Salvation of all living beings

[Ivan Akhmatov]

Greetings, dear Friends!

I have a very nagging question:

How does the Soto doctrine generally interpret the salvation of all living beings? How is this achieved?

[Jundo]

Hi Ivan,

The following is the most common perspective, I believe.

All beings are, ultimately, already "saved" with nothing lacking in the placeless-place free of "me, you, this and that," all lack, time, anything to measure, all coming and going ... all is already Buddha.

But most sentient beings just don't know it. Just as important, they do not act like it and bring it to life.

Sentient beings' heads are filled with division, excess desires, hate and jealousy, feeling of lack, attachments and the like. That obscures the Buddha.

Thus, sentient beings are saved when we help them realize such that all already are, and just as importantly, how to live accordingly ... with peace, generosity, balance, moderation, equanimity and acceptance and the like.

Also, in this current world, we also say that beings need saving in other ways: The hungry need food and a safe home, peace, children need education, opportunity, and medical care. This last is a modern "engaged" view, but I believe that it is also "saving sentient beings.

All that is the "salvation of sentient beings."

It is not really all "living beings" (although all is Buddha too) but mostly "salvation of sentient beings." That makes some space for some animals too perhaps.

Some folks get bothered by the word "salvation" because of their experience with the other religion. So, sometimes we say "rescue" or the like. It is just a word.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Ivan Akhmatov]

Well, now I get it! Thank you very much for the detailed and detailed answer, Venerable Jundo!

[Jundo]

Well, now I get it! Thank you very much for the detailed and detailed answer, Venerable Jundo!

Feeling rescued, Ivan??

Gassho, J
stlah

[Bion]

If allowed, and I'd usually not interject after Jundo explains something, I just want to add a little remark regarding the how is this achieved part of the question and as always, please take this as my own ideas and sprinkle some salt before accepting them.. One aspect to ponder as well, I believe, is that the act of saving beings begins with one's own immediate practice. Since the salvation we talk about has to do with removing delusion and awakening beings to their true nature, we can think of Shakyamuni Buddha's first statement after his enlightenment: I with all living beings have achieved enlightenment. Since from the Mahayana perspective, at least, no separation can be found between anything, our diligent engagement in practice-realization is shared with everything else, so as long as I experience it, there is not an atom anywhere that can possibly exist that is not part of this enlightenment.

Gassho
sat lah

[Jundo]

If allowed, and I'd usually not interject after Jundo explains something, I just want to add a little remark regarding the how is this achieved part of the question and as always, please take this as my own ideas and sprinkle some salt before acceptting them.. One aspect to ponder as well, I believe, is that the act of saving beings begins with one's own immediate practice. Since the salvation we talk about has to do with removing delusion and awakening beings to their true nature, we can think of Shakyamuni Buddha's first statement after his enlightenment: I with all living beings have achieved enlightenment. Since from the Mahayana perspective, at least, no separation can be found between anything, our diligent engagement in practice-realization is shared with everything else, so as long as I experience it, there is not an atom anywhere that can possibly exist that is not part of this enlightenment.

Gassho
sat lah

Yes, what you say is 100% true.

But it is also 100% in other situations, such as just walking the dog or watching baseball on TV or eating Canadian "all-dressed" chips, and 100% true when we help Ivan understand (which is also 100% our practice) and 100% true when we feed the hungry, etc. and 100% when we program a Buddhist A.I. ...

So, it is always 100% true. But most people do not realize this 100%.

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

[Bion]

Yes, what you say is 100% true.

But it is also 100% in other situations, such as just walking the dog or watching baseball on TV or eating Canadian "all-dressed" chips, and 100% true when we help Ivan understand (which is also 100% our practice) and 100% true when we feed the hungry, etc. and 100% when we program a Buddhist A.I. ...

So, it is always 100% true. But most people do not realize this 100%.

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

I am thinking of poutine right now cause of you and I am hungryyyyyyyyyyyy

Gassho
sat lah

[Ivan Akhmatov]

Feeling rescued, Ivan??

Gassho, J
stlah

Oh yeah! Entirely

[Ivan Akhmatov]

If allowed, and I'd usually not interject after Jundo explains something, I just want to add a little remark regarding the how is this achieved part of the question and as always, please take this as my own ideas and sprinkle some salt before accepting them.. One aspect to ponder as well, I believe, is that the act of saving beings begins with one's own immediate practice. Since the salvation we talk about has to do with removing delusion and awakening beings to their true nature, we can think of Shakyamuni Buddha's first statement after his enlightenment: I with all living beings have achieved enlightenment. Since from the Mahayana perspective, at least, no separation can be found between anything, our diligent engagement in practice-realization is shared with everything else, so as long as I experience it, there is not an atom anywhere that can possibly exist that is not part of this enlightenment.

Gassho
sat lah

Thank you so much for your reply!

This is what interests me the most, namely, the practice of zazen is directly the salvation of living beings. After all, Dogen said that practice is realization, practice is inseparable from enlightenment. Accordingly, this enlightenment is not only for me alone, but for all living beings!

Gassho

[Ivan Akhmatov]

I am extremely grateful to you, friends, for your answers. You have helped me a lot! I simply have no one to ask, and I live in a region where there is not a single Buddhist for hundreds of kilometers, let alone adherents of Soto-shu.

Many thanks, dear Sangha, many many thanks, Treeleaf Zendo!

Best wishes

Ivan

Gassho

[Anthony]

This is a great thread. It's very helpful when elements of doctrine can be connected directly to our practice and our daily life. Thank you, Jundo and Bion for your explanations.

gassho,
anthony stalag

[Jundo]

Since from the Mahayana perspective, at least, no separation can be found between anything, our diligent engagement in practice-realization is shared with everything else, so as long as I experience it, there is not an atom anywhere that can possibly exist that is not part of this enlightenment.

I wish to run a bit more with Bion's beautiful comment ...

One wonderful insight of this way is that all things are all other things, and each other and the whole thing. It is as if each thing, being and moment of time were each other thing, being and moment, and everything and the wholething ... which is free of all separate things and timeless too!

We are literally the face of each other, such that the bird is the fish flying in the sky, and the fish is the bird swimming in the sea. I am Ivan who is Bion and the cat ... and the rusty tin can ... and the bloody bullet on a battlefield, and the wounded soldier ... everything a face of everything else. The cat is me sitting in my own lap, Bion is the bullet sitting Zazen in Spain. Each thing fully holds and is each other thing too so, for example, every hair on the cat contains the whole cat ... every drop of the ocean has the whole ocean within with not a drop left out ... the bullet has Ivan and me and Bion and the cat in its powder chamber ...

It is something like saying that I am the sea and you are the sea and the cat is just the sea ... and the sea is just the sea ... so because sea = sea = sea, thus I = you = cat ...

... like that. You see?

So, when one realizes so, every breath and gesture is the whole world, and each thing, breathing and gesturing. When I gesture, the cat gestures. When Bion breathes, every moment of time breathes. When the bullet is fired, Ivan is fired.

When we act in ignorance, the whole world is divided and cloudy. When one being ... a Buddha ... is enlightened, the whole of reality is enlightened (even if most of us, alas, do not realize so.)




Something like that.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Kokuu]

Hi Ivan

That is a very good question and definitely one that is important to ask if you are going to take the bodhisattva vow!

As Jundo says, one view is that all beings are already saved by being beyond birth and death, and coming and going, being unborn, deathless and not separate from the universe itself, one whole ocean rather than separate waves.

As the Buddha says in The Diamond Sutra (section 3):

“[T]hose who would now set forth on the bodhisattva path should give birth to the thought: ‘However many beings there are in whatever realms of being might exist… I shall liberate them all. And though I thus liberate countless beings, not a single being is liberated.”

However, there is also a koan that says “All things return to the one [the unborn, deathless totality of life]. What does the one return to?” (The Blue Cliff Record case 45, Joshu's Seven Pound Shirt)

The one returns to our lives, as they unfold moment-by-moment, and breath-by-breath. The totality of existence is expressed through each sentient being, and even insentient being, that we meet and interact with.

For me, saving all sentient beings is being deeply intimate with all things, meeting them where they are, and caring for them with our whole-hearted presence.

Just this, right here, right now, in each and every moment.

Practice and enlightenment arising together ceaselessly.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jundo]

Kokuu

For me, saving all sentient beings is being deeply intimate with all things, meeting them where they are, and caring for them with our whole-hearted presence.

Just this, right here, right now, in each and every moment.

Because each being is all beings, you me and the cat ... just helping the person right in front of us, in any big or small way, is a boundless helping of all beings. Just this small gesture of help or compassion by one's own hands for one other person is Buddha's hands helping the whole world and the cat.

Lovely!

Gassho, J
stlah

[Ivan Akhmatov]

Hi Ivan

That is a very good question and definitely one that is important to ask if you are going to take the bodhisattva vow!

As Jundo says, one view is that all beings are already saved by being beyond birth and death, and coming and going, being unborn, deathless and not separate from the universe itself, one whole ocean rather than separate waves.

As the Buddha says in The Diamond Sutra (section 3):

“[T]hose who would now set forth on the bodhisattva path should give birth to the thought: ‘However many beings there are in whatever realms of being might exist… I shall liberate them all. And though I thus liberate countless beings, not a single being is liberated.”

However, there is also a koan that says “All things return to the one [the unborn, deathless totality of life]. What does the one return to?” (The Blue Cliff Record case 45, Joshu's Seven Pound Shirt)

The one returns to our lives, as they unfold moment-by-moment, and breath-by-breath. The totality of existence is expressed through each sentient being, and even insentient being, that we meet and interact with.

For me, saving all sentient beings is being deeply intimate with all things, meeting them where they are, and caring for them with our whole-hearted presence.

Just this, right here, right now, in each and every moment.

Practice and enlightenment arising together ceaselessly.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Many many thanks for your reply, Venerable Kokuu!

Ivan
Gassho