Just as you thought you understood...

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  • Taigu
    Blue Mountain White Clouds Hermitage Priest
    • Aug 2008
    • 2710

    Just as you thought you understood...

    Because the flowers blooming
    In our original home
    Are everlasting,
    Though springtimes may come and go
    Their colors do not fade
    .


    It is said that although sitting takes place in space and time, it is not bound by space and time. The original home is a simple abode of not identifying with any role, not clinging to anything, not following any particular thought. It is right here, where we sit. If we read everlasting as something like eternal, we are missing the mark. Because of the very reality of impermanence nothing can go for ever, and certainly not time. Everlasting might mean here, through changes and seasons, always available, always open for us. And practice- realization cannot be seen and compared to cherry blossoms in Spring, as you stop sitting, it carries on blossoming, as you sit,the whole,reality sits with you. Beyond the traditional idea of time, it is still sitting now. Flowers blooming Dogen uses a plural here because there is not a single you, we appear and disappear every signle moment, the person that sat in front of this screen and the person reading these lines are different. The feeling of continuity, a single self going through life, is a very nice illusion, we constantly disappear and reappear, and the speed of the process gives us a feeling of continuity. Constantly changing is our everlasting state...you see how the first interpretation of his poem can be misleading, people reading this without the sitting experience would inevitably project a very dualistic and fake reading like: awakening is eternal and the trivial and dark reality of illusion cannot touch it. Countless springtimes will come and go, countless "you" will appear and die and yet, colors are always fresh, vibrant, vivid. Not because the flower lasts. Just the opposite.

    All conditioned phenomena
    Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
    Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning;
    Thusly should they be contemplated.



    This verse of the Diamond sutra is generally understood as the sole description of how transitory and fast phenomena can be...life is short.
    Well, if I may, it describes exactly what Dogen points out, what is described here is not the duration of the phenomena but the speed of its transformation, before and after. As a young teenager, I remember reading an old copy of the diamond sutra in my bed at night time. i was mesmerized by this verse. But I could not undertand this, thinking my life as as fast as a flash of lightening. Now, countless flashes of lightening and endless flowers- lives.

    Gassho

    Taigu
    Last edited by Taigu; 09-23-2012, 12:22 AM.
  • pinoybuddhist
    Member
    • Jun 2010
    • 462

    #2


    Rafael

    Comment

    • Mp

      #3
      Beautiful Taigu, thank you.

      Gassho
      Michael

      Comment

      • Jinyo
        Member
        • Jan 2012
        • 1957

        #4
        Thank you Taigu,

        having a very difficult time with making family decisions just now. Clearing out the memories contained in our
        parents home (of fifty years). Revisiting how we are often moulded/constrained and defined by others - and they by us - can
        be shattering (but also healing).

        I take joy, peace and comfort in these 'countless flashes of lightening and endless flowers' - beautifully expressed - thank you again.

        Gassho

        Willow

        Comment

        • Heisoku
          Member
          • Jun 2010
          • 1338

          #5
          Thank you so much Taigu.
          Was this a train ride?

          Countless flowers bloom, fade and bud
          Endless Gateless Gate
          Just this moment
          Heisoku 平 息
          Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. (Basho)

          Comment

          • Seiryu
            Member
            • Sep 2010
            • 620

            #6
            Thank you for that
            Humbly,
            清竜 Seiryu

            Comment

            • Kyonin
              Dharma Transmitted Priest
              • Oct 2010
              • 6748

              #7
              Yes, I'm home.

              Thank you Taigu.

              Gassho,

              Kyonin
              Hondō Kyōnin
              奔道 協忍

              Comment

              • Shokai
                Dharma Transmitted Priest
                • Mar 2009
                • 6426

                #8
                Life is uncertain, eat desert first
                合掌,生開
                gassho, Shokai

                仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

                "Open to life in a benevolent way"

                https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

                Comment

                • Myozan Kodo
                  Friend of Treeleaf
                  • May 2010
                  • 1901

                  #9
                  Taigu,
                  Thank you.

                  I see the springtimes still come and go. Each springtime has no relation to the other. Each is new. But is there karma at work? Consequences, but only on a mundane level?

                  Gassho
                  Myozan

                  Comment

                  • Taigu
                    Blue Mountain White Clouds Hermitage Priest
                    • Aug 2008
                    • 2710

                    #10
                    Mundane level?
                    Nothing is mundane and cause and effect can be seen everywhere.
                    Spring is but a word, in the full activity of Spring, no Spring, just the activity of Spring.
                    Or countless Springs?Spring springing and vanishing and springing again.

                    Gassho

                    Taigu

                    Comment

                    • Shohei
                      Member
                      • Oct 2007
                      • 2854

                      #11
                      Thank you Taigu!
                      Everlasting... for the time being!

                      I will love you forever I said this before and meant it and yet here I am with my partner, again I have said this very thing before and will again and mean every breath of it.
                      I have said forever is for as long as it lasts. Forever is the the start and end of that love anything beyond or before is not this love and yet it too will pass.
                      Not something to be down about or an excuse not to put for the effort or let it all go to pot.

                      All things are like this and it opens my eyes to how precious this is, all of it, life! it passes its gone and we grieve, celebrate and at times find it hard to get past/let die.

                      That is how I experience everlasting/forever.

                      Comment

                      • Kaishin
                        Member
                        • Dec 2010
                        • 2322

                        #12
                        Thank you, Taigu.

                        _/\_
                        Thanks,
                        Kaishin (開心, Open Heart)
                        Please take this layman's words with a grain of salt.

                        Comment

                        • Dokan
                          Friend of Treeleaf
                          • Dec 2010
                          • 1222

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Taigu
                          Spring springing and vanishing and springing again.
                          Gassho.

                          Dokan
                          We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
                          ~Anaïs Nin

                          Comment

                          • Myozan Kodo
                            Friend of Treeleaf
                            • May 2010
                            • 1901

                            #14
                            All this activity is sacred ... and nothing sacred about this activity.
                            Thank you.
                            Gassho
                            Myozan

                            Comment

                            • Myoku
                              Member
                              • Jul 2010
                              • 1491

                              #15
                              Thank you Taigu,
                              Gassho
                              Myoku

                              Comment

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