BOOK OF EQUANIMITY- case 26

[Taigu]

like a silver bowl filled with snow
like a heron hidden in the moonlight

Tozan Ryokai, Jewel Mirror Samadhi

On a quiet evening in my tatch roofed hut,
alone I play the lute with no string.
Its meloddy enters wind and cloud,
mingles deeply with a flowing stream,
fills out the dark valley, blows through the vast forest, then disappears.
Other than those who hear emptiness,
who will capture this rare sound?

Ryokan ( Sky Above, Great Wind, Kazuaki Tanahashi)

Nagarjuna appeared on his seat and taught the verse:

This body manifests a full moon
expressing the bodies of all Buddhas,
teaching that has no particular shape,
expressing that revealing is neither sound nor form.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Buddha nature (Kazuaki Tanahashi)


Kyozan points to a snow lion and says: "can anyone go beyond this color?" Ummon says:"right then, I'd push it down for him" and Seccho later adds " he only knows how to push it down, not how to raise it up."

in the Appreciatory Verse it is written: (...) Though pure light illumines the eye, it is like being lost from home. Though clarity turns the body, it falls into a rank. We Zen students have nothing to rely on! (...)


As many people have pointed out, we are full of ideas, stuffed with opinions and views. That's what the human world claims from us, that's what we think we should offer people. The way out is to go beyond, leap out of this bag of skin and flesh, merely a bag of smelly thoughts, leap into what is not known and what we cannot even rely on. The original color, the original and primary sound, stringless lute of Ryokan, merging of form and emptiness of Tozan, cannot be bottled or processed.Here and now, what is our true form? Here and now, how do we give it a go, a chance to bloom? What is the meaning of "to go beyond"? As a very young Zen sitter, I used to think of something really great, like the action of a superheroe getting somewhere after an incredible flight, I used to imagine a beyond, manufacture a beyond in which I could eventually land. As I grew smaller and dropped ideas of making and doing, the beyond felt just as close as my nostrils. The beyond was nothing but this here and now without the extra, the bagage, the stories, the garbage, the plots, the "I wish I could", without was the way where everything could be with me.

Not even being attached here to this. Not to dwell anywhere is key. Could be another trap, and we would then go dead circle.

How would you go beyond? How would you not dwell? How do you put up with this mad path that asks you to give up everything in exchange of a big heap of nothing you don't even look as being your own? How do you enjoy being fooled again and again and loosing so much?

gassho


Taigu