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Thread: Something Missing

  1. #1

    Something Missing

    In Shōbōgenzō Genjōkoan, Dōgen says the following:

    “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 must admit this confuses me a little (okay, more than a little). I imagine that most of us have had experiences in zazen when (as Dōgen expresses it) body and mind drop away (shinjin datsuraku) and there is an immediacy of experience in which there is no separation between us and experience. Things just are as they are and experience arises and falls away until a sense of self reaffirms itself.

    When I have experienced this state, it doesn’t feel like there is anything missing, so what does he mean by “you understand that something is missing”?

    Reflecting on this, I have come up with a few answers but none of them feel sufficient (perhaps 3 comes the closest). These are:

    1. Even when body and mind have dropped away, suffering remains in the world and we feel this both as the suffering of others and our own nagging sense of the unsatisfactory nature of life (dukkha).

    2. Our view of the world can only be partial and subjective. Even if we feel experience deeply and directly, there are missing elements of the experience. However, although this may be theoretically the case, there are times when experience feels whole and all-encompassing. Are we missing the experience of others which we can never grasp? I can never experience how the world feels to Jundo or Jika just as they can never know how I see the world.

    3. In the bodhisattva vows we vow to attain the way that is unattainable. Is the way always incomplete and moving? Whenever we think we have got it, we haven’t. The moment we say “this is it!” life has moved on. It is a constantly moving target and what is missing is some kind of solidity or firm ground to rest on.

    Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on this I would be grateful to hear them. This is not meant as a theoretical analysis of Dōgen but rather comparing what he says with how I and others experience zazen. Do you have this experience of something missing?

    Gassho
    Kokuu
    #sattoday

  2. #2
    "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."

    _______________

    Hello,

    Can't wrap my tongue around it. So, IMHO, in zazen a "dropped" body-mind cannot be filled with ANYTHING (i.e. sufficient).
    Whereas conscious body-mind can be filled with dharma truth yet be insufficient (something missing - i.e. dropped body-mind)

    Well, that's my story and am sticking with it.^^


    Gassho
    Myosha
    sat today
    Last edited by Myosha; 09-29-2016 at 12:07 PM.
    "Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"

  3. #3
    Hi Kokuu,

    I believe all of what is say is on the right trail, but it is very intellectual.

    My interpretation is a bit simpler.

    In sitting, there is realization of completeness, so wholly whole, there is no separation nor lack, not anything in need of adding or taking away or cure or repair.

    Nonetheless, in life, we must live as human beings in a world of broken pieces and muddy holes, this and that, separation, gain and lack, sickness and health, and much in need of repair.

    If you think that "Enlightenment" is only experiencing the first, you are sadly mistaken.

    If you only live lost in the second, you are sadly lost in ignorance.

    When the Dharma is truly embodied ... this "something is missing" is precisely this "already sufficient", one beyond one, not two. Sickness and health need no cure, thus take your medicine ... there is nothing in need of repair, so grab a hammer because there is so much broken to fix. Holes just whole, and pieces of peace. No sentient beings in need of saving from the first, so let us get down to the work of saving them.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 09-29-2016 at 12:12 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  4. #4
    Thank you, Jundo. That is greatly helpful and far more direct.

    Myosha, I think you got it more than I did.

    Gassho
    Kokuu
    #sattoday

  5. #5
    Mp
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    When the Dharma is truly embodied ... this "something is missing" is precisely this "already sufficient", one beyond one, not two. Sickness and health need no cure, thus take your medicine ... there is nothing in need of repair, so grab a hammer because there is so much broken to fix. Holes just whole, and pieces of peace. No sentient beings in need of saving from the first, so let us get down to the work of saving them.
    Thank you Kokuu, great question ... and thank you Jundo for your response. Perfectly imperfect and yet imperfectly perfect! =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    s@today

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    In Shōbōgenzō Genjōkoan, Dōgen says the following:

    “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.
    What he means is what is not said. What he really means is this:

    "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. When dharma fills you whole body and mind, you may not assume it is already sufficient. When dharma does not fill your body and mind, you don't understand that nothing is missing."

    Therefore, just sit, be whole, chop wood, fetch water --- for the benefit of others.

    My 2 cents.

    Gassho, Jishin, ST

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    “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.”
    Hi Kokuu,

    I could be totally wrong as usual, but I understand that when we sit everything is complete, what is. Perfect and unified.

    But when we live and study the dharma, there is no way in this life that we can know it all. The dharma is gigantic and it writes new chapters and sutras itself, all the time.

    Something is missing in the sense we need an eternity to realize it.

    But then again, when we sit we become eternal.

    Kyonin
    #SatToday
    Hondō Kyōnin
    奔道 協忍

  8. #8
    Hi Kokuu,

    interesting question! I'm no Dogen scholar, but I'll throw a few noodles at the wall and see if any of them stick...

    When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you may assume that it is already sufficient.


    Hm. Well, when we don’t apprehend the true state of reality, we may think that our lived experience tells us what reality is. But this is delusion. Our insights and feelings and sense experiences -- that is, the self’s understanding -- of reality, of wholeness, can only describe and reflect reality from the limited perspective of self, of body, of mind. And we cannot perceive what we cannot perceive, so we assume it is everything; we assume that we have seen, felt, experienced or understood the Wholeness of dharma. But our understanding as beings with a separate self, with a distinct body, with a singular mind, will always be incomplete: a shadow of the dharma, a shard of mirror reflecting only a sliver of the whole.

    When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.


    When dharma fills your body and mind, there is Wholeness abiding. This will never be ‘accomplished’ by the thinking mind nor even the compassionate heart. They deal with the subjective. When dharma fills your body and mind, there is no body and mind. There is just this. Some thing is missing, yes. All things are missing because there is no separation into this and that. Wholeness is beyond completeness.

    Here’s something funny: Dharma fills your body and mind already, but it is your body and mind that make it so hard to perceive!

    Let's not confuse understanding the dharma for dharma itself. If you are able to come to an intellectual understanding, or have some insight, or even have a deep experience of it in kensho, that’s great. But that is the map to the treasure, not the treasure itself. What’s most important, I think, is to embody the dharma, to let the dharma express itself as you. You can have all the understanding in the world, conceptually, but if you do not embody and express it with your life, it’s for nothing. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. Embodying the dharma is living in harmony with the flow of life as it is, responding appropriately, acting in accordance with whatever comes forward. Chop wood, carry water, fix what you can, find your way through the hard times, lessen suffering, save all beings. Savor life. Feel joy. Find gratitude. Be peace. Pry that heart open and let it love. Use your body and mind and this precious human lifetime as well as you can. Maintain the precepts. Live by vow. Check your compass again and again and re-orient when you find yourself wandering in circles or tumbling off the mountainside. And... have a little faith. When we do these things we allow the dharma to fill our body and mind. And understanding will come.

    Maybe.

    Gassho
    Byōkan
    sat today

  9. #9
    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
    求道芸化 Kyūdō Geika
    I am just a priest-in-training, please do not take anything I say as a teaching.

  10. #10
    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:

    For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of the ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like 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.
    Thanks,
    Kaishin (開心, Open Heart)
    Please take this layman's words with a grain of salt.

  11. #11
    Please take with a spoon of salt.

    Ever-tipping, ever-unfolding, ever-blooming. So beautiful and aching. Tying loose ends forever.


    Daizan
    Gassho
    Sat today
    .

  12. #12
    Lovely expressions.

    Dogen was a daring Dharma poet, and wild word-wiz. I think that the folks here are on the right track, all sensing what Dogen was on about. Ah, liberated amid the wild unpredictability and unknowable twisty turny mysteries of life.

    Maybe even Dogen could not express it more clearly, but somehow felt this.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  13. #13
    Hi Kokuu,

    good question - makes me realise that a lot of Dogen goes over my head.

    I can only come at this intuitively but when I sit and feel a sense of peace (beyond all the messy and usual fragmentation of a lived life) I am more acutely aware that most of the time something is indeed missing. I think we can only recognise the dharma (I think Nishijima expresses it as 'the realized law of the Universe) by living right at the centre of that fragmentation.
    We kinda need that messy binary opposition to recognise anything at all

    I find Dogen pretty obscure but I like that he says 'Realization is the state of ambiguity' (Nishijima's translation - others may differ?) That hits a mark for me experientially.



    Willow

    sat today

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaishin View Post
    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.
    Yes! That's what I thought too -- it's really interesting seeing these different perspectives here.

    Gassho,

    Risho

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by willow View Post
    I find Dogen pretty obscure but I like that he says 'Realization is the state of ambiguity' (Nishijima's translation - others may differ?) That hits a mark for me experientially.
    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/ZenTeachin...GenjoKoan8.htm

    The Nishijima/Cross version is online here:
    http://www.wordtrade.com/religion/bu...shobogenzo.htm

    I think that's 9 different translations.

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

    Gassho, Dudley
    #sat

  16. #16
    '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

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    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...al&num=B2582_1

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

    http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...an8.htm#nish11

    Gassho, Jundo

    SatToday
    Last edited by Jundo; 10-01-2016 at 01:10 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  18. #18
    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

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Geika View Post
    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

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by dudleyf View Post
    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/ZenTeachin...GenjoKoan8.htm

    The Nishijima/Cross version is online here:
    http://www.wordtrade.com/religion/bu...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

  21. #21
    You are dharma, so I don't understand Dogen at all.

    SAT today

    Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
    _/_
    Rich
    MUHYO
    無 (MU, Emptiness) and 氷 (HYO, Ice) ... Emptiness Ice ...

    https://instagram.com/notmovingmind

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaishin View Post
    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

  23. #23
    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

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Jakuden View Post
    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

  25. #25
    Emptiness. Something missing, is something found.

    Morgan,
    Sat Today.

  26. #26
    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
    Last edited by Tai Shi; 10-02-2016 at 03:11 PM.
    Peaceful Poet, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, limited to positive 優婆塞 台 婆

  27. #27
    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\_

  28. #28
    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
    Last edited by alan.r; 10-02-2016 at 03:47 PM.
    Shōmon

  29. #29
    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

  30. #30
    Mp
    Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    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


    Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

  31. #31
    "I hope that makes sense rather than sounding like jargon."

    Hello,

    Nothing wrong with esoteric language.

    Still get a kick out of folks misusing "grain of salt".

    "What's being said is ALWAYS the truth; you'd better season it with salt so it's digestible."

    English-language, what a concept!


    Gassho
    Myosha
    sat today
    "Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"

  32. #32
    Hi,

    I believe that this week's Koan from the Book of Serenity (as do most of the Koans from the Book of Serenity) touches on this same matter. Not quite with Dogen's wild ways of expressing matters, but the same basic points: The entrance of principle and the entrance of practice in this messy, incomplete, complicated, often frustrating, ungraspable, mysterious, unpredictable world. ...

    BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 68
    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...NIMITY-Case-68

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  33. #33
    Hello all

    This podcast from Zen Mountain Monastery addresses this part of Genjokoan nicely. It refers to Yasutani Roshi's commentary on the fascicle - Flowers Fall.

    https://zmm.mro.org/teachings/buddhi...oan-session-5/


    Gassho
    Kokuu
    #sattoday

  34. #34
    Treeleaf Unsui Shugen's Avatar
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    Thank you for the link Kokuu

    Gassho,

    Shugen

    Sattoday

    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    Hello all

    This podcast from Zen Mountain Monastery addresses this part of Genjokoan nicely. It refers to Yasutani Roshi's commentary on the fascicle - Flowers Fall.

    https://zmm.mro.org/teachings/buddhi...oan-session-5/


    Gassho
    Kokuu
    #sattoday
    Meido Shugen
    明道 修眼

  35. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    Hello all

    This podcast from Zen Mountain Monastery addresses this part of Genjokoan nicely. It refers to Yasutani Roshi's commentary on the fascicle - Flowers Fall.

    https://zmm.mro.org/teachings/buddhi...oan-session-5/


    Gassho
    Kokuu
    #sattoday
    Isn't this Genjokoan series of talks great? Shugen Sensei is really "finding his groove" and coming into his own as a giver of Dharma Discourse. The other recent series "To Be Enlightened By the World" is also excellent IMHO.

    Gassho,
    Jakuden
    SatToday

  36. #36
    I like the analogy of the "board carrying man".
    When you carry the board on your right shoulder you can't see the right side of the street.
    When you carry the board on your left shoulder you can't see the left side of the street.
    When I do zazen, if I see my "original face" I can't see the other side of the street.
    When I am lost in delusion I can't see the other side of the street.
    Every day I move the board from shoulder to shoulder.
    My life goes on and on trying to maintain the understanding, to actualize the fact, to aim in the direction of "knowing" that I can set down the board at any time.
    Every day, just like this.
    Gassho,
    K2
    #SatToday

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
    法 Dharma
    口 Mouth

  37. #37
    Hello,

    Apropos -

    The master and disciple returning to temple after torrential rain. Come upon a maiden in distress: she is unable to cross a stream as the flood tore apart the bridge.

    Without thought or comment master picked up the woman, and in his arms, crossed the swollen stream. Depositing her they proceeded in opposite directions.

    Knowing their sect did not allow ANY contact with females the disciple was embarrassed, cross, and then upset with his master. After many miles the disciple could not contain himself and lambasted master for his action.

    The master smiled and said, " i put her down on the ground hours ago; why are you still carrying her?"


    Gassho
    Myosha
    sat today
    "Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"

  38. #38
    Boom! I love that story - thank you Myosha; I actually really like your version

    Gassho,

    Risho
    -sattoday

  39. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    I
    “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 must admit this confuses me a little (okay, more than a little).
    Without MD here to answer our questions, we can never be entirely sure what he was getting at. Perhaps he'd look at it and say, "Geez, I'm not sure what I was on about there."

    But our species always sniffs out meaning. Do words have to have meaning? Can they be employed to convey things that are beyond meaning? What does beyond meaning even...uhhh...mean?!

    When you understand that all is perfect as it is, the all necessarily includes the concept that all-is-not-perfect-as-it-is. So you can see how something is missing from the complete whole...and it doesn't throw you.

    I guess that the only way to get some idea of what Dogen was on about is to allow the dharma to fill your body and mind. Presumably, at that point, all becomes clear.

  40. #40
    Well, Dharma may, or may not fill my whole body, and yes, sometimes I feel very stupid before you all who have read a myriad of the tales, and Zen lessons. Some of these lessons I have heard many times, and it does me well to hear them many ways in new and interesting ways. I am not a man of paradox or hidden meanings, and sometimes when someone directs an answer yes again, I know that no matter the number of degrees or ideas, or stories, I will always be a very simple man, a man who looks at the world in a very straightforward way. Zen for me, at my age, and those here later or before, well they are teachers of Zen, and I thank you all for your teachings. I came here to learn how to die gracefully,. and that remains my intent at Treeleaf, and every time I hear a wise idea, storie, precept interpretation, I ask myself if I am simple or just don't get it Thank you
    Tai Shi
    std
    Gassho
    Peaceful Poet, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, limited to positive 優婆塞 台 婆

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