Hi Folks,
I am going to request and encourage everyone, even folks who have not jumped into the dance, to especially try this week's exercise from my book on Dogen, "The Zen Master's Dance: A Guide to Understanding Dogen and Who You Are in the Universe," for it is an important lesson on our overturning our relative relationship to the "not self" rest of the world, and our usual vision of sequential time.
Please try!
For those of you who don't have a copy of my book (WHO would not??
), I will reprint the relevant pages here, just for this time. However, I encourage you to get the book, of course! 
Gassho, J
STLah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you sail in a boat and look out at the shore, you
might feel that the shore is moving. But when you turn
your eyes toward the boat, you may then feel that the boat
is moving. In the same way, if you observe the myriad
things of the world with confused ideas of body and mind
you might assume that your mind and nature are enduring
and stand separate from things. But when you intimately
practice and turn within, it will become clear that nothing
at all has a fixed, individual self.
Until this moment, maybe you thought that you were a single, independent, sometimes lonely, isolated, frustrated being living apart from the rest of life. Maybe you felt like a lone sailor struggling on a boat, fighting the wind and ocean currents, with the shore moving swiftly by. But in zazen, that separation melts in such a way that sailor and sea and shore and sail and wind, and the other sailors and vessels
and lands to the horizon and beyond, prove to be a single whole, and all flow as the true nature of the sea that was our nature all along.
Firewood turns to ash and it does not turn to firewood again.
But do not think that the ash is the future and the firewood is past.
Rather, ash is wholly ash with nothing remaining, and the firewood
is just firewood with nothing more. You should understand that firewood
abides in the phenomenal expression and wholeness of firewood,
which fully includes its own past and future yet is independent of all past and
future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression and wholeness
of ash, which fully includes its own past and future too.
We come to experience each moment of life as wholly what it is—a fully contained and actualized instant without comparison to any
other moments of life. Of course, we live in a world of time, of before and after, past, present, and future. But we can come to see each instant as just that instant, its own fully contained moment of time that stands as its own shining jewel.
In the wintertime, we might make a fire that we think has a start, middle, and end. We think that the firewood burns away, leaving ash.
But is that the only way to experience fire? Can we also come to see each moment of burning as the only moment, and timeless? This same question applies to all the apparent changes of flowing time—including our lifetimes, which seem to burn away so quickly.
Just as firewood does not turn to firewood again after it is
ash, do not think of returning to birth after death.
What is true about fire is true about aging and death. Let us leave aside the mystery of what may or may not follow after death. Rather,
let us just come to experience life wholly as the time of life, and when death comes, we experience it simply as the moment of death. Likewise, aging is just the time of aging, health the time of health, sickness the time of sickness.
Thus, it is an established rule in Buddhist teachings to deny
that birth turns into death. Therefore, birth is understood
as no-birth, for in the time of birth there is no other
moment with which to compare it. It is an unshakable
teaching in Buddha’s preaching that death does not turn
into birth. Therefore, death is understood as no-death
when there is no other moment with which to compare it.
When there is birth, there is only birth, and death is just the time of death. Life and death are each their own time and moment. When
it is time for life, live gracefully, for your life depends on it. When it is time for death, please die thoroughly, right to the death! Both life and
death are just this life. I believe that Dōgen is telling us to live fully this moment, to take this moment on its own terms and to live it well,
making it the best moment that we can.
What is more, when we drop from our mind any ideas of opposites, such as start and finish, birth and death, might we know something
that transcends and embraces them? It is like the steps and leaps of the dance. Before each step and after it, and as that one step itself, there is nothing but the dance flowing. The moon seems to rise in the evening and vanish at dawn, but in truth it is ever shining somewhere, and really has gone nowhere. There is something timeless, ever flowing and ever shining, at the heart of all the changes of time.
Not only can we experience each moment as all moments—much as we can perceive each moment of a single leap as embodying the
whole dance of all leaps flowing on—but we can also experience each moment as the only moment beyond comparison. When a dancer
leaps, leaping is just leaping; it is not descending. When the dancer descends and the leap ends, descending is just descending; it is not
rising. Each step in each moment is the only step in that particular place and time. Each event of our lives is also the only moment in that
place and time, so it is beyond comparison.
Birth is a situation complete in this moment. Death is a situation
complete in this moment. They are the same as winter
and spring. We do not say that winter becomes spring,
nor do we say that spring becomes summer.
All the seasons of life—birth, youth, aging, and dying—are just like this. Each is its own season, each is just the shining moon. So, winter
is just winter, summer wholly summer, fall but fall, and spring is totally spring. In winter, live well and fully in winter, likewise in the
other times. In each season, there is nothing else but this. So how is time even passing?
Everything happens in its own season. So it is for life and death.
I am going to request and encourage everyone, even folks who have not jumped into the dance, to especially try this week's exercise from my book on Dogen, "The Zen Master's Dance: A Guide to Understanding Dogen and Who You Are in the Universe," for it is an important lesson on our overturning our relative relationship to the "not self" rest of the world, and our usual vision of sequential time.
Please try!
For those of you who don't have a copy of my book (WHO would not??
), I will reprint the relevant pages here, just for this time. However, I encourage you to get the book, of course! Gassho, J
STLah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you sail in a boat and look out at the shore, you
might feel that the shore is moving. But when you turn
your eyes toward the boat, you may then feel that the boat
is moving. In the same way, if you observe the myriad
things of the world with confused ideas of body and mind
you might assume that your mind and nature are enduring
and stand separate from things. But when you intimately
practice and turn within, it will become clear that nothing
at all has a fixed, individual self.
Until this moment, maybe you thought that you were a single, independent, sometimes lonely, isolated, frustrated being living apart from the rest of life. Maybe you felt like a lone sailor struggling on a boat, fighting the wind and ocean currents, with the shore moving swiftly by. But in zazen, that separation melts in such a way that sailor and sea and shore and sail and wind, and the other sailors and vessels
and lands to the horizon and beyond, prove to be a single whole, and all flow as the true nature of the sea that was our nature all along.
Firewood turns to ash and it does not turn to firewood again.
But do not think that the ash is the future and the firewood is past.
Rather, ash is wholly ash with nothing remaining, and the firewood
is just firewood with nothing more. You should understand that firewood
abides in the phenomenal expression and wholeness of firewood,
which fully includes its own past and future yet is independent of all past and
future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression and wholeness
of ash, which fully includes its own past and future too.
We come to experience each moment of life as wholly what it is—a fully contained and actualized instant without comparison to any
other moments of life. Of course, we live in a world of time, of before and after, past, present, and future. But we can come to see each instant as just that instant, its own fully contained moment of time that stands as its own shining jewel.
In the wintertime, we might make a fire that we think has a start, middle, and end. We think that the firewood burns away, leaving ash.
But is that the only way to experience fire? Can we also come to see each moment of burning as the only moment, and timeless? This same question applies to all the apparent changes of flowing time—including our lifetimes, which seem to burn away so quickly.
Just as firewood does not turn to firewood again after it is
ash, do not think of returning to birth after death.
What is true about fire is true about aging and death. Let us leave aside the mystery of what may or may not follow after death. Rather,
let us just come to experience life wholly as the time of life, and when death comes, we experience it simply as the moment of death. Likewise, aging is just the time of aging, health the time of health, sickness the time of sickness.
Thus, it is an established rule in Buddhist teachings to deny
that birth turns into death. Therefore, birth is understood
as no-birth, for in the time of birth there is no other
moment with which to compare it. It is an unshakable
teaching in Buddha’s preaching that death does not turn
into birth. Therefore, death is understood as no-death
when there is no other moment with which to compare it.
When there is birth, there is only birth, and death is just the time of death. Life and death are each their own time and moment. When
it is time for life, live gracefully, for your life depends on it. When it is time for death, please die thoroughly, right to the death! Both life and
death are just this life. I believe that Dōgen is telling us to live fully this moment, to take this moment on its own terms and to live it well,
making it the best moment that we can.
What is more, when we drop from our mind any ideas of opposites, such as start and finish, birth and death, might we know something
that transcends and embraces them? It is like the steps and leaps of the dance. Before each step and after it, and as that one step itself, there is nothing but the dance flowing. The moon seems to rise in the evening and vanish at dawn, but in truth it is ever shining somewhere, and really has gone nowhere. There is something timeless, ever flowing and ever shining, at the heart of all the changes of time.
Not only can we experience each moment as all moments—much as we can perceive each moment of a single leap as embodying the
whole dance of all leaps flowing on—but we can also experience each moment as the only moment beyond comparison. When a dancer
leaps, leaping is just leaping; it is not descending. When the dancer descends and the leap ends, descending is just descending; it is not
rising. Each step in each moment is the only step in that particular place and time. Each event of our lives is also the only moment in that
place and time, so it is beyond comparison.
Birth is a situation complete in this moment. Death is a situation
complete in this moment. They are the same as winter
and spring. We do not say that winter becomes spring,
nor do we say that spring becomes summer.
All the seasons of life—birth, youth, aging, and dying—are just like this. Each is its own season, each is just the shining moon. So, winter
is just winter, summer wholly summer, fall but fall, and spring is totally spring. In winter, live well and fully in winter, likewise in the
other times. In each season, there is nothing else but this. So how is time even passing?
Everything happens in its own season. So it is for life and death.