Dharma seals
Means something that has always been.
Always have been,
Always so,
Always will be.
There are 3 dharma seals in reality.
Impermanence, no-self and nirvana (the opp of suffering)
The importance of understanding these are SEALS and not philosophy..
Is extremely crucial.
Knowing it is a seal, this is how things have always been, knowing this from the deep marrow,
It is when the REALIZATION dawns.
When realization dawns,
This right view does not remain an intellectual knowledge but moment to moment xp. One lives among these 3 seals.
Or more accurately, one is this 3 seals.
You are no where. But also everything
It is not that you need to remove anything,
Remove the self;
Use effort to be no-self
Use effort to see impermanence,
Or nirvana.
No not like that.
It is seeing this seals in all phenomenas.
Be it sounds, sight, taste, smell, touch, thoughts,
See clearly how everything is this 3 seals.
In fact, if you just clearly feel into the 6 senses,
Your mind will have an imprint of the 3 seals
And xp will slowly change.
Hence the importance of knowing it is a seal.
The diff between non-dual teaching and Buddhism no self is
Non dual is trying to piece 2 things together into one. Self and other, make it 1.
It is effortful. You can try to piece everything you sense, make it 2 in 1, tiring, where is the liberation is that?
Whilst Buddhism no self or you can say Buddhism non dual, is
There is never a self, it is just that.
In the seen, only the seen.
This is effortless.
The sound comes and go by itself,
You don’t need to merge with it or do anything , just look!!!
The attitude is different. The liberation in the latter is massive. You are gone. You don’t need to do a damn thing. Just relax and watch.
I love it lol, I’m not one who love too create job when there’s none lol
The Buddha has never describe how enlightenment is experienced.
He has kept mum about it in the whole Tipitaka.
He only talk about how it’s not .
And he only talks about the seals.
I noticed it when my reality dawns as a huge surprise.
No amount of creativity could imagine this coz the mind is gone. And creativity is from the mind.
One have to re-experience everything in a new way, and no matter where one look, the 3 seals is authenticated 24/7.
How clever!
But the 3 dharma seals will be so natural in alll your xp that you cannot miss it, cannot deny it, so overwhelming at first that you wonder why the Buddha did not warn : be aware of culture shock.
You will realise how clear Buddha’s mind is, he teaches us to see clearly this 3 seals and bring us where he wants us to go, show us what he sees, and smile a gentle smile 😊 when you see it.
He has never describe it, he waits for you to see it and he just 😊
When you see it, you won’t have a word to describe.
You will know this is what the Buddha wants you to see,
This beauty, love, purity, interconnected ness, deep peace, bliss, joy, this jewel 💎 24/7
And you will respect and revere bec it is so profound,
it’s truly the highest gift.
And all the sutta will describe your experiences,
You want others to be able to see, too.
Buddha holds up a flower
Mahakasyapa smiles. ☺️❤️


....

Love this advice. sharing this to see what others think. I find when I lost my "self", i realise the self was a filter, so now things become extremely open like i am transparent, no filter and raw, everything just come full on, i can feel too much so I tend to recoil when meeting situations and ppl initially. I have to practise being fearless, and stay really open despite strong habit to recoil to stay in realization and not recoil. it was quite hard at first until it becomes better but I am still practising. I have never heard this anywhere, so thought of sharing and see what others think.
.
So when you are practising formally or informally, at home or at work, interacting with other people, the same is true. Practise this transparency by coming back to the breath and body, by opening to seeing and hearing, and allow experiencing to present itself to you. With other people, let them be how they are and don't hold yourself separate from them. Again, if you don't want to be with them you don't have to be. But if you ARE with them and this is what you agreed to, then let yourself fully BE in that situation. Don't be half-assed. You can't sit up straight as the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors if you are half-assed. You need to practise with the whole bodymind, both legs, both feet, both hands, and arms and legs and ears and eyes and the nape of the neck and behind the ears.
You can't do other people's practice for them. Do your own practice. If you just do your own practice, it includes all people that you know, all of the things that you do, all of the colours and forms that you see. In doing your own practice you practise the moment and everything that arises together as the moment. Meet the moment intimately and wordlessly. Don't recoil. Release. In this way you embrace everyone instead of holding everything at a distance.
You can release grasping at them and being entangled by their grasps as well, by embracing them and everything in the intimacy of experience. You are not people's ideas about you and they are not your ideas about them.
The Touchstone 10: Serenity Is Not Special
by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, June 21st, 2014


....
 
    I was looking for writings written by practitioners (not philosphers) who can express Dogen Total Exertion nicely.. as recently I start to intuit this insight but very hard to find descriptions. I suddenly love driving ( i hate it before) bec I can feel the whole universe driving and moving with me, the potholes, the road moving, the trees moving, the past and future all here at once (it's a feeling), time and space doesnt make sense, everything is a whole snapshot with "non-arising and dependent origination" pinging in and out of existence. I am not moving thought the world, the whole world is moving in DO in complete stillness. bizarre yet so overwhleming yet miraculous. Do send me any stuff relating to dogen or total exertion ( i have combed through ATR dogen labels hehe)
    Sorry for the exuberance. lol
    __
    Partial Excerpt from Zen teacher Jundo Cohen (see full post here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SotoZenGlobal/permalink/10156894347920692/ )
    Further (and this is where I get all "Dogen" on ya ... Drivin' a Dodge Dogen on Genjo Koan Blvd.), as one sits, one may soon realize that driver and road and car and wind and sun and cow and mailbox and path ahead and present and beyond are all ONE! You drive the road as the road drives you, as the sun and silo drives the road and the driving drives driving ... the whole universe driving. Even trash and crash and coming on the on ramp of birth and leaving from the exit of death and flat tires and bumps ... all Buddha Highway. All Buddha driving Buddha, the whole trip Buddha all Along! The hard borders that separate driver and driven and drive and driving, inside the wind screen and outside ... and the wind itself ... all soften or drop away. I will slightly modify Dogen's famous passage from Shobogenzo Zenki:
    -----
    [L]ife is the manifestation of the Whole Works Driving ... There is nothing at all, not so much as one time or one phenomenon, that is not together with the Driving. Even be it a single thing, a single mind, none is not together with this Driving .. Life is like when one drives a car: though in this car one works the wheel, the shift, and the pedals, the car carries one, and one is naught without the car. Riding in the car, one even causes the car to be a car. One should learn this precise point. At this very moment, the car is the world is the road-even the sky, the blacktop, and the passing scene all have become circumstances of the car, unlike circumstances which are not the car. For this reason driving is our causing life to drive, the drive causing us to be ourselves. When driving a car, the mind and body, object and subject, are all drivings of the car; the whole earth and all of space are both drivings of the car. We that are the drive, life driving that is we, are the same way. ... That the whole road appears has nothing to do with beginning and end ...
    -----
    Though talking about those ox carts, Dogen said something like this in Zazenshin, a wonderful image of the relativity of motion and stillness, for is it the car moving or the road or is the whole world or the mind moving ... all ultimately stillness moving?
    DRIVIN' DOGEN - Understanding "Open Spacious Awareness"
    Come take a little drive ... sorry if the road is a bit winding ...
    I have encountered a few people in recent days asking about the "Open Spacious Awareness" of Shikantaza. I always try to describe things in clear terms that modern folks can relate to. So, although Dogen surely did not own a car (he did sometimes talk about oxen and carts), I would like to try the analogy of driving down the boundless highway.
    First, what is "Open Spacious Awareness"? In Zazen, we may place the mind on following the breath, the posture, the belly, in the palm of the upturned hands or (as I recommend when people can, after having developed a bit of settled stability in mind and body) in "Open Spacious Awareness." This "Open Spacious Awareness" is simply to have the place of attention on everything, and nothing in particular, with equanimity. In such sitting, the mind can move from and to anything in experience amid the field of awareness, or it can take in the entire field of awareness at once (or just a slice) ... but the key is equanimity. One is observing without judging, not thinking about, getting tangled in chains of thoughts about what one is experiencing. (In fact, even following the breath or focusing on the posture etc. should be a kind of "Open Awareness," because one is not really thinking about the breath or posture etc., just lightly centered there in equanimity).
    It's actually not so complicated.
    Really, it is just an exercise in developing the ability to access equanimity, and to drop analysis and pondering about things. Everything is "just as it is," and a sense of flowing wholeness about all life events results. The frictions and division, opposition and the resulting mental reactions drop away. The hard borders of self and the world soften, perhaps fully drop away ... all just flowing wholeness ...
    But how to convey the experience in a way that folks can relate to?
    I can describe the experience as something like driving a car, radio off, down an empty highway or quiet country road, not particularly thinking anything yet attentive. I sometimes see everything out in front of me, or maybe notice this or that as it passes. I am not particularly thinking anything, and the mind is clear, alert, just watching the road. I am not daydreaming, I am not sleeping, I am alert and paying awake attention -- but to no one thing in particular. I may notice briefly some things as I pass ... mail box, cow, pretty house, laundry on a line ... but I don't really think about them, and I let them pass from view and keep going with eyes observing everything and nothing.
    Just like driving, it is okay to see objects that are sometimes appearing through the windshield, but just don't get lost in trains of thought about them that will distract you from attention to the road ("Oh a mail box, I wish I had a mail box like that, it is a beautiful mailbox compared to my ugly mailbox at home, stamps are too expensive, too many bills in my mailbox and my job is a pain, reminds me that I need to go shopping, I will buy eggs too ... "). If seeing the mailbox ... it is just a mailbox, and don't particularly think about it or judge it ... neither beautiful or ugly mailbox ... it is just a mailbox. Maybe don't even think about its "mailbox" name at all, and let it just be some thing in view. Repeat as other things and sounds etc. come to the attention. Return your attention to the road. (I suppose that the wall or room in front of us as we sit Zazen is the windscreen).
    If you do find yourself lost in thoughts about mailboxes and eggs or anything else, let them go and return your full attention to observing the road and keep going.
    Of course, we all do daydream and think about things, hum tunes and ruminate about our problems, both during Zazen and in driving when, in fact, our attention should be on the road (I must confess that I myself was in an actual "call the insurance company" fender bender recently when I was distracted momentarily behind the wheel). This is just to be human. Thoughts come. It is natural to think things during Zazen, as we do while driving without our full attention on the road. HOWEVER, when catching yourself doing so, return your full alert attention to the road ... again and again and again:
    Thus, mailbox comes, and if you find yourself thinking about the mailbox, immediately bring attention back to the road and "pass" the mailbox and let it fade back into the scene, returning all open minded attention to the road ... When next a cow comes, and you start ruminating on "cows," repeat ... when next a silo comes, repeat ... this is the natural process of Zazen. One does not need to force them to pass, for when one simply ignores, they pass on their own. Just return to open eyes driving, not particularly thinking anything but wide awake, head clear and alert, focused on the road ahead, taking in the whole scene out the wind screen ...
    Open spacious awareness is a very good practice too for when we actually do get off the Zafu, back to the world and in the car. Perhaps a little of that equanimity will be felt in the bones when one actually has a flat tire, encounters a pot hole, is stuck in traffic, get's cut off or (like me) has an actual fender mender or (as life will do) a more serious accident that is truly life or death.
    So, if that is the case, what is different from worldly "heading to the mall" or "Sunday" driving? Why don't we just get in our car and hit Route 66 rather than wasting our time driving to Zazen meetings?
    Oh, "Zen Driving" is a bit different from ordinary driving. First off, when we are "driving Zazen on our Zafu cushion" there is no destination or, better said, no destination apart from right here, on the cushion, this inch of road. Every inch of the Buddha Highway is total arrival with no road ahead nor road behind. That is very important. Usually, we drive our Chevrolet to get somewhere, with places to go and people to see, eggs to buy because the pantry is bare. In Zazen, there is no place to get but Zazen, no other place to go in the whole universe and not one more task to do but be right here on the Zafu, in the driver's seat ... sitting for sitting's sake, driving for driving's sake with each instant as both departure and arrival at once! In fact, there are no people to meet or eggs to buy because, when sitting Zazen, nothing is missing and nothing lacking during the time of sitting. Sitting meets sitting, and the pantry of the universe is full!
    As well, when we are driving down a modern highway, we are typically full of judgments, that flowers at roadside are lovely but that potholes and trash heaps are bad or dangerous. In Zazen, we actually "drive" with equanimity regarding both flowers and potholes and trash heaps too. Actually, we sit with "equanimity" regarding all the world and life passing in front of our eyes, but our attitude it is not completely neutral and dull. So, it is not some blank "equanimity." Why? My teacher, Nishijima, like to say that our attitude deep down as Buddhists is that there is something subtly positive and beautiful about this world. So, it is "equanimity" but with a sense that there is something nice, pleasant, beautiful and peaceful about the drive and the world one sees. Even when we pass the ugly scenes of the road ... the garbage dump, the crash, the road kill, the flat tires of life ... our heart can still know this equanimity that is also someway subtly "okay" somehow. Even the ugly and painful, frightening and tragic ... are just more cows and mailboxes and laundry on the line for the heart in Zazen. Zazen is a bit different from worldly driving this way too.
    Further (and this is where I get all "Dogen" on ya ... Drivin' a Dodge Dogen on Genjo Koan Blvd.), as one sits, one may soon realize that driver and road and car and wind and sun and cow and mailbox and path ahead and present and beyond are all ONE! You drive the road as the road drives you, as the sun and silo drives the road and the driving drives driving ... the whole universe driving. Even trash and crash and coming on the on ramp of birth and leaving from the exit of death and flat tires and bumps ... all Buddha Highway. All Buddha driving Buddha, the whole trip Buddha all Along! The hard borders that separate driver and driven and drive and driving, inside the wind screen and outside ... and the wind itself ... all soften or drop away. I will slightly modify Dogen's famous passage from Shobogenzo Zenki:
    -----
    [L]ife is the manifestation of the Whole Works Driving ... There is nothing at all, not so much as one time or one phenomenon, that is not together with the Driving. Even be it a single thing, a single mind, none is not together with this Driving .. Life is like when one drives a car: though in this car one works the wheel, the shift, and the pedals, the car carries one, and one is naught without the car. Riding in the car, one even causes the car to be a car. One should learn this precise point. At this very moment, the car is the world is the road-even the sky, the blacktop, and the passing scene all have become circumstances of the car, unlike circumstances which are not the car. For this reason driving is our causing life to drive, the drive causing us to be ourselves. When driving a car, the mind and body, object and subject, are all drivings of the car; the whole earth and all of space are both drivings of the car. We that are the drive, life driving that is we, are the same way. ... That the whole road appears has nothing to do with beginning and end ...
    -----
    Though talking about those ox carts, Dogen said something like this in Zazenshin, a wonderful image of the relativity of motion and stillness, for is it the car moving or the road or is the whole world or the mind moving ... all ultimately stillness moving?
    -----
    Now, when it is said, "the car doesn't go", what does that mean by the car's "going" or the car's "not going"? For example, is the road flowing by the car's "going", or is road's not flowing the car's going? We can say that flowing is road's "not going", and it should also be that road's "going" is not its flowing. Therefore, in investigating the saying, "the car doesn't go", we should approach it both in terms of "not going" and in terms of not "not going"; for it is time. The saying, "[the car] doesn't go" is not saying simply that it does not go.
    -----
    As we sit still in Zazen, the whole world is turning. Oh, and we do not need a seatbelt on a Zafu ... and the gas tank is always full. Hit the road! 🙂
    Does that convey the experience a bit?
    It is worth the trip. The high school driving coach can only show you so much, and your job is to actually now get out there and drive! Drive a little each day, beyond long or short distances or fast and slow time, beyond coming or going or here and there and any other destination but THIS. "Zen driving" is moving yet perfectly still. This moment of pedal to the metal is all distances and all time, here and there and everywhere.
    Gassho, J

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    Yin Ling
    Dogen explains the awakening of Buddha's disciple Mahakasyapa. Buddha holds up a flower. Mahakasyapa, seeing the flower, smiles. The moment of Buddha-flower-smile is passageless-passage. Dogen describes it this way:
    'All instances, however many, of the twirling of flowers, are individual instances of [the transmission from] rightful successor to rightful successor; they are the actual existence of the transmission. Indeed, forget the World-Honored One's twirling of a flower!... Because the time of twirling of flowers is the whole of Time itself, it is the experience of the same state as the World-Honored One, and it is the same twirling of flowers. The meaning of 'twirling flowers' is flowers displaying flowers [phenomena manifesting themselves as they are]: it is plum flowers, spring flowers, snow flowers, and lotus flowers.'
    Furthermore,
    'Twirling flowers are twirled by eyes, twirled by mind-consciousnesss, twirled by nostrils, and twirled by flowers twirling. In general, the mountains, rivers, and the Earth; the sun and moon, the wind and rain, people, animals, grass, and trees - the miscellaneous things of the present displaying themselves here and there - are just the twirling of the udumbara flower.'
    Just one flower being held up for display is passage through all time and being, awakening each and every thing. This is what Mahakasyapa realized. Essentially his realization was already present as his own being, yet it was the passage of all buddha-nature in and through him that revealed his true nature. This is our passage too.


  • Yin Ling
    “Birth is just like riding in a boat. You raise the sails and you steer. Although you maneuver the sail and the pole, the boat gives you a ride, and without the boat you couldn’t ride. But you ride in the boat, and your riding makes the boat what it is. Investigate a moment such as this. At just such a moment, there is nothing but the world of the boat. The sky, the water, and the shore are all the boat’s world, which is not the same as a world that is not the boat’s. Thus you make birth what it is; you make birth your birth. When you ride in a boat, your body, mind, and environs together are the undivided activity of the boat. The entire earth and the entire sky are both the undivided activity of the boat. Thus birth is nothing but you; you are nothing but birth.”
    - Dogen

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