Something Missing

[Kokuu]

'Realization is the state of ambiguity'

I couldn't find this quote in my Nishijima/Cross translation of Genjokoan. Does it occur at the same place? Has the translation been revised at some point?

Looking back in the fascicle Dogen says - "when one side is illumined, the other side is dark." Early in dharma practice it is possible to rest in the emptiness of everything and feel that is it. Later on, we notice that we are ignoring the missing relative side.

Thank you for all of the answers

Deep bows
Kokuu
#sattoday

[Jundo]

I couldn't find this quote in my Nishijima/Cross translation of Genjokoan. Does it occur at the same place? Has the translation been revised at some point?

Looking back in the fascicle Dogen says - "when one side is illumined, the other side is dark." Early in dharma practice it is possible to rest in the emptiness of everything and feel that is it. Later on, we notice that we are ignoring the missing relative side.

Thank you for all of the answers

Deep bows
Kokuu
#sattoday

Yes. The version that was included in the published book version of the full Shobogenzo was tweeked here and there, and says "Realization is the state of ambiguity itself". The 3rd chapter here, paragraph 93 ...

http://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/BDK/bdk_search.php?md=normal&num=B2582_1

The version on the Zensite collection says "Realization is not always definite."

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan8.htm#nish11

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday

[Kokuu]

Yes. The version that was included in the published book version of the full Shobogenzo was tweeked here and there, and says "Realization is the state of ambiguity itself". The 3rd chapter here, paragraph 93 ...

Thank you, Jundo. I've got it now!

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

[Tanjin]

Perhaps when you know of and think of dharma, the thought of dharma separates "you" from dharma: "you" need to get "there". When not thinking of dharma, dharma is always arising.

Gassho, sat today

Thank you for this observation!

Gassho,
Jimmy
Sattoday

[Jinyo]

That particular phrasing hit me, too, so I looked it up to see where it came from. It's from the Nishijima/Cross translation of Genjokoan. I've read the Tanahashi/Aitken translation, and I know I didn't get that out of it, so I went looking for other versions. Turns out there are a bunch available online:

This site has 8 of them:

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan8.htm

The Nishijima/Cross version is online here:

http://www.wordtrade.com/religion/buddhism/shobogenzo.htm

I think that's 9 different translations.

So, anyway, thank you for sharing that quote, I love it.

Gassho, Dudley
#sat

Thanks Dudley,
it's interesting to note the variations in translation.

Gassho

Willow

sat today

[Rich]

You are dharma, so I don't understand Dogen at all.

SAT today

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[Jakuden]

I've always had a more pedestrian understanding of this passage. To me, he's basically saying that greater awareness reveals our limited understanding. Conversely, limited awareness makes us think we understand everything.

Immediately following this passage is an example that I think clarifies this:


Dogen, Zen Master. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's <i>Shobo Genzo</i> (Kindle Locations 2411-2414). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

Late to this party, what a great thread! My understanding was similar to Kaishin's, that when fully aware one realizes that the Dharma can't really be understood, that we are limited to sight/sound/taste/touch/object of mind, and there is so much more. Thanks for all the helpful discussion everybody.

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

[zendruid]

This is a wonderful question and thread.
Here is my two cents, take what you want & throw out the rest.

“When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you may assume that it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.” (Kazuaki Tanahashi translation)

I believe that when a person does not fill themselves with dharma they show to the world as a fool. But when a person does fill themselves with dharma they lack life experiences that are shared by lay sanga members and the general public. Its more of a statement that when one chooses to follow a monastic life separate from society there is the lacking of human interaction and discussion that takes place. As the member is filled with some dharma they feel complete and whole because they have still the recent memories of societal interactions and dharma. Once they continue on the journey even longer then a lacking develops with our minds wanting for human interactions as it once was used to since the memories have faded away. They are not gone but only faded in the background.

These are just my thoughts on the matter, and I will freely admit to my interpretation being skewed or wrong. But this is what strikes to me in my mind over the thinking of the quote. I wish peace upon all and may peace and love flow out from all your actions.

Gassho

[Jinyo]

Late to this party, what a great thread! My understanding was similar to Kaishin's, that when fully aware one realizes that the Dharma can't really be understood, that we are limited to sight/sound/taste/touch/object of mind, and there is so much more. Thanks for all the helpful discussion everybody.

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

Hi Jakuden,

- but is to be 'fully aware' and to 'understand' the same thing - or at least both sides of the same coin? I think it's the expression of our awareness/understanding in language that eludes us?

The mystical aspect of Dogen does seem to hint at so much more .... but again we can't fully grasp at it through words - though he does have a pretty good go
I feel more relaxed with his obscurity if I just read him as a poet.

Gassho

Willow

sat today

[Muirghein]

Emptiness. Something missing, is something found.

Morgan,
Sat Today.

[Tai Shi]

I have been concerned that universities and colleges do, in fact, encourage and teach students to draw supporting materials from their own life experiences, an yeit would seem that in Soto Zen practice the student is taught to let such sporting experiences drop away. Thus the Zen student becomes a meaningless vehicle to shed Suffering. Is it so that teachers like Dogen would encourage all personality and evidence of existence, and supportive material to be annihilated to obtain a state reaching out of the self. University professors of authority, the authority James Moffet, claims that this experience through expressive writing writing can and does lead the student supported ideas and creativity, and at the center of all experience is the creative process which James Moffet and theorists of all writing draw from experience to create at the center the ultimate beauty, poetry (also fiction and the personal essay) to express the ultimate good which is beauty. Does Zen conscience advocate the destruction of this beauty in order to obtain something outside the beauty of the poem. Even mystics like St. Francis of Assisi and St. John of the Cross, and even modern Poets seeking the experience universal to enlightenment draw from the experience of the Buddha (the Nobel prize poet T S Eliot, The Four Quartets and others) and enlightenment drawing from the personal experience of Siddhartha as do German writers like Hesse (another Nobel prize winner) in the theater of the mind in Steppen Wolf) and these writers who as a student of great literature I have been taught to emulate through my own writing and personal writing and thereby experience called experience leading to love, as in William Blake in his later work, that Love, the giving of the self to rise above the self to save another. This is true in my own life as expressed in my love of my wife for whom I would sacrifice all and I have written of in Meditations on Gratitude my second book. Is it that the Buddha as seen in Zen expects us to give up these supporting sacrifices.
Tai Shi
std
Gassho

[Jishin]

I think teachers became know for a particular teaching tool and used it over and over to teach. Like Gutei's finger zen. Dogen's method was practice-realization. This being so, whatever he says points to Zazen. Although what he says may be unclear, who cares? He just wanted people to sit. That is Dogen's one finger zen. Sit sit sit. Period.

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[alan.r]

Hello. Great thread. Thank you Kokuu.

I have to agree with Kaishin. To me, the phrase, at first, is impenetrable for some reason. But then I just look at the verbs. "May assume" and "understand." I think we have to take these at face value. The first, "may assume," clearly indicates assumption. The definition of assume is believing something is true without actual proof that it is so. So, to me, the first sentence deals with delusion - I believe that I am Alan and I'm the most important thing in existence. This is our deluded nature: we believe we know, but we don't. The second has to do with realization. When we sit, yes, things are whole, but we have to go back to the cushion again and again. We have to polish the tile, but not to become buddha, but just to polish. In this way, we settle further and further into (as Okumura puts it) "immeasurable reality." We wake up to our delusion; we wake up the fact that our practice is not complete - everything might be complete and whole, but our practice isn't.

This all relates, to me, to the part of Genjokoan when Dogen says "Those who greatly realize delusion are buddhas." That is the meaning of "When Dharms fills your whole body and mind, you understand something is missing." When we see our delusion, we have to keep practicing! Likewise, when Dogen says "Those who are greatly deluded within realization are living beings" is similar to "When the dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you may assume that it is sufficient." Here, we are deluded in realization - in other words, we are living beings who are within this vast reality, yet we feel we are Andy or Beth, and that being Andy or Beth is complete, and we think (or don't know) that there is no vast reality, thus are unable to see that it's this very certainty of self that is causing our suffering.

Anyway, that's my take.

Gassho,
Alan
sat today

[Kokuu]

Tai Shi,

Quoting from Genjokoan again we find Dogen saying:

"To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly."

Emptiness is not in fact empty and in fact contains everything. The no trace of realization contains poetry, creative writing and great art. Artists and musicians often say that they feels the creativity moves through them rather than comes from them. There are many great Zen calligraphers, brush artists and poets who find that creativity occurs when the self falls away and Native American medicine men call this "becoming a hollow bone". We are a conduit for life rather than stand alone entity. This mirrors another part of Genjokoan:

"To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and illuminate the self is awakening."

I would say that great art, and particularly creative pursuits carried out under the auspices of Zen are an example of myriad things coming forth and illuminating the self.

So, with my humble and basic understanding of Dogen, I would offer that the essence of Zen practice is not to destroy anything but instead to empty ourselves of any fixed ideas or position, to empty our bowl so that life may flow through us rather than stagnate.

Life, and awakening is both an intensely personal experience and one that has nothing to do with us whatsoever.

I hope that makes sense rather than sounding like jargon.

Deep bows
Kokuu
#sattoday

[Mp]

The essence of Zen practice is not to destroy anything but instead to empty ourselves of any fixed ideas or position, to empty our bowl so that life may flow through us rather than stagnate.

Lovely, thank you Kokuu. =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today


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