Hi All Vowers,
We will go up through the section "D.T. Suzuki's Vow" on p. 31.
This chapter has been a little dense and packed with interesting information. Maybe if folks want, we can slow down for an extra week, and spend some more time here. Let's see,
I was surprised that Okumura Roshi said that "Buddhists don't pray" (although he seems to admit that is not so in the footnote.) Most typical Buddhist people in Japan and the rest of Asia do pray to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for help, health and the like, just like Western people might pray to God, angels and saints. I think that Okumura Roshi means that, in his view, the real message of Buddhism is not that.
Our translation of the Four Vows is a little different, but recently we spoke about that. I explained why we use, in the last line, "unattainable" instead of "unsurpassable." Okumura Roshi seems to say that the actual meaning is something like an enlightenment so "unsurpassable" that we can't get there. I would simply add that, while we keep moving forward even though we cannot "get there", from another wondrous way of seeing, we are ALREADY there and thus never any place to get at all.
More here:
http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...l=1#post198785
Zen and the Mahayana often see these two ways at once.
Likewise, his translation uses "desires", but ours (and the majority of translations in English I believe) use something like "delusions" inexhaustable. All these delusions, in one way or another, arise form our experience of separate self with its selfish wants, self-centered judgements and the like.
What do you feel about his way of expressing what "Vow" is, or any other the other descriptions from Katagiri Roshi or D.T. Suzuki?
There is a lot more packed into these pages, so please pick out or ask about anything, and we can all talk about it.
Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLAH
