Are There Any Questions?
I would like to answer questions on Master Dogen’s rules of sitting-zen, Fukan-zazen-gi, if there are any such questions.
If no questions spring to mind, here are some key words and phrases that might spark your curiosity.
ZAZEN; sitting-dhyana, sitting-zen or sitting-meditation (not “sitting zen”; never “seated meditation”)
GORI NO SA; the slighest gap
SHUSHIN NO KATSURO; the vigorous road of getting the body out
EKO HENSHO NO TAIHO; the backward step of turning light
SHINJIN JINNEN NI DATSURAKU: body and mind spontaneously dropping off
MIMI TO KATA TO TAISURU; ears and shoulders opposing each other
SAIYU YOSHIN SURU; swaying the body left and right
HI-SHIRYO; non-thinking
BODAI O GUJIN SURU NO SHUSHO: practice and experience that gets to the bottom of the Buddha’s enlightenment
KOAN GENJO: laws of the universe are realized
RARO IMADA ITARAZU; no nets and cages
KONSAN; dullness and hyperactivity; passive and active fear
CHIKEN NO SAKI NO KISOKU; a criterion before knowing and seeing
GOTSUCHI NI SAERARU; being caught by stillness
If no questions spring to mind, here are some key words and phrases that might spark your curiosity.
ZAZEN; sitting-dhyana, sitting-zen or sitting-meditation (not “sitting zen”; never “seated meditation”)
GORI NO SA; the slighest gap
SHUSHIN NO KATSURO; the vigorous road of getting the body out
EKO HENSHO NO TAIHO; the backward step of turning light
SHINJIN JINNEN NI DATSURAKU: body and mind spontaneously dropping off
MIMI TO KATA TO TAISURU; ears and shoulders opposing each other
SAIYU YOSHIN SURU; swaying the body left and right
HI-SHIRYO; non-thinking
BODAI O GUJIN SURU NO SHUSHO: practice and experience that gets to the bottom of the Buddha’s enlightenment
KOAN GENJO: laws of the universe are realized
RARO IMADA ITARAZU; no nets and cages
KONSAN; dullness and hyperactivity; passive and active fear
CHIKEN NO SAKI NO KISOKU; a criterion before knowing and seeing
GOTSUCHI NI SAERARU; being caught by stillness
posted by Mike Cross at 8:12 PM
2 Comments:
Two questions:
Please explain what you understand to be the gap that Master Dogen mentions. Why indeed when the truth is all around do we need to practise zazen?
'The most mental thing there is' - didn't Master Dogen also want us to abandon this kind of thinking or even his own 'non-thinking?' I'm uncomfortable with your certainties, with what sounds like a method in what you say. It makes me want to say something like 'It is not that' to coin a phrase. Please re-iterate your understanding of Master Dogen's non-thinking.
Some time ago, you said you would publish a completely literal translation of Fukanzazengi. I would be very interested in this. Problematic I guess because we'll need all the alternatives in context for the key words. I wonder if the crucible of the internet will turn up yet another view of the text?
Hi MT,
Thanks for your questions and observations.
GORI MO SA AREBA TENCHI HARUKANI HEDATARI
GORI very small fraction, a tiny bit
MO [particle] even
SA gap
AREBA if there is
TENCHI heaven and earth
HARUKANI far
HEDATARI are separate,
If there is even a tiny gap, heaven and earth are far apart
IJUN WAZUKANI OKOREBA FUNZEN TOSHITE SHIN O SHITSU
IJUN discrepancy, gap
WAZUKANI slightly
OKOREBA if it arises
FUNZEN TOSHITE in confusion
SHIN mind, heart
O [object particle]
SHITSU lose
If a slight discrepancy arises, we lose the mind in confusion.
As you suggest, my understanding of what Master Dogen meant by a gap, or discrepancy, is also subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics: it changes day by day -- generally depending on what kind of mis-match I have noticed in myself recently, or what kind of hypocrisy I have noticed in others (gap in self and gap in others often being not unrelated, by dint of the mirror principle).
When I read James Cohen criticizing others in Dogen Sangha for not keeping the precepts, I always feel that is a ridiculous example of the gap. Can’t the nincompoop see that his very criticism is itself just breaking the precepts?
Similarly, if there were some stupid person who held up his own sitting in the full lotus posture as an example of being fearless, like a dragon that found water, and then expressed his recognition that his whole sitting-zen career has been suffused with the fear of being wrong, you might wonder about the integrity of that person’s head/neck/back -- you might suppose that his bum and his head were not in full communication with each other, one being earthbound, the other being in the clouds. Again, you might think the fearless dragon sounded a bit confused.
Speaking for myself, I need to sit in the full lotus posture for four sessions a day -- otherwise I am a hypocrite who doesn’t practice what he preaches. On that crude level at least, there is no gap in me. But on deeper, subtler levels, there are many kinds of gap, many kinds of hypocrisy, many inconsistencies, many kinds of self-deceit, many instances of dis-integration, that are deserving of “It is not that!”
HI-SHIRYO
HI ‘non’, as in HI-BUTSU, non-buddha, i.e. true buddha, real buddha, not what people think of as buddha
SHIRYO thinking
HI-SHIRYO non-thinking
With regard to the real meaning of “non-thinking” I think you are very wise to be uncomfortable with certainties.
Yes, I agree with you -- it always turns out to be “not that!”
In the past I was confident that I understood exactly what HI-SHIRYO meant. It meant “[Action which is] different from thinking.” But my confidence in those days was false. It wasn’t my own confidence. It wasn’t real. What I understood by “action” was just a kind of fearful fixing -- “doing” in Alexander jargon. Nowadays all I can say with real, true confidence is that what Master Dogen meant by HI-SHIRYO was not that, not what I thought before, not crude doing, not what I was taught by fingers crudely pulling my chin backwards.
FM Alexander said that to know that we were wrong was all we could ever know in this world. I think he was speaking the truth, speaking from real experience.
The most recent translation of Fukan-zazengi on my webpage (www.the-middle-way.org) is the closest I can get so far to a completely literal translation into English. But I am happy to go through any sentence or phrase in Japanese word by word as above -- just let me know which bit you want me to clarify.
In this world tainted everywhere by human hypocrisy, a problem of which I am a part, Fukan-zazengi is a pure diamond. Let us endeavor to polish it, hold it up, and appreciate together its original beauty.
That last sentence sounds affected, doesn’t it? You see, I’m much better at demonstrating the gap than explaining my understanding of it.
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