Come and go

[JohnS]

Quite a few changes happened in my job and life these past few weeks. They came, they went. I sat. Off the cushion, I thought and planned, posted for insights here,and then, time to sit again. Coming and going.

My gratitude for Jundo and this Sangha is great.

Gassho

John

SatTodayLAH

[Jundo]

Changes come and go, welcome and unwelcome and in between.

I am doing some research recently on Tendai Buddhist influences on Master Dogen. (Dogen, by the way, a man who had many "job and life" changes during his life too. ) To make a long story short, Dogen developed the Tendai and Lotus Sutra view of the "Dharma Moment" ("dharma" here meaning something like "event" or "happening" or "phenomenon"), each "fully exerting" as itself. The things and events of this world and our life, from the stars to smallest blade of grass or atom, all the changes and happenings of our life, are each a "Dharma Moment" in its own "Dharma Position" into which all space and time and Buddha pours and "comes to life" as that thing or moment. The result is that (together with the usual Mahayana Buddhist teaching that all the separate "selves" and things and moments of this world are like dreams that are swept away in a vision of their "emptiness" of separate selfness), the whole of reality is reaffirmed and blossoming as each self and thing and moment ... which is thus each and all made sacred, each thing or moment now known as boundless and complete, as real as real can be, encountered as just the whole of this life and world happening, each timeless yet just this moment of its happening, each Buddha and each a shining jewel in its way that fully contains the "Whole Thing," the "Whole Catastrophe" that is our world.

In other words, you have had some changes, some ups and downs, welcome or unwelcome, happy or so sad this week ... each Buddha, each Sacred, each Whole.

Dharma Position = hō-i (法位)

(I know that it does not always feel like so sometimes, while it is actually hitting you over the head! )

Gassho, J

STLah

Sorry to run long.