SHUJO JIZAI: The Fundamental Vehicle Naturally Exists

In other words, the right thing does itself.

When released, twisted fibres naturally tend to unwind....











As long as it is not deprived of air, the stick of incense naturally tends to keep burning down, towards the earth.




As long as it is not deprived of sunlight, the non-sentient being naturally tends to grow upward, towards the heavens.




Master Dogen's words SHUJO, fundamental vehicle, as I understand them, have to do with the inherent tendency that energy has -- via such processes as muscular release, respiration, digestion, and growth of living things -- spontaneously to flow (see, for example, www.entropysimple.com).

FM Alexander said that change was the ultimate reality. It wasn't a parrotted idea that FM had picked up from some sutra: it was a realization that followed from his own independent learning of the backward step of turning light and luminescing.

The fundamental vehicle naturally exists. It is not a realization that anybody can teach to anybody.