seem to get that type of encouragement often enough.

Brace up!