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"Bendowa -from Master [url=http://www.numatacenter.com/digital/dBET_T2582_Shobogenzo1_2007.pdf
Dogen's Shobogenzo(Nishijima/Cross translation[/url]":1dmhlchh]
[27] [Someone] asks, “That which relies upon receiving the authentic
transmission of the subtle method of the Tath?gata, or upon following the
traces of the ancestral masters, is surely beyond the intellect of the common
person. Reading sutras and reciting the names of buddhas, however, may
naturally become the causes and conditions of enlightenment. But as for just
idly sitting without doing anything, how can that be the means of getting
enlightenment?”
I say: If you now think that the sam?dhi of the buddhas, the supreme
and great Dharma, is idle sitting without doing anything, you are a person
who insults the Great Vehicle.45 [Such] delusion is so deep that it is like being
in the ocean and saying there is no water. [In zazen] we are already seated,
stably and thankfully, in the buddhas’ sam?dhi of receiving and using the
self. Is this not the accomplishment of vast and great virtue? It is pitiful that
your eyes are not yet open and your mind remains in a drunken stupor. In
general, the state of the buddhas is unthinkable: intelligence cannot reach it.
How much less could disbelief or inferior wisdom know the state? Only people
of great makings and right belief can enter into it. For people of disbelief,
even if taught, it is difficult to receive the teaching—even on Vulture
Peak there were people [about whom the Buddha said,] “That they withdraw
also is fine.” As a general rule, when right belief emerges in our mind, we
should do training and learn in practice. Otherwise, we should rest for a while.
Regret the fact if you will, but from ancient times the Dharma has been dry.
Further, do you know for yourself any virtue that is gained from practices
such as reading sutras and reciting names of buddhas? It is very unreliable to
think that only to wag the tongue and to raise the voice has the virtue of the
Buddha’s work.When we compare [such practices] with the Buddha-Dharma,
they fade further and further into the distance. Moreover, we open sutras to
clarify the criteria that the Buddha taught of instantaneous and gradual practice,
and those who practice according to the teaching are invariably caused
to attain the state of real experience. This is completely different from aspiring
to the virtue of attainment of bodhi by vainly exhausting the intellect.
Trying to arrive at the buddha’s state of truth [only] through action of the
mouth, stupidly chanting thousands or tens of thousands of times, is like
hoping to reach [the south country of] Etsu by pointing a carriage toward
the north. Or it is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Reading
sentences while remaining ignorant of how to practice [is like] a student of
medicine forgetting how to compound medications.What use is that? Those
who chant endlessly are like frogs in a spring paddy field, croaking day and
night. In the end it is all useless. It is still more difficult for people who are
deeply disturbed by fame and gain to abandon these things. The mind that
craves gain is very deep, and so it must have been present in the ancient past.
How could it not be present in the world today? It is most pitiful. Just remember,
when a practitioner directly follows a master who has attained the truth
and clarified the mind, and when the practitioner matches that mind and experiences
and understands it, and thus receives the authentic transmission of the
subtle Dharma of the Seven Buddhas,48 then the exact teaching appears clearly
and is received and maintained. This is beyond the comprehension of Dharma
teachers who study words. So stop this doubting and delusion and, following
the teaching of a true master, attain in experience the buddhas’ sam?dhi
of receiving and using the self, by sitting in zazen and pursuing the truth.