by Domyo Burk | Feb 3, 2017 | Your Zen Toolbox
Sit in a balanced, stable position with your spine erect.
Body and mind are one and posture is dynamic; proper sitting requires your full attention.
Instructions for physical posture may seem uninteresting or elementary because we conceive of our minds and bodies being separate. To meditate, we figure all we need to do is to get our body into some relatively comfortable position, and then leave it there like a lump of clay while we engage some “meditative technique” with our minds.
However, our practice is shikantaza, which means “nothing but precisely sitting.” Wholehearted sitting is our meditative technique. It challenges us to drop artificial, conceptual distinctions between the “I” who is meditating, the “mind” I am disciplining, and the “body” I am paying attention to in order to discipline the mind. I, mind, and body are all experiential aspects of one Being, who is taking a profoundly significant posture: upright, still, dignified, ready, open, and forgoing either grasping or aversion.
When we sit wholeheartedly, it is actually a rich experience. The appropriate posture can only be maintained with gentle, continued awareness of the body. Sights, sounds, smells, inner sensations, thoughts, and feelings are all part of our sitting. However, we try to keep our awareness on our experience as a whole, instead of being caught up in one aspect of it.
Be alert and appreciative, because your life may end tomorrow and everything you love is changing.
Imagine how you would feel if you really knew your life was going to end tomorrow. You’d probably pay alert, appreciative attention to whatever you were experiencing, even if all you were doing is sitting still and breathing! Even when you encountered things you would ordinarily find annoying or unpleasant, you’d probably be happy simply to be alive to experience them.
Contemplating impermanence is a traditional Buddhist way of motivating yourself to pay attention to the present moment, and it’s not meant to be depressing or anxiety-producing. If this line of the Eight Verses causes these reactions in you, just skip it. However, see if you can contemplate the implications of impermanence in this moment, as opposed to worrying about when and how the inevitable changes will come. You will not always have this opportunity to breathe, to hear the sound of the rain, to see the face of your friend…
Energized by not-knowing, devote yourself to the sacred act of being present for each moment without agenda.
We think we know. We know what’s going to happen next, who we are, who our partner is, what we like, and what the world is like. Our sense of knowing is based on conclusions we have drawn based on past experience. These conclusions allow us to predict things, make sense of things, and maintain a sense of control over our lives. This knowing also cuts us off from engaging our experience in an open, fresh, intimate, curious way.
Imagine you were sitting zazen and knew that at some point during your meditation period, someone might burst into the room and deliver news you were eagerly (or nervously) awaiting. Wouldn’t you be energized by the natural inclination to listen to each sound and ask, “Is that it? Are they coming?”
Challenge your habit of tuning out your present experience because you think you know what’s going to happen, or because what’s happening isn’t entertaining, pleasurable, or directly relevant to your plans. Your life, just as it is, is precious. Each day that passes is one you will never experience again. Motivated by your deep love of life, make an effort to be present for each moment, regardless of how it serves your self-interest. Because life itself is sacred (that is, worthy of reverence and respect), zazen can be an act of devotion.
Do not brace yourself against thoughts or feelings; simply sit wholeheartedly and they will come and go like clouds in a clear sky.
When we are caught up in thoughts and feelings, we are not doing zazen. At the same time, we can’t avoid getting caught up in thoughts and feelings by employing ordinary means. We are only further caught as soon as we latch on to conceptual divisions and tensions: “me” (trying to meditate) versus “my mind” (chasing thoughts), “good me” (aiming for spiritual growth) versus “lazy, stupid me” (who just wants to rehash the plot of a TV show during meditation), or “holy activity” (such as being present this moment) versus “mindless activity” (being caught up in thoughts).
Zazen asks us to adopt a radical stance of nonviolence, nonjudgment, and loving acceptance. The practice is to let go not just of our previous thoughts, but also any reaction we might have to having been caught up in thinking. As we return to “nothing but precisely sitting,” forgetting about everything that came before, there is an extremely precious moment of stillness before we get carried off into thought again. The more completely and wholeheartedly you forget about the previous moment and return to sitting, the longer and deeper the precious moment of presence will become.
Do not struggle against forgetfulness; the instant you awaken, be grateful and throw away past and future.
The forgetfulness referred to in this verse is not the act of forgetting (or letting go) talked about above. Forgetfulness is getting so caught up in thoughts and feelings you completely forget that you’re even doing zazen. You lose the thread of your intention entirely, and follow a train of thought so long that whatever you’re thinking about takes on much more an air of reality than your immediate physical surroundings.
How can you stop this from happening? You can’t, at least not directly. After all, how do you remember when you’ve totally forgotten? How do you wake up when you’re asleep? You just do. Things run their course, change, and you suddenly realize, “Oh yeah, I’m sitting zazen.” It’s important to make this instant of awakening as positive and fruitful as you can: Be grateful that it happened and just return to sitting, as described in the comments on the previous verse. If you respond to your instant of awakening with frustration, disappointment, judgment, or by evaluating your zazen, you will only make moments of waking up less likely to happen!
How can you get better at zazen if you’re not supposed to do anything about mind wandering and forgetfulness except forget about them and return to just sitting? You arouse greater passion for being present, as described in the third and fourth verses, or you explore the next two verses with great curiosity and determination.
Sink below the level of thinking and be aware of your direct experience, realizing it can never be grasped, but flows endlessly.
We can’t fight getting caught up in thinking directly, but we can turn our attention to our faculty of awareness. We are aware of our direct experience in a way that is utterly independent of discriminative thinking. Below your mental efforts to parse things out, describe, differentiate, understand, predict, and judge, you are aware of your body, sensations, perceptions, and thoughts. This awareness is ever-present, silent, and intimate. It is the medium within which we navigate as living beings, even when we’re preoccupied with our mental chatter. When we remember what’s below the level of thinking, we recognize we’re much bigger than we think we are.
It’s important to remember, though, that being “aware of your direct experience” is not a place to stop, or something to be achieved because it will deliver a reward. “Ah, I’m aware of my direct experience, now what?” Our direct experience – our life – is a flow, and “being aware of our direct experience” is the way to be intimately alive, moment after moment. It is its own reward.
Settle into your true nature: boundless, selfless, joyous, and ready to respond with wisdom and compassion.
At the same time, once you really, truly stop looking for anything else – once you stop expecting anything else to happen, once you’re really doing “nothing but precisely sitting” – the whole universe opens up to you. This is not because zazen is a method by which you work yourself into a special state where it’s possible to achieve insight. Rather, this is because when you’re doing zazen, you’re no longer separating yourself from reality and you can see it clearly.
If you know, from personal experience, that your true nature is boundless, selfless, joyous, and ready to respond skillfully to whatever happens, this verse serves as a reminder not to forget. If you don’t yet have a sense of being boundless, selfless, joyous, and ready, this verse is not meant to discourage you by pointing out spiritual goodies you don’t yet have. Instead, it’s meant to inspire you to summon the courage and passion to look beyond what you think you know, and surrender yourself more completely to the practice of zazen.
Click here for a printable copy of the Instructions for Zazen in Eight Verses, along with instructions for how to use them in your meditation.
by Domyo Burk | Nov 27, 2015 | Personal Musings, Understanding: Fundamental Teachings to Investigate
Parts in bold are from the text of the Bodhisattva Precepts; parts in italics explain how we keep a particular precept during the simple act of zazen.
The Gateway of Contrition
All my past and harmful karma,
Born from beginningless greed, hate and delusion,
Through body, speech, and mind,
I now fully avow.
A contrite heart is open to the dharma, and finds the gateway to the precepts clear and unobstructed. Bearing this in mind, we should sit up straight in the presence of the buddha and make this act of contrition wholeheartedly. – While we are sitting zazen, we are not running away, keeping ourselves busy, or distracting ourselves; we let our karma catch up with us.
Taking Refuge
I take refuge in the buddha – This is what buddhas have done, so this is what we are doing.
I take refuge in the dharma – When we stop running away, keeping ourselves busy, or distracting ourselves, the truth becomes clearer; we are opening ourselves up to this possibility by sitting still.
I take refuge in the sangha – We sit with others, or because others have done so and continue to do so.
The Precepts
Cease from harm – release all self-attachment. – We may not know what the right thing is to do, but we have stopped for a time.
Do only good – take selfless action. – We are engaging the activity of just sitting for the sake of all beings – we are not advancing any of our self-interested causes.
Do good for others – embrace all things and conditions. – We give up trying to change anything for a time. Instead, we bear witness. We allow the truth to permeate and change us. We allow wisdom to grow within and inform our future actions.
Do not kill – cultivate and encourage life. – We are not trying to get rid of what we don’t want, what we hate, or what we are afraid of.
Do not steal – honor the gift not yet given. – We are not grasping after what we want.
Do not misuse sexuality – remain faithful in relationships. – We are not doing anything to grasp or avoid intimacy, but instead we make it possible to notice a deeper intimacy with everything.
Do not speak dishonestly – communicate truthfully. – We are not speaking, but are perceiving directly. Our truth of the moment is silent.
Do not become intoxicated – polish clarity, dispel delusion. – We are doing without distraction or extra pleasure.
Do not dwell on past mistakes – create wisdom from ignorance. – Okay, we may be doing this in our minds. However, in this moment we are not making any mistakes. Over time we become more identified with this body, here and now, which is not defined by past mistakes.
Do not praise self or blame others – maintain modesty, extol virtue. – We are not saying or doing anything to build ourselves up or call attention to the faults of others.
Do not be mean with dharma or wealth – share understanding, give freely of self. – Our time of just sitting is completely useless in worldly terms, but it’s still an offering. It’s an offering of listening and looking. It’s an offering of humility and don’t-know mind.
Do not indulge anger – cultivate equanimity. – Sitting still is incompatible with anger. Don’t think so? Just try it!
Do not defame the three treasures – respect the buddha, unfold the dharma, nourish the sangha. – However skeptical we may feel in our minds, our bodies are enacting the buddha way.
by Domyo Burk | Oct 14, 2015 | Understanding: Fundamental Teachings to Investigate
[From the Genjokoan:] [The] Zen Master of Mt. Magu was waving a fan. A monk approached him and asked, “The nature of wind is ever present and permeates everywhere. Why are you waving a fan?” The master said, “You know only that the wind’s nature is ever present—you don’t know that it permeates everywhere.” The monk said, “How does wind permeate everywhere?” The master just continued waving the fan. The monk bowed deeply.
The genuine experience of Buddha Dharma and the vital path that has been correctly transmitted are like this. To say we should not wave a fan because the nature of wind is ever present, and that we should feel the wind even when we don’t wave a fan, is to know neither ever-presence nor the wind’s nature. Since the wind’s nature is ever present, the wind of the Buddha’s family enables us to realize the gold of the great Earth and to transform the [water of] the long river into cream.
The “nature of wind” is buddha-nature, and “waving a fan” is spiritual practice. The essence of the question being discussed here is this: “Zen teaches that everything in the universe is part of one, seamless reality, and this reality when perceived directly is complete, luminous, and precious. Not only that: The universe is complete, luminous, and precious and you’re intimately part of its perfection whether you realize it or not. Realizing it for yourself is nice, but ultimate reality isn’t dependent on your realizing. So we don’t have to do anything, right?”
This is not a philosophical question, at least not as it’s presented by Dogen. This is about what really matters in life. It’s about how you should live, how you should live out your aspirations and embody your natural compassion.
Should you work on developing wisdom, insight, and acceptance so you can obtain some measure of peace and happiness no matter what’s going on around you – or even within you? Should you adopt philosophies, viewpoints, and practices that let you “rise above it all,” and maintain perspective and equanimity when life gets tough? Should you let go of your desire for things to be better in the world and in your own life? After all, desire causes suffering, so if you can just accept things as they are, suffering ceases.
Or, should you devote yourself to the practice of the bodhisattva? A bodhisattva vows to save all beings using whatever means she can. Some of her practice involves developing insight and acceptance, but it also involves trying to end greed, hate, and delusion – especially within herself, but also in the world. A bodhisattva strives tirelessly to perfect himself, even knowing that’s an impossible goal. He practices energetic generosity, and engages fully with the world. The bodhisattva path is also an essential part of Zen.
But what is a bodhisattva doing, trying to save beings and aim for perfection when everything is already part of one, seamless reality which is complete, luminous, and precious? Another Zen teaching is emptiness: everything and every being is ultimately empty of inherent, enduring, independent self-nature. Instead, everything is completely interdependent and arises intimately with everything else in the universe. So ultimately there are no separate beings to save, no separate bodhisattva who is fulfilling a vow, and no such thing as perfection.
Oh lord, what’s a person to do? I’ll remind you again: This is not a philosophical quandary. It’s about whether to accept your anger problem or try to fix it. It’s about whether to tap into something eternal so you aren’t overwhelmed by the climate crisis, or whether to devote all of your extra energy to saving the world. It’s about whether you should deeply recognize how someone you love has his own path in life, and how you can’t ultimately prevent him from experiencing suffering, or whether you should do whatever you can to teach, support, and influence this person so they can have a better chance at happiness.
Of course, the Zen answer makes no rational sense. You should do both. You should strive to wake up to the fact that Unified Reality is complete, luminous, and precious, and nothing is lacking. AND you should do everything you can to make the world a better place. In the ancient Buddhist Sutra, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, it’s said:
“Wise Bodhisattvas… reflect on non-production [emptiness],
And yet, while doing so, engender in themselves the great compassion,
Which is, however, free from any notion of a being.
Thereby they practice wisdom, the highest perfection.
But when the notion of suffering and beings leads him to think:
‘Suffering I shall remove, the weal of the world I shall work!’
Beings are then imagined, a self is imagined, –
The practice of wisdom, the highest perfection, is lacking.”
(Translation by Edward Conze)
How does a bodhisattva – how do we – pull this feat off? Helping, but not thinking of helping… working actively in the world but not conceiving of ourselves… this may seem like an ideal that only highly realized beings are capable of.
But this is a wrong understanding of Zen and of our lives. It’s not an amazing feat to devote yourself to benefiting all beings while at the same time embracing the fact that all Reality is ultimately seamless, complete, and luminous. What takes a convoluted maze of words and concepts to describe is simply our lived experience. You can furrow your brows all day trying to comprehend the significance of the master waving the fan, but if he takes you by surprise and you experience his fan waving directly, Reality is immediately revealed, fresh and intimate.
Think about it this way: I can sit here explaining and explaining, and you can sit there pondering and trying to understand. Or I can get up, come over to you, take your hand, and look into your eyes. You’ll probably be uncomfortable, although also strangely drawn toward this unusual expression of intimacy. For others in the room, the whole thing will seem rather dramatic, maybe weird. Very quickly, everyone will start thinking about how to interpret this scene, wondering what message they’re meant to take away from it.
But there’s no message. For an instant, as I hold your hand and look into your eyes, we break out of our mental constructs and into direct experience. Most of us get shy a moment later when we are confronted like this; our minds scuttle back to what we know, trembling a little before the enormous, bright expanse of reality. The most brilliant human concepts, theories, and philosophies are woefully inadequate for describing and predicting our actual lived experience.
In our actual, lived experience, there is no problem with devoting ourselves wholeheartedly to practice and benefitting all beings even when we know that getting caught up in ideas of perfection, self, benefit, and beings just gets in the way. It’s entirely possible to work for change without becoming attached to the results.
And it’s not just possible, it’s necessary. The complete, luminous universe is only complete and luminous because it includes our effort. How does the nature of wind, or buddha nature, permeate everywhere? Through our waving the fan. Not because we wave a fan, as if there is no wind until we do so (or, no buddha nature until we awaken it through practice). The moment of our fan-waving is a perfect example of the nature of wind permeating everywhere.
The moment when we place our shoes straight, or say a kind word to someone, or vow to release our anger and anxiety, we are enacting universal completeness and luminosity. When we see how this is so, we realize how precious this universe is (the gold of the great earth) and transform our lives (the long river) into something nourishing and delightful.
Click here to read Domyo’s entire series of commentaries on the Genjokoan.
by Domyo Burk | Oct 7, 2015 | Understanding: Fundamental Teachings to Investigate
[From the Genjokoan:] When a fish swims, no matter how far it swims, it doesn’t reach the end of the water. When a bird flies, no matter how high it flies, it cannot reach the end of the sky. When the bird’s need or the fish’s need is great, the range is large. When the need is small, the range is small. In this way, each fish and each bird uses the whole of space and vigorously acts in every place. However, if a bird departs from the sky, or a fish leaves the water, it immediately dies. We should know that [for a fish] water is life, [for a bird] sky is life. A bird is life; a fish is life. Life is a bird; life is a fish. And we should go beyond this. There is practice-enlightenment—this is the way of living beings.
Therefore, if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality. This path, this place, is neither big nor small, neither self nor others. It has not existed before this moment nor has it come into existence now. Therefore [the reality of all things] is thus. In the same way, when a person engages in practice-enlightenment in the Buddha Way, as the person realizes one dharma, the person permeates that dharma; as the person encounters one practice, the person [fully] practices that practice. [For this] there is a place and a path. The boundary of the known is not clear; this is because the known [which appears limited] is born and practiced simultaneously with the complete penetration of the Buddha Dharma. We should not think that what we have attained is conceived by ourselves and known by our discriminating mind. Although complete enlightenment is immediately actualized, its intimacy is such that it does not necessarily form as a view. [In fact] viewing is not something fixed.
We the birds and the fish – living, practicing, and seeking. The water and the sky are the seamless reality within which we function, and from which we are not separate. This passage is about how we can transcend our limited self by becoming our limited self completely. This is very important, and many earlier parts of the Genjokoan were leading up to this.
For example, when Dogen writes, “All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization,” he points out that when we awaken to seamless reality (or the “absolute,” or unity), we participate in this seamless reality with everything. (Class #4: Our Relationship with All Things in the Universe.) Awakening is not about realizing something about the universe. It’s joining the universe.
Then, when Dogen says when we are “seeing color and hearing sound” with our whole body-and-mind, we perceive things intimately, or directly. When this happens, “one side is illuminated, [and] the other is dark.” I agree with Bokusan Nishiari’s interpretation of this passage: in perceiving wholeheartedly and intimately, everything we don’t see is “dark,” or part of the great, undifferentiated seamless reality. Whatever we don’t perceive is still very much present, and no real boundary can be drawn between what we perceive and what we don’t. Therefore, there is completeness in the act of perception, however limited it is. This is what prompted me to write:
“All of Dogen’s teaching, all of the Genjokoan, all of our practice is fundamentally about this paradoxical nature of our existence: How we realize, actualize, and live in harmony with the absolute as a limited being. Not in spite of our limited being. Not once we transcend our limited being. Not only when we give up our limited being. Not when we discover an alternative, unlimited being. We remain a limited being and we awaken to how, simultaneously, all things are Being and there are no real boundaries around or within Being.” (Class #6: Our Experience of Absolute and Relative)
Now, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to write that last paragraph based solely on the Genjokoan passage about one side being illuminated while the other is dark. Fortunately, I knew the Genjokoan also included this lovely section on birds and fish, which is where Dogen further develops the idea that we are fully capable of realizing, actualizing, and living in harmony with the absolute as a limited being, even though that may seem impossible. And then, not only does he tell us it’s possible, he tells us how.
There we are, little birds and fish, striving to live good lives and understand our relationship to the rest of the universe in order to do so. We struggle, search, travel, explore, study, strive, etc. We can’t help but feel restricted by our bodies, circumstances, and karma. Not one of us can step outside of who and where and when we are. We may gain a measure of peace and happiness by accepting our situation – by getting used to being a fish, and learning to be content with our little part of the ocean – but it can seem that by doing so, we give up the possibility of experiencing something greater.
Dogen assures us the we can do both at the same time: we can realize, actualize, and live in harmony with the absolute and wholeheartedly be exactly who, where, and when we are. We can experience the great ocean and great sky right here, in our own little part of the ocean or sky. We can live the life of the universe as we go about our daily affairs. We can feel part of a whole, complete, luminous, seamless reality in the midst of our imperfect world.
How?! “When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality.” What does it mean to make something our own? This isn’t about identifying something with our small sense of self, or exerting control over it. To me, “making something my own” implies loving, appreciating, caring for, taking responsibility for, and realizing my interdependence with something or someone. When we find our own, true place, we stop searching all over for it. We settle into our home. When we find our own, true path, we stop worrying and wondering about other paths and devote ourselves entirely to what is in front of us. When we fully inhabit our lives without trying to be anyone, anywhere, or anywhen else, our practice and activity naturally become “actualized reality.” It’s important to note that the term translated in this passage as “actualized reality” is “Genjokoan.” When we inhabit our lives completely, we resolve the koan of “actualizing the simultaneous truths of unity and difference in your life.” (Class #1: The Meaning of the Title, “Genjokoan”)
That’s all well and good, but how do we know whether we’re “just living our lives” in a limited, complacent, self-absorbed sense, versus “just living our lives” in a wholehearted way that allows us to realize, actualize, and live in harmony with the absolute? Although Dogen warns us that, “We should not think that what we have attained is conceived by ourselves and known by our discriminating mind,” he also says that when complete enlightenment is immediately actualized, it is intimate. In a moment of wholehearted inhabiting your life in an enlightened way, you show up for your life instead of letting it slip by while you dream of other things. Even if things aren’t exactly how you’d like them to be, life feels real and vibrant. You feel authentic and present, and there is no question in your mind about whether you’re doing your best. At the same time, you are fully aware that you don’t know what comes next, and that life is fragile and fleeting.
Watch for the moments in your life that are like this, they can be easy to miss.
Click here to read Domyo’s entire series of commentaries on the Genjokoan.
by Domyo Burk | Sep 23, 2015 | Understanding: Fundamental Teachings to Investigate
[From the Genjokoan:] When the Dharma has not yet fully penetrated body and mind, one thinks one is already filled with it. When the Dharma fills body and mind, one thinks something is [still] lacking. For example, when we sail a boat into the ocean beyond sight of land and our eyes scan [the horizon in] the four directions, it simply looks like a circle. No other shape appears. This great ocean, however, is neither round nor square. It has inexhaustible characteristics. [To a fish] it looks like a palace; [to a heavenly being] a jeweled necklace. [To us] as far as our eyes can see, it looks like a circle. All the myriad things are like this. Within the dusty world and beyond, there are innumerable aspects and characteristics; we only see or grasp as far as the power of our eye of study and practice can see. When we listen to the reality of myriad things, we must know that there are inexhaustible characteristics in both ocean and mountains, and there are many other worlds in the four directions. This is true not only in the external world, but also right under our feet or within a single drop of water.
What is the nature of the Dharma? We should investigate this diligently and carefully, because, as seekers of Truth, we want it to full penetrate our body and mind.
Why do we want the ultimate Truth to penetrate our body and mind? Because we want to live fully, authentically, and compassionately. We know Truth leads to such results because the ancestors have said so, but also because we have experienced this cause-and-effect connection ourselves.
Over our lifetimes we have accumulated many useful truths. We have come to understand our own personalities, strengths, and shortcomings. We have learned facts and principles that help us successfully navigate the practical world. Through our personal experience – often painful experience – we have learned about things like love, loss, growth, stagnation, responsibility, acceptance, anger, and forgiveness. We develop philosophies and views that help us make sense of the often-crazy world.
These are truths that apply in the relative world. We all hold the best truths we’ve been able to come up with, based on our particular experiences and perspectives. These relative truths allow us to function, but they are like the fish’s sense of water as a palace, and the heavenly being’s sense of water as a jeweled necklace. Over time, this is another truth we learn: everyone has their own perspective. We may believe our truth is more true or valid than someone else’s, and maybe we have a point, but there’s no denying that the other person has their version of truth and they’re holding on to it.
The Dharma – the deepest spiritual Truth, whatever your spiritual path – is not like these relative truths. However, this is not because it’s a Truth that trumps all relative truths.
If the Dharma were just a Truth that trumps all relative truths, Dogen would have said, “The ocean actually is a circle, the fish and the heavenly being are deluded.” Of course, this sounds silly, but that’s because this is just a metaphor. The ocean looking like a circle – featureless, without reference point – symbolizes the view of emptiness, or an experience of the Absolute. Instead of championing this view, Dogen compares it to all other views. Why?
Because it’s just a view. An experience of non-discrimination – of experiencing the universe as one, seamless reality – is just one way to view reality. As a view, it has its usefulness, just like other views.
But the Dharma, the real, full Dharma, goes beyond this. The Dharma includes everything, Relative and Absolute. The complete Truth is one, seamless reality that simultaneously has “innumerable aspects and characteristics.” We are part of the seamless reality and therefore can directly taste its nature, but we can never know more than a few of its inexhaustible characteristics.
So what does this teaching mean to us in daily life? It means we should maintain profound humility. We can never know anything completely in a relative sense – not even a drop of water! The philosophies and teachings of even the greatest masters are constrained by their karma – at the very least by whether they were born as a human, fish, or heavenly being. Our most precious convictions are still just views.
And yet – this teaching also means that we should fully inhabit, claim, express, and live our various truths without shame or apology. For a fish, water is a palace. For us, water is a liquid we use to quench our thirst, wash our bodies, or place our boats on. As Okumura says, our relative relationship to water – and to everything – creates our reality. There is no real, absolute, fixed view, compared to which other views are false or incomplete. There is no inherent reality to anything that can be defined as “Truth” and then viewed different ways. In a sense, in the realm of the Relative, there is only relationship and view.
Is there anything that’s not a view? Or this world just relativistic and ungraspable, which I find a depressing thought? What is the real, full Dharma – which, when it penetrates our body and mind, robs us of any sense that we have It? Yes! There is! But I can only show you by walking over and thumping you on the head. Or insisting you drink your tea. I can’t express it in words, but LIFE is not a view.
Click here to read Domyo’s entire series of commentaries on the Genjokoan.
by Domyo Burk | Sep 22, 2015 | Understanding: Fundamental Teachings to Investigate
[From the Genjokoan:] When a person attains realization, it is like the moon’s reflection in water. The moon never becomes wet; the water is never disturbed. Although the moon is a vast and great light, it is reflected in a drop of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky are reflected in a drop of dew on a blade of grass. Realization does not destroy the person, as the moon does not make a hole in the water. The person does not obstruct realization, as a drop of dew does not obstruct the moon in the sky. The depth is the same as the height. [To investigate the significance of] the length and brevity of time, we should consider whether the water is great or small, and understand the size of the moon in the sky.
It may help, here, to imagine what questions Dogen might be answering with this passage:
- “I am so limited in my abilities, character, and understanding. Is it possible for someone like me to ‘attain realization?’ ”
- “How is it possible to perceive, actualize, or be part of Absolute reality while I remain an embodied, conditioned being deeply dependent on concepts like self, time, and space?”
- “Why are people who have ‘attained realization’ still idiosyncratic, flawed human beings?”
- “What good is ‘attaining realization’ if it doesn’t get rid of one’s problematic individuality?”
In this passage of the Genjokoan, the moon symbolizes the Absolute, or Unity, as described in Class #4: Everything in the universe is part of one, seamless reality; this reality when perceived directly is complete, luminous, and precious just as it is. Attaining realization means personally experiencing the Absolute nature of reality, and thereby experiencing liberation from the delusion of the separateness of self (as well as liberation from other problematic delusions).
How is such a realization possible? Despite what we hope, we will never escape or transcend our Relative, individual existence, which is symbolized in this passage of the Genjokoan as a drop of water. If we don’t really care about “realization,” or if we don’t think we’re up to it, we imagine people who experience it manage to work themselves into some transcendent state where – at least momentarily – they become able to stick their heads out of their drop of water in order to experience something greater. If we still hope to experience “realization” for ourselves, we may strive to bust out of this drop of water – to renounce our individuality in favor of reunion with the Absolute.
But this is not how realization works. We never get to peek outside of our drop of water, let alone bust out of it or manage to make it dissipate. So-called “realized” spiritual practitioners don’t achieve perfected or disembodied states. They don’t transcend ordinary, mundane reality, or – as it’s said in some Zen literature – the need to piss and shit.
In this lovely metaphor of the moon reflected in a drop of water, Dogen offers us a way to understand how realization is possible even though we are stuck in our drop of water, or in our karmically conditioned, mundane, embodied, short lives. Full realization is possible because, within your limited, Relative experience, the Absolute is reflected in its entirety. In this very place is reflected the entire universe – all of infinite space. In this very moment, this ungraspable instant, is reflected all of infinite time. So it’s all here, within your actual experience. Within your life.
And yet – when you don’t perceive the Absolute – that complete, luminous, precious reality – you may interpret the paragraph above as saying, “Your life, as you perceive it, is it. There’s nothing more.” I don’t know about you, but at certain times in my life I would have found such a statement profoundly discouraging. Fortunately, the moon is a “vast and great light.” The entire moon can been seen in your little drop of water, but it’s not constrained to it. The same moon is reflected in every last dew drop and in every ocean, lake, and puddle. There is something greater.
It may sound pretty far out to propose that this instant reflects all of time, this place reflects all of space, and your little drop of water reflects the entire moon. Anyone skeptical of spiritual practice is likely to think such ideas are delusional. However, this interpenetration of the Absolute and Relative is really not so remarkable. All it means is that at any given moment, at any given place, whatever is – including your bag of skin – is part of one, seamless, reality. You’re part of the universe, and without you it would not be the same universe. You’re who you are because of everything that surrounds you. You’re defined by your relationships to everything else, and everything else is defined, in part, by relationships to you – no matter how small or isolated you might feel. This moment is what it is because of everything that has come before. Everything you do will have some effect on the future. In your bag of skin is reflected the sun and moon, the earth, the force of gravity, and the wonder of evolution. Everything that every was or will be is reflected, in some way, right here.
Of course, this is an intellectual explanation of a wordless experience. You only perceive the Absolute when you drop differentiation and allow yourself to be part of the one, seamless reality. At such a time you aren’t thinking about relationships, trying to track the passage of time, or cataloging all the things you can see reflected in your experience! There is a truth to these descriptions, but they make realization seem quite full of content when in actuality it’s just pure, direct experience of life.
Of course, every metaphor breaks down after a while, and this is the case even with our lovely moon reflected in a drop of water. Such an image invites you to think the Absolute lives outside you, and that you can experience It because it’s reflected within you. This thinking is still dualistic, dividing things up into Absolute and Relative, inside and outside. Actually there is no moon and no drop of water – there is only that one, seamless, undifferentiated reality.
And yet. There is also the reality of differentiation and manifestation, and there is no life, no Being except through differentiation and manifestation – so of course there’s no “realization” without the Relative! So, when we’re talking about “realization” we go ahead and talk about the moon’s reflection in a drop of water. This limited metaphor describes one aspect of our experience as human beings.
Given what Dogen has shared with us, we can try to answer those initial questions in modern-day English:
- “I am so limited in my abilities, character, and understanding. Is it possible for someone like me to ‘attain realization?’ ” Yes. Stop using your limitations as an excuse not to seek a direct experience of awakening.
- “How is it possible to perceive, actualize, or be part of Absolute reality while I remain an embodied, conditioned being deeply dependent on concepts like self, time, and space?” You’re already part of Absolute reality, and it’s reflected fully within your own, embodied experience. Your conditioning, attachments, and concepts obstruct only your vision, not Absolute reality. Part those obscuring clouds for just a moment and the moon will shine through.
- “Why are people who have ‘attained realization’ still idiosyncratic, flawed human beings? As long as we are alive, we remain “drops of water.” “Realization does not destroy the person.” Why do we want it to? Because imperfect people create suffering and ugliness in the world? That’s certainly the case, but those imperfect people also manifest kindness, generosity, brilliance, and wisdom. There are no perfect people.
- What good is ‘attaining realization’ if it doesn’t get rid of one’s problematic individuality?” Before realization it’s your problematic individuality. After realization it’s your opportunity to manifest in the world. Your karmically conditioned, mundane, embodied, short life is your vehicle for action, and your field for cultivation. What are you going to do with it?
Click here to read Domyo’s entire series of commentaries on the Genjokoan.
