Hello All Constantly Deluded Buddhas!
We will read the first pages of Chapter 5, stopping just before "Buddha Actualizing Buddha Without Thinking So."
This week's passage is one of Master Dogen's most profound. l like to say that we are all originally Buddha, yet we live in this body and life of delusion ... greed, anger and divided thoughts. The folks who can see through that fact, and not be so bound by those circumstances, doing one's best to turn the delusion in Buddha-like directions, are actualizing Buddha even if our life in this world always has to be up to our necks in delusion.
On the other hand, the fellow who claims or convinces herself that she is perfectly enlightened and beyond any possibility of mistake or flaw is deluded and flawed, almost as much as the person who is deluded by being a prisoner of greed, anger and division. (That is true, by the way, although all of us ... saint or sinner ... or beyond all possibility and flaw in an "absolute" sense. lf we claim that it is so down here in the trenches of life, we may be missing the point and at great risk of misunderstanding too. Lots of folks out there with Guru complexes may do this in the spiritual world.)
As well, the process never ends so long as we are alive, and each moment is a crossroads. We can act with wisdom and compassion one moment, fall on our asses and act like asses the next.
So, please relate a story about how this practice has helped you, in a real life situation, see through delusions of excess desire, anger and divided thinking, and be a bit freer of such turning the same in directions of peace and wholeness ... even as you still were up to your neck in the muck.
Also, feel free, of course, to discuss anything else about this section and the book too.
Gassho, Jundo
STLAH
