Originally Posted by
Shinshi
Eihei Dōgen, a Japanese Zen Master of long ago ... experienced reality as a great interplay between horse and rider moving through time, coming to life in the thoughts and acts of all beings. It is a most special interplay, for it is the same interconnection between horse and rider that the whole of reality is engaged in, with nothing left out, that the rider and the horse are creating, that is also the interplay between you and me. It is a vibrant, swirling, flowing, merging and emerging unity that Buddhists sometimes call “emptiness,” as the motion and sweep of your communication “empties” us of the sense of only being separate beings, and fills and reaffirms us as the whole. We, as human beings, can’t be sure when or where this communication began, or whether it even has a beginning or end. But we can come to see that that the interaction between horse and rider consists of each step and breath we both take, much as a dance unfolds and constantly renews with every turn or leap of its dancers.
You and I and the horse all inter-are, we are all moving/communicating/flowing through space and time, as is every creature great or small, the mountains and seas, every grain of sand or massive galaxy, the atoms that make up the universe and the whole universe itself. Everything in reality, no matter how old or vast, no matter how unnoticed or small, flows together just as horse and rider do. And although we may feel as if we are separate beings —finite individuals on a grand stage spanning all of time and space—we are also the manifestation of the communication itself flowing through us. A universe of riders and horses that are as one. Sometimes the horse is the leader, sometimes the rider is the leader in this constant interlay, and whole universe is moving with them and us. Picture in your mind a spectator witnessing a horse and rider working together , so vigorous, vibrant and in sync that they seem vanish in the swirl of motion: both two and one at the same time. And imagine more riders and horses joining, first in pairs, then groups, coming together and separating moment by moment, yet so merged as the overall movement that, from a distance, individual beings can no longer be seen. ...
... So united did Dōgen see that whole that, in his mind, each point holds all other points, near or far, each point miraculously fully contains the whole, and each moment of time ticks with all other moments of time, before or after. It is much like saying that each movement of the horse and each movement of the rider somehow embodies, depends upon, and also fully expresses every step by all other partners, past, present, or future, and fully contains the entire interplay too. Dōgen experienced the time of the of the ride as the overall movement that is fully held and expressed in each individual move itself, with past not only flowing into present and future, but future flowing into the present and past, as the present fully holds the past and future of the dance.
... Master Dōgen spoke of practice, putting it all in motion. Where the ride has come from, where it is going, is not as important as the ride that is truly realized—made real—right here, in the flow of communication between horse and rider. The ride dance is always in the moment, so just ride, without thought of any other place.
I left in one dancing reference as I often think of the communication between horse and rider as a dance.
Gassho, Shinshi
SaT-LaH