Dogen Quote

Quote:

Originally Posted by chessie

This quote is from today's Daily Zen site. Can someone let me know which writing this comes from? I'd like to read it more, and in context:

Stop searching for phrases and chasing after words.
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
Your body-mind of itself will drop
off and your original face will appear.
If you want to attain just this,
immediately practice just this.

- Dogen (1200-1253)

Thanks and gassho, Ann

Hi Ann,

That is from Master Dogen's Fukanzazengi (the "Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen"), which is Dogen's most basic "How To Non-Do Zazen" and about the first thing he wrote when he came back from China.

Here are some other versions (I believe that the one you quote is by Tanahashi) ...

So cease the intellectual work of studying sayings and chasing words.
Learn the backward step of turning light and reflecting.
Body and mind naturally drop off, and the original face appears.
If we want to attain the matter of the ineffable, we should urgently practice the matter of the ineffable. (Nishijima-Cross)

Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want to realize such, get to work on such right now. (Soto Zen Text Project)

So, in other wordless words ...

Practice Shikantaza!

Drop away the constant thinking of this and that, getting tangled up in what you take to be the outside world and all you think about it, how you run towards it or push it away ... turn inward ... one's little light will shine ... the self (body and mind) will be out of its clutching, dividing, judging, fearing job ... and so suchness will appear, all just as it is, clarity will manifest ... Buddha will show his Face as your Face ...

... read more here ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/with ... ethod.html

Gassho, Jundo