Dear All,
We are coming to the close of this book with Chapter 12. After that, we will spend about 5 weeks or so with a few more Koans from the Book of Equanimity (I will try to post some of Shishin Wick's fine commentary for those who need, although I encourage everyone who can to buy the book). After that, a reminder that our next "no words" book club selection has been announced:
Today, we turn to the first half of Chapter 12, stopping right before "Dogen and Original Enlightenment."
The air is all present, yet our practice is to fan the wind, filled with dust ...
Okumura Roshi starts off with some other Koans from Magu (not to be confused with this guy, by the way ... maybe you have to be American of a certain age to get the reference):
In any case, the other Koans express something like "the True Kannon is right here, and we are all sitting in her eye," and "you right here are just WHO this is!" (Really, I felt this discussion of Magu would really be better in a footnote, but it was interesting. I am really not a big "fan" of this part of the book.)
Anyway, getting to the wind and the fan: The basic point is that the goodness and wholeness of "Buddha" is everywhere, but if we don't fan it and bring it to life in how we live, it does not get realized (known) and realized (made real in life).
Originally, Buddhism considered Buddhism nature to be something within us that, some rebirths down the road, has the potential to become a perfect Buddha. However, it is covered with dusts of greed, anger, divided thinking in ignorance that hides it and prevents it from manifesting, so we have to sweep all that dust away to get to Buddha. Dogen was of the opinion that Buddha Nature is not what we have, but what we and all things are all along ... even the dust. Of course, we have to see through the dust, not be choked by the dust ... but the dust is really not the hindrance we think. Like waves that are just the clear water, the dust is also just the clear Buddha (though often hard to see that fact). Yes, we cannot get caught in the dust, but Dogen felt that our very acts of constant sweeping moment by moment in life are just Buddha too ... Buddha sweeping Buddha.
Gassho, J
STLah
