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JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Last night's study group was very stimulating. A 25 minute period of Zazen was followed by tea and discussion of Master Dogen's Teisho on Jisho-Zanmai or Samadhi as Experience of the Self.
In this fascicle, Master Dogen discusses how our experience of our "self" is a sutra, a realized teaching of the Dharma. He does this to teach us that we should understand the teachings of the Ancients as nothing more than the experience of our true nature on the cushion in the meditation hall. Or on walking to class. Or in cooking dinner. Or in reading a book.
He lays out the teaching of the mind to mind transmission as his basis for his teaching. If my eyes are open and I am with another whose eyes are open, we see directly and clearly what is there before us. Recognition of this is essentially the certification of transmission of the Dharma. Now, if that teaching is a sutra, it is the same. The sutra is presenting a eyes open view. If our eyes are open, cutting onion is that very same view. Everything is our teacher, all things are practice points.
Knowing a sutra is not the same as experiencing the self in the sutra. The world is full of knowers of things. These knowers are brilliant and yet lifeless. Their teaching is dry as if desiccated, yet in truth, it s never really alive, because it was all a mirror reflection of their head.
A true teacher is visceral. The teaching is alive, wet, and bloody. It has a pulse.
When we experience our true nature in anything we are experiencing the same true nature as the entire universe.. Yet to get this experience we must surrender our self to our self. We must step out of knowing and know.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Last night's study group was very stimulating. A 25 minute period of Zazen was followed by tea and discussion of Master Dogen's Teisho on Jisho-Zanmai or Samadhi as Experience of the Self.
In this fascicle, Master Dogen discusses how our experience of our "self" is a sutra, a realized teaching of the Dharma. He does this to teach us that we should understand the teachings of the Ancients as nothing more than the experience of our true nature on the cushion in the meditation hall. Or on walking to class. Or in cooking dinner. Or in reading a book.
He lays out the teaching of the mind to mind transmission as his basis for his teaching. If my eyes are open and I am with another whose eyes are open, we see directly and clearly what is there before us. Recognition of this is essentially the certification of transmission of the Dharma. Now, if that teaching is a sutra, it is the same. The sutra is presenting a eyes open view. If our eyes are open, cutting onion is that very same view. Everything is our teacher, all things are practice points.
Knowing a sutra is not the same as experiencing the self in the sutra. The world is full of knowers of things. These knowers are brilliant and yet lifeless. Their teaching is dry as if desiccated, yet in truth, it s never really alive, because it was all a mirror reflection of their head.
A true teacher is visceral. The teaching is alive, wet, and bloody. It has a pulse.
When we experience our true nature in anything we are experiencing the same true nature as the entire universe.. Yet to get this experience we must surrender our self to our self. We must step out of knowing and know.
Be well.