Thoughts about the Dance

[Roland]

I listened to Jundo’s podcast talk about the Dance. Sometimes we trip and fall but like in modern dance we do good incorporating it in the performance as gracefully as we can. There is also a passage about bad stuff and good stuff happening in the Dance. Yet I find it difficult to wrap my head around it, especially when thinking about evil such as genocides and the holocaust. It seems to me that confronted with such evil the Dance stops. Of course the atoms and galaxies keep spinning, seas and mountains come and go but that is on a scale where ethics itself seems to be irrelevant. While sitting I do grasp the idea of softening boundaries and of compassion, but it seems an additional practice is necessary so as to grasp ethics and precepts.

Sat/Lah

Gassho

Roland

[Onkai]

I also have to consider my approach to life in light of how it would stand up to things like genocide and the Holocaust. This practice is one of the few things that would help me find my bearings in extreme situations.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Each of us is a dance of organisms, cells, tissues, organs; to reach for a cup of tea the dance flows toward the cup. Likewise, if you hand me a cup of tea, there is this one dance, with perhaps two primary flows; from this we can deduce that any ritual, from a proposed toast to dedication of merit, is a kind of living being. What is there that is not dancing -- what is there that is not a murmuration of starlings, a whale leaping, a star forming planets, a teacher forming a circle in the air with a hossu?

gassho
doyu shonin sat today and some lah

[Bion]

I listened to Jundo’s podcast talk about the Dance. Sometimes we trip and fall but like in modern dance we do good incorporating it in the performance as gracefully as we can. There is also a passage about bad stuff and good stuff happening in the Dance. Yet I find it difficult to wrap my head around it, especially when thinking about evil such as genocides and the holocaust. It seems to me that confronted with such evil the Dance stops. Of course the atoms and galaxies keep spinning, seas and mountains come and go but that is on a scale where ethics itself seems to be irrelevant. While sitting I do grasp the idea of softening boundaries and of compassion, but it seems an additional practice is necessary so as to grasp ethics and precepts.

Sat/Lah

Gassho

Roland

We continuously navigate actions and consequences, causes and effects, both coming from our own decisions and as a result of the actions of others. It is unavoidable, but we are endowed with the spectacular ability of understanding how good and evil arise and how someone is capable of extreme atrocities or indescribable good and we can empathize with others. So using compassion and equanimity, we gently hold in our arms whatever comes our way and give it a spin until we release it so the dance can continue.


[emoji1374] SatToday lah

[Bion]

Each of us is a dance of organisms, cells, tissues, organs; to reach for a cup of tea the dance flows toward the cup. Likewise, if you hand me a cup of tea, there is this one dance, with perhaps two primary flows; from this we can deduce that any ritual, from a proposed toast to dedication of merit, is a kind of living being. What is there that is not dancing -- what is there that is not a murmuration of starlings, a whale leaping, a star forming planets, a teacher forming a circle in the air with a hossu?

gassho
doyu shonin sat today and some lah

[emoji1374] [emoji847]

SatToday lah

[Jundo]

I am working on my book sequel to "The Zen Master's Dance" ... entitled "The Zen Master Dances On ... " ... and I just happened to be writing about this today:

Pardon the long passage ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Master Dogen and the other great Zen masters, other mystics too, saw and experienced the great beauty, balance, harmony, grace and goodness of the whole. Even a modern physicist such as Einstein, although seeing in his lifetime the horrors of Nazi Germany, as well as sickness and death in his own family, could speak of the beauty, mysterious order and elegance of the cosmos and his equations. The universe’s dance is truly the most beautiful in the universe. And yet, how can it be a dance which so often spins out such ugliness, in violence, cruelty, the suffering of children, war and disease, injustice and all the rest?

This is a dance of constant movement, with ever changing scenes and situations manifesting and disappearing. Its productions are the settings in which we find ourselves, sometimes beautiful to our judgement, but sometimes experienced as so very hateful, sometimes thrilling and sometimes terrifying, lovely or loathsome, with most of it somewhere in between. If something pleases us, we are drawn toward what is presented, and if we are displeased, we wish to run to escape the horror or threat. In truth, the scenes are is just happenings and changing forms on an open stage of possibilities, a show in which nature produces various colors, shapes, events, never loathsome nor lovely alone until our heart’s appraisals come into play. A weed is but another sprout reaching for the sun until our heart, with its personal desires and aesthetics, judges it unwelcome and out of place. A virus or tiger is just another entity trying to survive, until its survival conflicts with our own. Our eyes bestow names and meanings upon the settings for, not only are we dancers, actors engaged in creation, but also we are the spectators of the acts who witness events and create the storyline in our minds and give it significance. Better said, we are the moving artists who create a portion of the dance by how we dance in our spot (together with every other creature in this world who is also dancing), plus we are the characters on the stage living in the story that results and contains all of us, plus we are the viewers and audience to our joint creation who judge and interpret the witnessed drama too.

...

That being the case, Master Dogen and the other masters taught that we, as individuals and as ensembles of dancers, can still seek to dance with as much grace, balance, skill and elegance as we can, creating a life and world of as much peace, harmony, health and wise happiness as we can. We cannot make all the world as we might hope and wish through our personal efforts, or avoid all the chaos and conflict always, but we can do so much in our little corner of the stage, resulting in good effects for ourselves and our fellow dancers close at hand. Furthermore, our little drops of goodness and beauty do add to the whole, have effects even long after and far away, cancelling some of the opposite, helping even a little to make a better show. Were enough dancers on this planet to choose to be better dancers too, learning to live in peace and generosity rather than with anger and selfishness, our world would change from being a world of anger and selfishness, or a very mixed bag, to a world primarily of peace and generosity. It is up to us dancers to make together the world-dance we wish.

...


Ultimately, Master Dogen and the other Zen greats shine a light, allowing us to see that the passing, ever changing scenes of beauty and ugliness, war and peace in this world, and the overriding and all-sweeping Beauty and Balance of the Great Dance, were never two. We can see through the earth’s war and ugliness to the Greater Peace and Harmony that holds it all even as, in our daily life, we try to dance with as much peace and harmony as we can, avoiding the strife and disasters which we can.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

gassho
doyu shonin stlah

[Seishin]

Thank you Jundo. Every little bit helps, as an old UK supermarket ad used to say.

Sat lah

[Risho]

gassho
risho
-stlah

[Onkai]

Thank you, Jundo. 🙏

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

[Tairin]

Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Roland]

Thank you Jundo. I look forward to your new book.

Sat/lah

Gassho

Roland

[Doshin]

Good teaching

Doshin
St

[John.3]

Good encouraging teaching. I too look forward to your new book.

Gassho,
John
Sat today

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[Yokai]

Thank you Jundo

Wonderful excerpt from what I'm sure will be a wonderful sequel...

...or will this be like Star Wars and have an Episode IX: 'Rise of the Zen Master'?



Gassho, Yokai (Chris) sat/lah