( Dogen's Instructions for the Cook - XIII)
Like wild horses and crazy monkeys.
Like wild horses and crazy monkeys.
I am going to spend a couple of days with this passage ... taming those horses, calming those monkeys ...
(You will hear and see our wild house cat, Tin Tin, scampering around the room during much of today's sitting)
(You will hear and see our wild house cat, Tin Tin, scampering around the room during much of today's sitting)
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Nevertheless, when we work attentively, therein lies the principle that makes
it possible to surpass our predecessors.
That you still do not
grasp the certainty of this principle is because your thinking scatters, like
wild horses, and your emotions run wild, like monkeys in a forest. If you can
make those monkeys and horses, just once, take the backward step that turns the
light and shines it inward, then naturally you will be completely integrated.
This is the means by which we, who are [ordinarily] set into motion by things,
become able to set things into motion.
From: Tenzo Kyokun - Instructions for the Cook by Eihei Dogen - Translated by Griffith Foulk
(remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells;
a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)
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