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    An excerpt from the AtR guide:
    "In contrast, people living just 50 or 100 years ago aren't nearly as connected to others today, and genuine spiritual teachers (much less truly attained and realized spiritual masters) and teachings and fellowships may be limited to certain localities and may be hard to come by. For example, Zen Master Dogen had to travel to China from Japan - a tremendously dangerous feat as sailing in 13th century was dangerous and many who embarked on such a journey had perished, and even then he could not find a master that could awaken him when he reached China. Almost giving up and about to return to Japan, he was so fortunate that at the last moment someone told him about Zen Master Rujing, and by learning from him Dogen attained great awakening. Without meeting the person who introduced Zen Master Rujing, Dogen may not have awakened at all and Japan would not have the Soto Zen of today. Dogen has also said that before him, there were no masters that was truly awakened in Japan, and he could tell based on the writings, expression and behaviours of past masters. So this is how rare and difficult it is to come by a truly enlightened master in the past. Today, a truly realized spiritual master may be a Skype call away even if he/she lives in another country. Nowadays, you can also have an equivalent of Nalanda library available through a mouse-click away, or the entire Buddhist canon available on your iPad, thanks also to translators at foundations like 84000.co. Also, as John Tan commented before, many practitioners in the olden times may not have very strong view due to the lack of easy access to written spiritual texts or scriptures (even though they may be very dedicated, disciplined and sincere, perhaps more so than modern day people). This can have implications on the swiftness of our spiritual progress. So consider ourselves to be extremely fortunate."

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    Soh Wei Yu
    Just updated this paragraph to include the Dogen part after listening to Zen teacher Hong Wen Liang recount Dogen's journey.


  • 20140913台中 正法眼藏佛道節選
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    20140913台中 正法眼藏佛道節選
    20140913台中 正法眼藏佛道節選

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