100 of 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination

[Shokai]

gate 41.jpg
一百八法明門
IPPYAKUHACHI-HOMYOMON
One Hundred and Eight Gates of Dharma-Illumination

[100] The wisdom-view is a gate of Dharma-illumination; for [with it] wisdom is realized and fulfilled.

Wisdom (prajñā) is not merely intellectual knowledge or accumulation of information, but a direct, experiential understanding of the true nature of reality. It is the foundational, transformative insight that penetrates the veil of delusion, allowing one to see phenomena as they truly are rather than as they appear to be. Recognizing that all conditioned things are constantly changing, passing away, and in flux. Understanding that clinging to impermanent things causes pain and dissatisfaction. And, that everything is devoid of a fixed, permanent self. It is continuously supported by mindfulness, leading to a "view" that is not a fixed opinion but a direct perception.

Take five to watch this clip then tell us how you feel.

合掌,生開
gassho, Shokai
stlah
仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai
"Open to life in a benevolent way"

[Ryūdō-Liúdào]

I used to really struggle with clinging to impermanence, and I still do at times, especially when I see nature being destroyed or local culture and art fading under “progress.” That stuff still pulls at my heartstrings, no matter how much I try to let go of that which is out of my control.

What helps is remembering that things move like the tides: rising, falling, and shifting. The landscape changes, and so do our views about it. It’s not so much that things are simply good or bad, but that our clinging to those judgments is where the extra suffering comes in.

Even then, what seems “good” can turn “bad,” and vice versa. So I try to hold my views a little more lightly, while still caring about what’s in front of me. The video does a fine job of explaining this, and honestly, I think the message within is really the whole point and path to attaining that goal which is unattainable.

Gasshō,
流道-Ryūdō-Liúdào
Satlah

[Tairin]

Thank you Shokai

Deep bows for the message in this video. It was my struggle with control that ultimately led me to this Path.


Tairin
sat today and lah

[Tenryu]

There is this sense of things not standing alone. One moment leaning into the next, conditions meeting conditions. There’s something easing in that. Even when things don’t go as planned, it doesn’t feel so personal or isolated. More like part of a larger unfolding, like the teacup that already includes its breaking.

It leaves a quiet trust. Not that everything is clear, but that things can be met as they come.

Gasshō,
Tenryū
sat today and LaH

[Choujou]

I must be falling into alignment with the gates! I wrote this yesterday after morning Zazen, and didn’t get a chance to look at the video until today!

How did the video make me feel? I’m going to go dance in the rain

Gassho,
Choujou

sat/lah today

[Seikan]

The video immediately reminded me of the old Sufi story about the king who receives a ring from his teacher/adviser with the phrase "this too shall pass" engraved upon it.

• When something bad happens . . . "this too shall pass"
• When something good happens . . . "this too shall pass"
• When nothing whatsoever seems to be happening . . . "this too shall pass"

Cultivating this wisdom-view helps us relinquish clinging, aversion and the sense of indifferent numbness (ignorance) that lies between the two extremes, yet is still not enlightenment.

Gassho,
Seikan
stlah

[dorgan]

Does the universe have agency independent of me? Is the universe sentient? Does everything that happens happen for a reason that is directed by a conscious universe, or do occurrences and events lack agency and are just the outcomes of blind interactions, mindless billiard balls bouncing off each other with no great purpose intended?

The universe is interconnected and interpenetrating. There is no me and there. The intricate interconnected web of all existence breathes with the interdependence of the animate and the inanimate. No one fails alone. No one succeeds alone. In our interconnectedness, the finely structured threads of interwoven karma from all beings, sentient and non-sentient, act as one. There is no duality.

Karma is not a meritocracy where we claim the triumph of our past behaviour when life seems to be going well, and disparage ourselves for everything that goes poorly. We are not gods who create our lives and all their varied outcomes as if independent and owned by us.

We sit in the midst of a great woven fabric of cause and effect that leaps into our consciousness like droplets of water, complete and transcient, a moment of experience continuously becoming, always perishing into the next moment. We have agency, but we are also a minute part of a vast sea of cause and effect, within which we are not separate but interdependent. Our antecedents in each moment of experience include all existence, and the future into which we emerge is the vast openness of possibility, where we are drawn to become the best version of ourselves if we accept the lures to beauty that surround us.

The universe seeks beauty and fulfilment; we are a sentient opportunity to become, with agency, the best we can be. Life as experienced is not our triumph, but our momentary home, a home that exists whole for the moment it is, which then perishes into the next moment of becoming.

Life is the creative advance into the possible. Transience and process are the woven fabric of becoming within which we find peace, hope, loving kindness and gentleness, not as moral imperatives, but the very nature of a living universe.

gassho, david
stlah

[Chikyou]

Understanding karma as cause and effect rather than some divine punishment is liberating because it restores a sense of agency and encourages compassion. Understanding that all things are impermanent (both good and bad) allows us to move freely through life, unhindered by attachment.

Gassho,
SatLah,
Chikyō