Showing posts with label Zen Master Dogen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zen Master Dogen. Show all posts

See Soh's reply below.



Geovani's Post
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Geovani Geo
This is quite 'advaitic' from Dogen, right? I see no problem with it.

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Geovani Geo
When thoughts that there is something perceived and a perceiver,
Lure my mind away and distract,
I don’t close my senses gateways to meditate without them
But plunge straight into their essential point.
They’re like clouds in the sky; there’s this shimmer where they fly.
Thoughts that rise, for me sheer delight!
When kleshas get me going, and their heat has got me burning,
I try no antidote to set them right.
Like an alchemistic potion turning metal into gold,
What lies in kleshas power to bestow
Is bliss without contagion, completely undefiled.
Kleshas coming up, sheer delight!
When I’m plagued by god-like forces or demonic interference,
I do not drive them out with rites and spells.
The thing to chase away is egoistic thinking,
Built up on the idea of a self.
This will turn the ranks of maras into your own special forces.
When obstacles arise, sheer delight!
When samsara with its anguish has me writhing in its torments,
Instead of wallowing in misery,
I take the greater burden down the greater path to travel
And let compassion set me up
To take upon myself the sufferings of others.
When karmic consequences bloom, delight!
When my body has succumbed to the attacks of painful illness,
I do not count on medical relief,
But take that very illness as a path and by its power
Remove the obscurations blocking me,
And use it to encourage the qualities worthwhile.
When illness rears its head, sheer delight!
When it's time to leave this body, this illusionary tangle,
Don’t cause yourself anxiety and grief.
The thing that you should train in and clear up for yourself is
There’s no such thing as dying to be done.
Its just clear light, the mother, and child clear light uniting,
When mind forsakes the body, sheer delight!
When the whole things just not working, everything’s lined up against you,
Don’t try to find some way to change it all.
Here the point to make in your practice is reverse the way you see it.
Don’t try to make it stop or to improve.
Adverse conditions happen; when they do it's so delightful.
They make a little song of sheer delight!
~ Gyalwa Götsangpa

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Soh Wei Yu
John Tan 2011 partial excerpt from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../realization...
1. The myriad things advance and confirm the self
Zazen is “mustering the whole body-mind (the whole of existence-time, inclusive of “A” and “not-A”) to look at forms and listen to sounds,” which is described by Dogen as “direct experience.” This “direct experience” is not only hearing, seeing, etc.; it is the arising of an ‘I’.” As in Shobogenzo, Genjokoan, “The myriad things advance and confirm the self.”
The whole article would be beautiful without the above texts quoted in bold. This emphasis is no difference from the need to find ground in the ‘here and now’. There is another article posted by you in the blog Genjo Koan: Actualizing the Fundamental Point that in my opinion provides a more accurate translation:
To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.
….
….
To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
If “the myriad things advance and confirm the self”, then practitioners will be leaving trace. This also reminds me of my conversation with Gozen (a Soto Zen teacher) in dharmaoverground:
24. RE: The mind and the watcher
Apr 7 2009, 5:46 PM EDT | Post edited: Apr 7 2009, 5:57 PM EDT
"I AM: Paradoxically, one feels at the same time that one is both essentially untouched by all phenomena and yet intimately at one with them. As the Upanishad says "Thou are That."
1.a. Body and Mind as Constructs: Another way to look at this is to observe that all compound things -- including one's own body and mind -- are **objects to awareness.** That is to say, from the "fundamental" point of view of primordial awareness, or True Self, even body and mind are **not self.**"
Ha Gozen, I re-read the post and saw **not self**, I supposed u r referring to anatta then I have to disagree...🙂. However I agree with what that u said from the Vedanta (True Self) standpoint. But going into it can make it appears unnecessary complex.
As a summary, I see anatta as understanding the **transience** as Awareness by realizing that there is no observer apart from the observed. Effectively it is referring to the experience of in seeing, only scenery, no seer. In hearing, only sound, no hearer. The experience is quite similar to “Thou are That” except that there is no sinking back to a Source as it is deemed unnecessary. Full comfort is found in resting completely as the transience without even the slightest need to refer back to a source. For the source has always been the manifestation due to its emptiness nature.
All along there is no dust alighting on the Mirror; the dust has always been the Mirror. We fail to recognize the dust as the Mirror when we are attached to a particular speck of dust and call it the ”Mirror”; When a particular speck of dust becomes special, then all other pristine happening that are self-mirroring suddenly appears dusty.
Anything further, we will have to take it private again. 🙂
source : Emptiness as Viewless View and Embracing the Transience
Therefore to see that all dusts are primordially pure from before beginning is the whole purpose of maturing the insight of anatta. The following text succinctly expresses this insight:
...According to Dogen, this “oceanic-body” does not contain the myriad forms, nor is it made up of myriad forms – it is the myriad forms themselves. The same instruction is provided at the beginning of Shobogenzo, Gabyo (pictured rice-cakes) where, he asserts that, “as all Buddhas are enlightenment” (sho, or honsho), so too, “all dharmas are enlightenment” which he says does not mean they are simply “one” nature or mind.
Anything falling short of this realization cannot be said to be Buddhist's enlightenment and it is also what your Taiwanese teacher Chen wanted you to be clear when he spoke of the "equality of dharma" as having an initial glimpse of anatta will not result in practitioners seeing that phenomena are themselves primordially pure.
Realization, Experience and Right View and my comments on "A" is "not-A", "not A" is "A"
AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
Realization, Experience and Right View and my comments on "A" is "not-A", "not A" is "A"
Realization, Experience and Right View and my comments on "A" is "not-A", "not A" is "A"

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Soh Wei Yu
In any case Dogen's insights are very much based on anatman, dependent origination and emptiness. Not Advaitic substantialist nondualism. For example:
“For Dōgen, Buddha-nature or Busshō (佛性) is the nature of reality and all Being. In the Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen writes that “whole-being (Existence itself) is the Buddha-nature” and that even inanimate things (grass, trees, etc.) are an expression of Buddha-nature. He rejected any view that saw Buddha-nature as a permanent, substantial inner self or ground. Dōgen held that Buddha-nature was “vast emptiness”, “the world of becoming” and that “impermanence is in itself Buddha-nature”.[23] According to Dōgen:
Therefore, the very impermanency of grass and tree, thicket and forest is the Buddha nature. The very impermanency of men and things, body and mind, is the Buddha nature. Nature and lands, mountains and rivers, are impermanent because they are the Buddha nature. Supreme and complete enlightenment, because it is impermanent, is the Buddha nature.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōgen#Buddha-nature“
—-
http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=H6A674nlkVEC&pg=PA21...
From Bendowa, by Zen Master Dogen
Question Ten:
Some have said: Do not concern yourself about birth-and-death. There is a way to promptly rid yourself of birth-and-death. It is by grasping the reason for the eternal immutability of the 'mind-nature.' The gist of it is this: although once the body is born it proceeds inevitably to death, the mind-nature never perishes. Once you can realize that the mind-nature, which does not transmigrate in birth-and-death, exists in your own body, you make it your fundamental nature. Hence the body, being only a temporary form, dies here and is reborn there without end, yet the mind is immutable, unchanging throughout past, present, and future. To know this is to be free from birth-and-death. By realizing this truth, you put a final end to the transmigratory cycle in which you have been turning. When your body dies, you enter the ocean of the original nature. When you return to your origin in this ocean, you become endowed with the wondrous virtue of the Buddha-patriarchs. But even if you are able to grasp this in your present life, because your present physical existence embodies erroneous karma from prior lives, you are not the same as the sages.
"Those who fail to grasp this truth are destined to turn forever in the cycle of birth-and-death. What is necessary, then, is simply to know without delay the meaning of the mind-nature's immutability. What can you expect to gain from idling your entire life away in purposeless sitting?"
What do you think of this statement? Is it essentially in accord with the Way of the Buddhas and patriarchs?
Answer 10:
You have just expounded the view of the Senika heresy. It is certainly not the Buddha Dharma.
According to this heresy, there is in the body a spiritual intelligence. As occasions arise this intelligence readily discriminates likes and dislikes and pros and cons, feels pain and irritation, and experiences suffering and pleasure - it is all owing to this spiritual intelligence. But when the body perishes, this spiritual intelligence separates from the body and is reborn in another place. While it seems to perish here, it has life elsewhere, and thus is immutable and imperishable. Such is the standpoint of the Senika heresy.
But to learn this view and try to pass it off as the Buddha Dharma is more foolish than clutching a piece of broken roof tile supposing it to be a golden jewel. Nothing could compare with such a foolish, lamentable delusion. Hui-chung of the T'ang dynasty warned strongly against it. Is it not senseless to take this false view - that the mind abides and the form perishes - and equate it to the wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas; to think, while thus creating the fundamental cause of birth-and-death, that you are freed from birth-and-death? How deplorable! Just know it for a false, non-Buddhist view, and do not lend a ear to it.
I am compelled by the nature of the matter, and more by a sense of compassion, to try to deliver you from this false view. You must know that the Buddha Dharma preaches as a matter of course that body and mind are one and the same, that the essence and the form are not two. This is understood both in India and in China, so there can be no doubt about it. Need I add that the Buddhist doctrine of immutability teaches that all things are immutable, without any differentiation between body and mind. The Buddhist teaching of mutability states that all things are mutable, without any differentiation between essence and form. In view of this, how can anyone state that the body perishes and the mind abides? It would be contrary to the true Dharma.
Beyond this, you must also come to fully realize that birth-and-death is in and of itself nirvana. Buddhism never speaks of nirvana apart from birth-and-death. Indeed, when someone thinks that the mind, apart from the body, is immutable, not only does he mistake it for Buddha-wisdom, which is free from birth-and-death, but the very mind that makes such a discrimination is not immutable, is in fact even then turning in birth-and-death. A hopeless situation, is it not?
You should ponder this deeply: since the Buddha Dharma has always maintained the oneness of body and mind, why, if the body is born and perishes, would the mind alone, separated from the body, not be born and die as well? If at one time body and mind were one, and at another time not one, the preaching of the Buddha would be empty and untrue. Moreover, in thinking that birth-and-death is something we should turn from, you make the mistake of rejecting the Buddha Dharma itself. You must guard against such thinking.
Understand that what Buddhists call the Buddhist doctrine of the mind-nature, the great and universal aspect encompassing all phenomena, embraces the entire universe, without differentiating between essence and form, or concerning itself with birth or death. There is nothing - enlightenment and nirvana included - that is not the mind-nature. All dharmas, the "myriad forms dense and close" of the universe - are alike in being this one Mind. All are included without exception. All those dharmas, which serves as "gates" or entrances to the Way, are the same as one Mind. For a Buddhist to preach that there is no disparity between these dharma-gates indicates that he understands the mind-nature.
In this one Dharma [one Mind], how could there be any differentiate between body and mind, any separation of birth-and-death and nirvana? We are all originally children of the Buddha, we should not listen to madmen who spout non-Buddhist views.
Dōgen - Wikipedia
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Dōgen - Wikipedia
Dōgen - Wikipedia

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Soh Wei Yu
----
John Tan said in 2007 about Dogen, “Dogen is a great Zen master that has penetrated deeply into a very deep level of anatman.”, “Read about Dogen… he is truly a great Zen master… ...[Dogen is] one of the very few Zen Masters that truly knows.”, “Whenever we read the most basic teachings of Buddha, it is most profound. Don't ever say we understand it. Especially when it comes to Dependent Origination, which is the most profound truth in Buddhism*. Never say that we understand it or have experienced it. Even after a few years of experience in non-duality, we can't understand it. The one great Zen master that came closest to it is Dogen, that sees temporality as buddha nature, that see transients as living truth of dharma and the full manifestation of buddha nature.”
"When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine many things with a confused mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. But when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that there is nothing that has unchanging self.
- Dogen"
“Mind as mountains, rivers, and the earth is nothing other than mountains, rivers, and the earth. There are no additional waves or surf, no wind or smoke. Mind as the sun, the moon, and the stars is nothing other than the sun, the moon, and the stars.”
- Dogen

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Nafis Rahman shared: “Someone converted the new SZTP translation of Shobogenzo into PDF format

(the only version available to the public is now out-of-print) https://www.facebook.com/groups/371501823212416/posts/2112569429105638 “ PDF: Soto Zen Text Project - Complete English Shobogenzo Translation: https://terebess.hu/zen/dogen/true1-7.pdf and: https://terebess.hu/zen/dogen/true8.pdf —- “For practitioners, the Tanahashi translation is probably still the best, but this one contains a lot of additional details from a linguistic/scholarly perspective.”

Also see: The Unbounded Field of Awareness


Quotes from The Great Ocean Samadhi chapter from Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo:


The Buddha once said in verse:
Merely of various elements is this body of Mine composed.
The time of its arising is merely an arising of elements;
The time of its vanishing is merely a vanishing of elements.
As these elements arise, I do not speak of the arising of an ‘I’,
And as these elements vanish, I do not speak of the vanishing of an ‘I’.
Previous instants and succeeding instants are not a series of instants that depend on each other;
Previous elements and succeeding elements are not a series of elements that stand against each other.
To give all of this a name, I call it ‘the meditative state that bears the seal of the Ocean’.

....

The Master’s saying, “One that contains all that exists,” expresses what the Ocean is. The point he is making is not that there is some single thing that contains all that exists, but rather that It is all contained things. And he is not saying that the Great Ocean is what contains all existing things, but rather that what is expressing ‘all contained things’ is simply the Great Ocean. Though we do not know what It is, It is everything that exists for the moment. Even coming face-to-face with a Buddha or an Ancestor is a mistaken perception of ‘everything that exists for the moment’. At the moment of ‘being contained’, although it may involve a mountain, it is not just our ‘standing atop a soaring mountain peak’, and although it may involve water, it is not just our ‘plunging down to the floor of the Ocean’s abyss’.18 Our acts of acceptance will be like this, as will our acts of letting go. What we call the Ocean of our Buddha Nature and what we call the Ocean of Vairochana* are simply synonymous with ‘all that exists’.




Wrote to someone months ago,


“"Awareness when reified becomes a whole containing everything as its parts, like the ocean and its waves. But when you deconstruct the wave and ocean, the whole and parts, it is just the radiance and clarity of pellucidity of sound, taste, colors of the imputed notion of wave and ocean. Awareness is a name just like weather is a name denoting rain, wind, sunshine, etc., and not a container or singular substance pervading them or transforming or modulating as them. Likewise, awareness is not an eternal singular substance pervading or containing or even modulating as everything. What is seen, heard, sensed are clear and vivid, pellucid and crystal, and 'awareness' is just a name denoting just that, not a diverse manifestation pervaded by a single ontological awareness that is non-dual with everything. Eventually, awareness is seen through as having its own reality and forgotten into the pellucidity of appearance, not just a state but an insight. As Scott Kiloby once said, 'If you see that awareness is none other than everything, and that none of those things are separate "things" at all, why even use the word awareness anymore? All you are left with is the world, your life, the diversity of experience itself.' Another teacher, Dr. Greg Goode, told me, 'It looks like your Bahiya Sutta experience helped you see awareness in a different way, more... empty. You had a background in a view that saw awareness as more inherent or essential or substantive?'


I had an experience like this too. I was reading a sloka in Nagarjuna's treatise about the 'prior entity,' and I had been meditating on 'emptiness is form' intensely for a year. These two threads came together in a big flash. In a flash, I grokked the emptiness of awareness as per Madhyamika. This realization is quite different from the Advaitic oneness-style realization. It carries one out to the 'ten-thousand things' in a wonderful, light and free and kaleidoscopic, playful insubstantial clarity and immediacy. No veils, no holding back. No substance or essence anywhere, but love and directness and intimacy everywhere..."”



Also,




Ted Biringer commenting on Zen Master Dogen: “...According to Dogen, this “oceanic-body” does not contain the myriad forms, nor is it made up of myriad forms – it is the myriad forms themselves. The same instruction is provided at the beginning of Shobogenzo, Gabyo (pictured rice-cakes) where, he asserts that, “as all Buddhas are enlightenment” (sho, or honsho), so too, “all dharmas are enlightenment” which he says does not mean they are simply “one” nature or mind.”

“In Dogen’s view, the only reality is reality that is actually experienced as particular things at specific times. There is no “tile nature” apart from actual “tile forms,” there is no “essential Baso” apart from actual instances of “Baso experience.” When Baso sits in zazen, “zazen” becomes zazen, and “Baso” becomes Baso. Real instances of Baso sitting in zazen is real instances of Baso and real instances of zazen – when Baso eats rice, Baso is really Baso and eating rice is really eating rice.” - Ted Biringer, https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2017/11/zazen-polishing-tile-to-make-mirror.html

Totally agree with Anzan Hoshin Roshi and Dogen on this matter.


Excerpt from https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/cutting-cat-one-practice-bodhisattva-precepts



Beyond this is the fact that, no matter how much we like or dislike, or are hurt or maimed by a thought, action or event, our attitudes do not colour the event itself, only our relationship to it. As this is so, no matter how much we stomp or shout or cajole or whine, reality is what it is. In this is sacredness and dignity.

This can extend into territory we might not be comfortable with. Our personal ambitions and dreams and hopes and fears are meaningless, just sounds that don't even find an echo in a universe that extends forever, in all directions. An earthquake that kills ten thousand people is not evil; it is just plates of rock shifting. A bullet is not evil. The universe is simply not conditioned towards our personal convenience. The person who pulls the trigger that kills the mother of three is original purity. But at the same time, we recognize that person as being evil, as being tainted or deranged. There is horror at the memory of Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz and Hiroshima , of the fact that the molestation of a child is probably occurring somewhere at this moment. Yet even there, there is intrinsic purity. This is how it is. No one said (at least among the enlightened) that purity is necessarily what is pleasant. The fact that everything, every event, is intrinsically pure does not eliminate the fact of our responsibility. We can't just say. "Oh it's all Buddha Nature", and kick the cat. The fact is Buddha Nature, complete freedom from birth and death; the opposites of samsara and nirvana can both be transcended right here, now, but without that realization and in fact even more so after a good glimpse of it, the issue at point is meaning , and living in a way that honours this fact.

There is a famous koan about a Chinese Chan master called Nanquan or Nanzan, who cut a cat in two in order to teach his students about grasping. It appears in many different koan collections and is the ninth case of the "Shoyoroku" :

"One day the monks of the western and eastern halls of Nanquan's monastery were squabbling over a cat. When Nanquan saw this going on he seized the cat and held it up before them and said, 'Say one true word or I'll cut it.'
"No one could say anything. Nanquan cut the cat in two."

Dogen zenji saw this as an immense failure; he saw it as a Teacher with bloody hands standing before embarrassed, horrified, and confused students. He said that Nanzan may have been able to cut the cat into two, but had no realization at all of being able to cut the cat into one. Bringing together body and mind, self and other, time and space, bringing everything back into its original wholeness and bringing all that we are aware of into Awareness itself through cutting away separateness with the sword of insight, the thin blade of this moment, is cutting the cat into one.

At first kensho, the student sees into Ordinary Mind. So what? If you can't live here, there is no point in standing outside in the flower bed, peering in between the window blinds. It is not a matter of taking some particular moment of practice and setting that up as the entirety of the path. Realization must be embodied and unfolded completely. If you refuse to take responsibility for your body, breath, speech and mind, and unfold each moment as this Original Nature itself, then get the hell out or I'll throw you out. We can't excuse ourselves from true wholehearted practice just because we have a note from our Teacher saying: "Congratulations. Here's inka-shomei, you're a Sensei." How much more so if we have only had one or two satoris and have read too much Alan Watts, or D. T. Suzuki out of context, or buji zen ("doesn't matter zen").

Great Faith is abiding in True Nature as the root of practice so that practice acts to expose us to this True Nature always and in every moment. No experiences, no attainments define or limit this Way. Everything is this Way. Great Doubt shows us the outflows in our practice clearly. Great Practice is coming back to just this, again and again.

The Ten Grave Precepts reflect this. "There is no wrong action" is followed not by "nothing matters", but by "There is only the arising of benefit". Acting fully and responsibly from Awakened Mind, from that which sees tracelessness, is the Buddhaway. From such a mind, not only can wrong action not arise, all that is becomes of benefit to all beings.

Having taken your suffering and delusion seriously, opened it to see what's inside it, you work thoroughly with everything that arises as the world in which you live. As this is so, you recognize that this suffering is true for others, that this dignity and clarity are true for others. Thus, the bodhisattva brings forth benefit clearly and with open hands. A thousand eyes and hands are one's whole body. Free from the klesas of passion, aggression, and ignorance, one's action is clear and truly spontaneous -- not governed by impulse (which the usual mind likes to believe is spontaneity). There is only the benefit of all beings. The universe in which the bodhisattva lives is "all beings", he or she is "all beings", rocks and air and nostril hair are "all beings". Kannon's "thousand eyes and hands" are the whole universe itself.

This benefit is not a matter of self-congratulatory goody-two-shoed-ness, or deprecation of another's essential dignity through pity. It is simply a raw and open heart that does what needs to be done. It does not force others to be what it wants -- it is only a heart, it doesn't want anything. It does not seduce or console or convert. It is simply a raw and open heart.

Traditionally, there are said to be four ways in which the Bodhisattva manifests dana paramita: material benefit; giving what each needs to promote well-being; giving freedom from fear; giving the Teachings. Actually there is no number or limit to this benefit. There is only the benefit of all beings.

John, Yin Ling and I enjoyed some writings I shared from Soto Zen teacher Anzan Hoshin Roshi, who is also Ven Jinmyo Osho's teacher.

Here's an excerpt from his book Intimate Reality which you can purchase from https://wwzc.org/intimate-reality


SEVEN: Seamlessness


“When the ten thousand dharmas move forward and practice and realize the self, this is awakening.”
Just for this moment: be right where you are, be just as you are. Release all of this pushing and pulling, this subject and object. Don’t fall into pushing against the pushing to get rid of it. Simply don’t push. Just sit. Release this pushing and pulling even slightly, for just one moment, and you will find that something begins to happen. The moment begins to exert itself as the sights and sounds, touch and taste, smells and thoughts and feelings.


You will discover that seeing has its own intelligence which presents itself as the green of leaves, the grey and blue and white of the clouds, the vast blue of the sky. Hearing has its own intelligence. All of the senses are open and the body is alive and knowing itself as the world.


Stand up and take a step. Another step. Each step exerts itself completely and then is gone. The moment exerts itself completely and then is gone, without a trace. There is no trace of that step in this step. There is just this step. There is just hearing, just seeing, just knowing. The ten thousand dharmas exert themselves completely and without effort.


You can grasp at whatever you want to, but there is nowhere that anything is separate from you so that you can take hold of it. Everything arises within the seamlessness of experience. If we enter yet further into this moment and enter directly into the exertion of these ten thousand dharmas, enter directly into how Awareness displays itself as what it is aware of, then something else begins to make itself clear. There aren’t “ten thousand” dharmas. There isn’t even “one” dharma either. There’s just this. This is the moment of dropping body and mind.


Well, where are these “bodies” and “minds” now? Someone, please, show me your body. How would you know about the body if not through the mind? The “body” is perceived by the mind. Is there an itch? A colour? A sound? You look at your hands, you move your thumb, wiggle your fingers. These are all just perceptions arising, dwelling and decaying. Your “body” is all in the mind. Now, where is this “mind”? There is this seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, thinking and feeling — but where is the “mind”? Someone, please, show me your mind.


When there is no separation, no distance to be closed between yourself and your experience, then where are you? The sound of a hammer, the sound of your breath. When there is just this there is no room for a body, no mind, no time, no space. There is just Open Luminosity which can sometimes look like a body, a mind. Everything is released, everything is dropped, everything rises up as it is, everything leaps into and out of itself. In this moment is the arising of all world-systems, in this moment is the vanishing of all world-systems.

[10/3/23, 6:40:43 PM] John Tan: You and Andre are talking about philosophical concepts of permanence and impermanence.   Dogen is not talking about that.  What Dogen meant by "impermanence is buddha nature" is telling us to authenticate Buddha nature directly in the very transient phenomena -- the mountains, the trees, the sunshine, the drumbeats of footsteps, not some super awareness in wonderland.
[10/3/23, 6:41:40 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[10/3/23, 6:43:15 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I didnt talk with andre lol
[10/3/23, 6:43:21 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Anna was talking with andre
[10/3/23, 6:44:24 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Actually what dogen said is pretty obvious imo even after initial anatta
[10/3/23, 6:44:32 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Wonder why mipham didnt emphasize that point
[10/3/23, 6:44:43 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Maybe he did with the rongzom appearances are divine
[10/3/23, 6:44:49 PM] John Tan: Different praxis

 

..........

 

p.s. some recent quotes I shared:

  • Soh Wei Yu
    Dogen does not accept an unchanging Brahman. Being a Buddhist teacher he refutes an unchanging atman-brahman:
    As my mentor Thusness/John Tan said in 2007 about Dogen, “Dogen is a great Zen master that has penetrated deeply into a very deep level of anatman.”, “Read about Dogen… he is truly a great Zen master… ...[Dogen is] one of the very few Zen Masters that truly knows.”, “Whenever we read the most basic teachings of Buddha, it is most profound. Don't ever say we understand it. Especially when it comes to Dependent Origination, which is the most profound truth in Buddhism*. Never say that we understand it or have experienced it. Even after a few years of experience in non-duality, we can't understand it. The one great Zen master that came closest to it is Dogen, that sees temporality as buddha nature, that see transients as living truth of dharma and the full manifestation of buddha nature.”
    "When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine many things with a confused mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. But when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that there is nothing that has unchanging self.
    • ⁠Dogen"
    “Mind as mountains, rivers, and the earth is nothing other than mountains, rivers, and the earth. There are no additional waves or surf, no wind or smoke. Mind as the sun, the moon, and the stars is nothing other than the sun, the moon, and the stars.”
    • ⁠Dogen
    “For Dōgen, Buddha-nature or Busshō (佛性) is the nature of reality and all Being. In the Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen writes that “whole-being (Existence itself) is the Buddha-nature” and that even inanimate things (grass, trees, etc.) are an expression of Buddha-nature. He rejected any view that saw Buddha-nature as a permanent, substantial inner self or ground. Dōgen held that Buddha-nature was “vast emptiness”, “the world of becoming” and that “impermanence is in itself Buddha-nature”.[23] According to Dōgen: Therefore, the very impermanency of grass and tree, thicket and forest is the Buddha nature. The very impermanency of men and things, body and mind, is the Buddha nature. Nature and lands, mountains and rivers, are impermanent because they are the Buddha nature. Supreme and complete enlightenment, because it is impermanent, is the Buddha nature.[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōgen#Buddha-nature
    Continued in my next post
    Dōgen - Wikipedia
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    Dōgen - Wikipedia
    Dōgen - Wikipedia

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    Soh Wei Yu
    From Bendowa, by Zen Master Dogen
    Question Ten:
    Some have said: Do not concern yourself about birth-and-death. There is a way to promptly rid yourself of birth-and-death. It is by grasping the reason for the eternal immutability of the 'mind-nature.' The gist of it is this: although once the body is born it proceeds inevitably to death, the mind-nature never perishes. Once you can realize that the mind-nature, which does not transmigrate in birth-and-death, exists in your own body, you make it your fundamental nature. Hence the body, being only a temporary form, dies here and is reborn there without end, yet the mind is immutable, unchanging throughout past, present, and future. To know this is to be free from birth-and-death. By realizing this truth, you put a final end to the transmigratory cycle in which you have been turning. When your body dies, you enter the ocean of the original nature. When you return to your origin in this ocean, you become endowed with the wondrous virtue of the Buddha-patriarchs. But even if you are able to grasp this in your present life, because your present physical existence embodies erroneous karma from prior lives, you are not the same as the sages.
    "Those who fail to grasp this truth are destined to turn forever in the cycle of birth-and-death. What is necessary, then, is simply to know without delay the meaning of the mind-nature's immutability. What can you expect to gain from idling your entire life away in purposeless sitting?"
    What do you think of this statement? Is it essentially in accord with the Way of the Buddhas and patriarchs?
    Answer 10:
    You have just expounded the view of the Senika heresy. It is certainly not the Buddha Dharma.
    According to this heresy, there is in the body a spiritual intelligence. As occasions arise this intelligence readily discriminates likes and dislikes and pros and cons, feels pain and irritation, and experiences suffering and pleasure - it is all owing to this spiritual intelligence. But when the body perishes, this spiritual intelligence separates from the body and is reborn in another place. While it seems to perish here, it has life elsewhere, and thus is immutable and imperishable. Such is the standpoint of the Senika heresy.
    But to learn this view and try to pass it off as the Buddha Dharma is more foolish than clutching a piece of broken roof tile supposing it to be a golden jewel. Nothing could compare with such a foolish, lamentable delusion. Hui-chung of the T'ang dynasty warned strongly against it. Is it not senseless to take this false view - that the mind abides and the form perishes - and equate it to the wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas; to think, while thus creating the fundamental cause of birth-and-death, that you are freed from birth-and-death? How deplorable! Just know it for a false, non-Buddhist view, and do not lend a ear to it.
    I am compelled by the nature of the matter, and more by a sense of compassion, to try to deliver you from this false view. You must know that the Buddha Dharma preaches as a matter of course that body and mind are one and the same, that the essence and the form are not two. This is understood both in India and in China, so there can be no doubt about it. Need I add that the Buddhist doctrine of immutability teaches that all things are immutable, without any differentiation between body and mind. The Buddhist teaching of mutability states that all things are mutable, without any differentiation between essence and form. In view of this, how can anyone state that the body perishes and the mind abides? It would be contrary to the true Dharma.
    Beyond this, you must also come to fully realize that birth-and-death is in and of itself nirvana. Buddhism never speaks of nirvana apart from birth-and-death. Indeed, when someone thinks that the mind, apart from the body, is immutable, not only does he mistake it for Buddha-wisdom, which is free from birth-and-death, but the very mind that makes such a discrimination is not immutable, is in fact even then turning in birth-and-death. A hopeless situation, is it not?
    You should ponder this deeply: since the Buddha Dharma has always maintained the oneness of body and mind, why, if the body is born and perishes, would the mind alone, separated from the body, not be born and die as well? If at one time body and mind were one, and at another time not one, the preaching of the Buddha would be empty and untrue. Moreover, in thinking that birth-and-death is something we should turn from, you make the mistake of rejecting the Buddha Dharma itself. You must guard against such thinking.
    Understand that what Buddhists call the Buddhist doctrine of the mind-nature, the great and universal aspect encompassing all phenomena, embraces the entire universe, without differentiating between essence and form, or concerning itself with birth or death. There is nothing - enlightenment and nirvana included - that is not the mind-nature. All dharmas, the "myriad forms dense and close" of the universe - are alike in being this one Mind. All are included without exception. All those dharmas, which serves as "gates" or entrances to the Way, are the same as one Mind. For a Buddhist to preach that there is no disparity between these dharma-gates indicates that he understands the mind-nature.
    In this one Dharma [one Mind], how could there be any differentiate between body and mind, any separation of birth-and-death and nirvana? We are all originally children of the Buddha, we should not listen to madmen who spout non-Buddhist views.
    The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo
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    The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo
    The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo

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    Alberto Befani
    Soh Wei Yu thank you so much, this passage is so important for my understanding of Dogen! 🙏🏼




https://www.facebook.com/groups/SotoZenGlobal/posts/10160528895910692/

 

See my replies (by Soh Wei Yu):


    I don't mean to be quarrelsome here at all but I do have a concern with the bodhisattva path. The Buddha taught that enlightenment ended rebirth. The stream enterer has at the most 7 lives before parinirvana. The Buddha himself entered nirvana at the end of his life. So how can a bodhisattva who is aiming at enlightenment remain in samsara until it is empty if she gets enlightened and cuts off rebirth. Seems like a big problem.

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  • Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger
    The Buddha didn't teach that.


    Into the Stream: A Study Guide on the First Stage of Awakening
    ACCESSTOINSIGHT.ORG
    Into the Stream: A Study Guide on the First Stage of Awakening
    Into the Stream: A Study Guide on the First Stage of Awakening


  • Elliot Miller
    Author
    Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger "The Pali Canon recognizes four levels of Awakening, the first of which is called stream entry. This gains its name from the fact that a person who has attained this level has entered the "stream" flowing inevitably to nibbana. He/she is guaranteed to achieve full awakening within seven lifetimes at most, and in the interim will not be reborn in any of the lower realms." - Thanissaro Bhikkhu


    Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger
    Elliot Miller this is not specifically taught in Soto Zen Buddhism, and in fact there is no belief in reincarnation that is required. We are already enlightened, we just need to realize that. And it can be a continual, iterative process. The Bodhisattva intentionally remains until all sentient beings are free. That is the intent, anyway.

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger Many Soto Zen Buddhists nowadays do not believe in rebirth as they are influenced by modern materialist views, however it is clear that Dogen took rebirth and karma quite literally.


  • Soh Wei Yu
    Astus shared:
    Dogen talks directly and indirectly about karma and rebirth. Some examples:
    In the Shobogenzo (tr. Nishijima-Cross, Numata edition):
    vol 1
    ch9, Keisei-sanshiki (p. 118), on the power of confession cleansing past karma
    ch10, Shoaku-makusa, the entire chapter about retribution and precepts
    ch12, Kesa-kudoku (p. 159), on the power of kesa/kashaya cleansing karma
    ch14, Sansuigyo (p. 221), different beings see in different ways
    vol 4
    ch90, Shizen-biku (p. 272), criticises Kongzi and Laozi for their ignorance of past lives
    ch84, Sanji-no-go, the whole chapter is about the karma in three times
    In the Eihei Koroku (tr. Leighton-Okumura):
    4.275 (p264); 5.383 (p340) fruit of past lives
    5.386 (p344) "If people who study Buddha Dharma have no genuine faith or true mindfulness, they will certainly dispense with and ignore [the law of] causality."
    6.437 (p392) denying karma is wrong view, zazen with wrong view is useless
    7.485 (p430); 7.517 (p460) 3 kinds of karma
    7.504 (p450) "Tathagatas never go beyond clarifying cause and effect"
    7.510 (p454) "Students of the way cannot dismiss cause and effect. If you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice-realization."
    7.524 (p466) rebirth of relatives by the merit of one's leaving home


  • Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger
    Soh Wei Yu rebirth doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as reincarnation. It doesn't necessarily mean a direct one to one preservation of an individual personality or soul. Especially since Buddhism teaches no soul. Again, Zen Buddhism doesn't require you to believe anything.


  • Soh Wei Yu
    Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger Yes no learnt Buddhist in any of the three traditions (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana) believe that a soul is reincarnated. But also, all three traditions do take rebirth and karma without soul quite literally. There is, conventionally speaking, past lives and karma. To reject these would constitute what Buddha calls "wrong view".
    It does not require a soul or agent however.
    “Empty phenomena ~ Nagarjuna
    All beings consist of causes and effects,
    In which there is no ‘sentient being’ at all.
    From phenomena which are exclusively empty,
    There arise only empty phenomena.
    All things are devoid of any ‘I’ or ‘mine’.
    Like a recitation, a candle, a mirror, a seal,
    A magnifying glass, a seed, sourness, or a sound,
    So also with the continuation of the aggregates —
    The wise should know they are not transferred.
    Nagarjuna
    The Heart of Dependent Origination, verse 4 & 5”
    Buddhaghosha:
    "Mere suffering is, not any sufferer is found
    The deeds exist, but no performer of the deeds:
    Nibbana is, but not the man that enters it,
    The path is, but no wanderer is to be seen."
    No doer of the deeds is found,
    No one who ever reaps their fruits,
    Empty phenomena roll on,
    This view alone is right and true.
    No god, no Brahma, may be called,
    The maker of this wheel of life,
    Empty phenomena roll on,
    Dependent on conditions all." Visuddhimagga XIX.


  • Soh Wei Yu
    In the ultimate sense, there do not even exist such things as
    mental states, i.e. stationary things. Feeling, perception,
    consciousness, etc., are in reality mere passing processes of feeling,
    perceiving, becoming conscious, etc., within which and outside of
    which no separate or permanent entity lies hidden.
    Thus a real understanding of the Buddha's doctrine of kamma and
    rebirth is possible only to one who has caught a glimpse of the
    egoless nature, or //anattata//, and of the conditionality, or
    //idappaccayata//, of all phenomena of existence. Therefore it is said
    in the //Visuddhimagga// (Chap. XIX):
    Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple
    sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the
    concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the
    volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no
    recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is
    well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,
    when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or
    with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the
    result.
    No doer of the deeds is found,
    No one who ever reaps their fruits;
    Empty phenomena roll on:
    This only is the correct view.
    And while the deeds and their results
    Roll on and on, conditioned all,
    There is no first beginning found,
    Just as it is with seed and tree. ...
    No god, no Brahma, can be called
    The maker of this wheel of life:
    Empty phenomena roll on,
    Dependent on conditions all.
    In the //Milindapanha// the King asks Nagasena:
    "What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn?"
    "A psycho-physical combination (//nama-rupa//), O King."
    "But how, Venerable Sir? Is it the same psycho-physical
    combination as this present one?"
    "No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces
    kammically wholesome and unwholesome volitional activities, and
    through such kamma a new psycho-physical combination will be
    born."
    FUNDAMENTALS OF BUDDHISM
    ANGELFIRE.COM
    FUNDAMENTALS OF BUDDHISM
    FUNDAMENTALS OF BUDDHISM

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  • Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger
    Soh Wei Yu okay, so how does all of this relate to the original question about the Bodhisattva vow not making sense?


  • Soh Wei Yu
    Cynthia Wooten Wolfenbarger His question presumes that full enlightenment leads to the cessation of mindstream in parinirvana, so one cannot continue the Bodhisattva vow of helping beings after passing away from this life.
    I answered his query below.
    "In Mahayana sutras, Buddhas eventually rouse sravaka arahants from cessation to continue their path to Buddhahood, and Buddhas appear to enter parinirvana but actually continue to emanate and help suffering sentient beings as long as there is a single sentient being left in the universe. Their mindstreams do not actually cease, only delusions and afflictions cease.
    1st Bhumi [Mahayana stream entry] bodhisattvas do cut off the cause for rebirth in the lower realms and self-views like the sravaka stream entrant, and an 8th Bhumi bodhisattvas who has overcome all mental afflictions like a sravaka arahant do cut off uncontrolled cyclic rebirths, but it is not the same as the cessation of mindstream.
    It is a different understanding from Theravada which relies only on Pali canon suttas and the Sravakayana commentaries."














  • Adam Schwartz
    Who’s problem is it?


  • Dominick Fontana
    I've had the same thought. 🤔 I take, Buddha's, words to heart when he says, (roughly paraphrasing) "don't believe what I say, until, you've experienced it yourself".


  • Soh Wei Yu
    In Mahayana sutras, Buddhas eventually rouse sravaka arahants from cessation to continue their path to Buddhahood, and Buddhas appear to enter parinirvana but actually continue to emanate and help suffering sentient beings as long as there is a single sentient being left in the universe. Their mindstreams do not actually cease, only delusions and afflictions cease.
    1st Bhumi [Mahayana stream entry] bodhisattvas do cut off the cause for rebirth in the lower realms and self-views like the sravaka stream entrant, and an 8th Bhumi bodhisattvas who has overcome all mental afflictions like a sravaka arahant do cut off uncontrolled cyclic rebirths, but it is not the same as the cessation of mindstream.
    It is a different understanding from Theravada which relies only on Pali canon suttas and the Sravakayana commentaries.

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