Let The Mystery Be

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  • Jundo
    Treeleaf Founder and Priest
    • Apr 2006
    • 40311

    Let The Mystery Be

    Hi,

    Somebody wrote me with a very interesting question when I posted on another thread this folk song ... about not knowing where we came from or are going when we die. They thought Zen, Enlightenment and such was supposed to clear all that up!

    I wrote to them that Enlightenment absolutely, thoroughly, no doubt-about-it clears everything up (that's why the Way has been going strong for timeless millenia! Those old Zen Masters weren't fibbing).

    And at the same time, it doesn't clear everything up.

    How to explain?


    Suppose this life and world is like a big ice cream Sundae! It is sweet and rich (although there may be some things in there ... like the nuts and cherry pits ... that are hard to chew and digest). This Way will teach one through and through that you are the Sundae and the Sundae is you in the richest, most wondrous sense, as much as the vanilla, chocolate syrup and cherry (the nuts two). It is a life-world-you-everyone-Buddha Sundae. A Onedae. Yummy! Dig In!.

    (however, it may not provide certain other information ... like the license plate of the truck that delivered the ice cream to the ice cream store, the address of the ice cream making company, or the name of the president of the company and his wife's shoe size. Maybe science or other religions will have a thing or two to say about some of that, but we Zen folks are happy to savor ... to be ... the life-world-you-everyone-Buddha Sundae whatever the case). ++

    ++ although everything in moderation ... even life's hot fudge sauce!

    Or (going from the sweet to the salty) suppose this life-world-self is like the ocean, and this Practice lets us dive right in ... be immersed in ... be so intimately whole with the sea ... that the sea is me, me is the sea without the least separation or divisions. Both the stormy sea or the clear days, is a big, whole, flowing Budda-sea-flowing-dance! Every taste of sea salt right this moment holds all the saltiness of all the sea, everywhere and for all time, right on the tip of our tongue ... for that taste is the taste of everything.

    However, even so, who knows where this sea stretches, the name of every fish, how many grains of sand on every coastline? What are its chemical properties? Where did the sea come from, and where (if anywhere) is it flowing to? Who (if anyone) made the sea?

    But even though we may not know all such things, we realize that where it flows is where we flow ... because we are the "flowing" in the most intimate sense. We may not know exactly where from or where to, but we have some deep suspicion that it is a good direction. We are like waves that rise up for a time, then fade back ... our life and death. But if the waves are just the water, so what is there to die? We might say that we come back as the other waves that spring from our wave ... and on and on. Dying is all wet!

    However, whatever the case, what is most important is how we swim now, with grace and balance. Don't flip about, choke and sink! .

    Anyway, this Way provides many answers, clear and true. For other things, it answers that we can be right at home with not knowing, nor needing to know. Letting the mysteries be.

    Something like that.

    I love this song, and letting the mysteries be:



    Gassho, J
    Last edited by Jundo; 02-21-2013, 02:21 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
  • Hans
    Member
    • Mar 2007
    • 1853

    #2
    Hello Jundo,

    keep them country songs coming please

    Gassho,

    Hans Chudo Mongen

    Comment

    • Myoku
      Member
      • Jul 2010
      • 1491

      #3
      Hi Jundo,
      thank you. I came to religion because of my mind asking what life is all about, why I get up every day, work on something which isnt being used just a few years later (I'm a programmer), why I put so much effort into things that go away, and when at the end only death is waiting for me. Zen perfectly cleared it up. I dont know more than before, except maybe that there are reasons for asking such questions, fears, ideas and that the mind is famous to want to know, to control. Is that any wsidom ? I dont know, as much as I dont know most of the things that other people around me pretend to know. And thats ok! How often in my life people though I would just have no interest in things, I would not be engaged. Ha, yes, a lot of searching has been dropped, its ok to search, to not find and to sad and and and ... however, its ok to drop all that and just sit. I think that I dont want to know any more. Now lets see if at some point I dont want to control anymore and just flow as you say. I'm very interested in that journey, which is not only a personal thing anymore,its the search and adventure of all of us.
      I'm just rambling, sorry for that.
      Gassho
      Myoku

      Comment

      • Rich
        Member
        • Apr 2009
        • 2614

        #4
        great song!
        _/_
        Rich
        MUHYO
        無 (MU, Emptiness) and 氷 (HYO, Ice) ... Emptiness Ice ...

        https://instagram.com/notmovingmind

        Comment

        • Risho
          Member
          • May 2010
          • 3179

          #5
          Gassho,

          Risho
          Email: risho.treeleaf@gmail.com

          Comment

          • Jigetsu
            Member
            • May 2011
            • 236

            #6
            This is a great analogy Jundo, thank you. Also, I want ice cream now.
            _/\_
            Jigetsu

            Comment

            • Genshin
              Member
              • Jan 2013
              • 467

              #7
              Beautiful analogy and music. Thank you Jundo.

              Gassho
              Matt

              Comment

              • Eika
                Member
                • Sep 2007
                • 806

                #8
                Iris Dement's other stuff is good too.

                This tune has been a favorite of mine since I heard it on the soundtrack to Little Buddha some years ago.

                _/\_

                Eika


                Sent from tapatalk
                [size=150:m8cet5u6]??[/size:m8cet5u6] We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life---John Cage

                Comment

                • Oheso
                  Member
                  • Jan 2013
                  • 294

                  #9
                  A child said What is grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
                  How could I answer the child? - I do not know what it is anymore than he

                  -w.w.
                  and neither are they otherwise.

                  Comment

                  • Kyonin
                    Treeleaf Priest / Engineer
                    • Oct 2010
                    • 6746

                    #10
                    Getting to know the ugly in life and accepting it all as part of the same package is one of the biggest teachings I have ever gotten.

                    And then we just flow.

                    Thank you for this teaching, Jundo. (I loved the song too!)

                    Gassho,

                    Kyonin
                    Hondō Kyōnin
                    奔道 協忍

                    Comment

                    • Heishu
                      Member
                      • Sep 2012
                      • 484

                      #11


                      Heishu


                      “Blessed are the flexible, for they never get bent out of shape." Author Unknown

                      Comment

                      • Shokai
                        Treeleaf Priest
                        • Mar 2009
                        • 6393

                        #12
                        Also, I want ice cream now.
                        or do we want it all? NOW!

                        Thanks Jundo

                        gassho
                        合掌,生開
                        gassho, Shokai

                        仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

                        "Open to life in a benevolent way"

                        https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

                        Comment

                        • Jundo
                          Treeleaf Founder and Priest
                          • Apr 2006
                          • 40311

                          #13
                          Remember your diets ... everything in balance and moderation! Even life's chocolate sauce.

                          Gassho, J
                          ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

                          Comment

                          • Jundo
                            Treeleaf Founder and Priest
                            • Apr 2006
                            • 40311

                            #14
                            Another wonderful Iris DeMent song about how we choose to live this life right before us ...

                            Last edited by Jundo; 02-19-2013, 02:23 AM.
                            ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

                            Comment

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

                              #15
                              Thank you Bro for this.
                              To leave mystery to mystery. And truly accept, go with it, fight and surrender ( at once, it is great!).
                              As i was tumbling down these stairs or inder the needle of the surgeon, accptance made it almost painless. Seeing all these aspects of Kannon looking after a guy like me, looking after other guys in a far worse situation...Humbling.
                              And, at the same time, considering the time it took for commuters to come to this gainjin covered in blood ( fear, not wanting to have trouble), waiting in the ambulance pissing blood for 45 minutes when all hospitals were refusing me ( part of the dance too), calling my school who refused to help: a bunch of smiling Japanese secretaries and not a single one has send a single email ever since...Humbling.
                              Dying and living, great eye opener and endless bows to all my teachers, the kind ones and not so kind ones.

                              Chocolate is a good idea, now.

                              and all is well, the good,the bad, whatever.

                              gassho


                              Taigu
                              Last edited by Taigu; 02-19-2013, 03:21 AM.

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