A non-Buddhist translator comments on Zen Master Dogen's "Rules of Sitting-Zen for All"... and thus gropes ineffectually towards non-preaching of the backward step of turning light and shining.
posted by Mike Cross at 10:26 AM
From 1982 to 1997 I worked on the translation of Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, and understood the primary importance in the Buddha's teaching of full lotus sitting. Until 1994 my attitude to this sitting practice could be summed up in the words: "Don't think. Just do it!" Then in 1994 I returned from Japan to England to train to be a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique, and experiences with Alexander work woke me up to the opposite standpoint of "Don't just do. Think it!" Far from smoothing my path, however, Alexander insights (or reactions to them) caused a lot of trouble between me and my aging teacher in Japan. Then in 2008, seeking clearer water further upstream, I found a new lease of life in the extant Sanskrit works of the 12th ancestor in Dogen's lineage -- the great Indian teacher Ashvaghosha.
5 Comments:
All points are the center and all are expanding infinitely?
A wild guess:
Perhaps the Fu of Fukanzazengi refers to something notionally separate, to which universal rules of sitting-zen may be applied.
Perhaps Enzu includes separateness and division. The proverbial seafish born to the water wonders what the ocean might be like. Silly old Cod!
Thanks for these comments.
I think that Master Dogen might be happy that bright people originating from countries thousands of miles from Japan, 750 years after his death, were bringing their top two inches to bear upon working out the real meaning of his words.
The question I asked this morning arose out of my top two inches.
But I think Master Dogen's main message is that we should endeavor to answer the questions that arise from our intellects primarily by going in the other direction; i.e. by going in exactly the opposite direction to that which leads to a Ph. D in Buddhist studies; i.e. by learning the backward step of turning light around.
EKO HENSHO NO TAIHO O GAKUSU BESHI. SHINJIN JINNENNI DATSURAKU SHITE, HONRAI NO MENMOKU GENZEN SEN.
"Learn the backward step of turning light and luminescing. Body and mind will spontaenously drop off, and the original face will emerge."
I think these words point to the most fundamental, basic, primordial tendency in the Universe -- the tendency that energy has spontaneously to spread out, unless prevented from doing so.
And the point is not so much to ask about it and think about it with the top two inches, but to be sat by it with however many feet of us the Universe has at its disposal.
Being sat like that, by the Universe, I think Master Dogen found himself writing characters like FU and like ENZU.
Look at me... writing the beginnings of a Ph. D dissertation.
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If you love being reminded of what true, non-endgaining practice is by reading a literal translation of the original characters of Fukan-zazengi, that strikes me as seeming very true indeed.
(But if you are persuaded by my own idle rambling, I am not so sure.)
In any event, thanks.
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