Wicca Way

language=Javascript> var theDate = grabCDate(); document.write(theDate); </SCRIPT> November 14, 2006

On The Way

From the Record of Things Heard

Dogen (1200-1253)

One day a student asked: “I have spent months and years in earnest study, but I have yet to gain enlightenment. Many of the old masters say that the Way does not depend on intelligence and cleverness, and that there is no need for knowledge and talent. As I understand it, even though my capacity is inferior, I need not feel badly for myself. Are there not any old sayings or cautionary words that I should know about?�?/SPAN>

Dogen replied: “Yes, there are. True study of the Way does not rely on knowledge and genius or cleverness and brilliance. Because study has no use for wide learning and high intelligence, even those with inferior capacities can participate. True study of the Way is an easy thing.

Even in the monasteries of China, only one or two out of several hundred, or even a thousand, disciples under a great Ch’an master actually gained true enlightenment. Therefore, old sayings and cautionary words are needed. As I see it now, it is a matter of gaining the desire to practice. A person who gives rise to a real desire and puts his utmost efforts into study will surely gain enlightenment. Essentially, one must devote all attention to this effort and enter into practice with all due speed. More specifically, the following points must be kept in mind:

“In the first place, there must be a keen and sincere desire to seek the Way. For example, someone who wishes to steal a precious jewel, to attack a formidable enemy, or to make the acquaintance of a beautiful woman must, at all times, watch intently for the opportunity, adjusting to changing events and shifting circumstances. Anything sought for with such intensity will surely be gained. If the desire to search for the Way becomes as intense as this, whether you concentrate on doing zazen alone, investigate a koan by an old master, interview a Zen teacher, or practice with sincere devotion, you will succeed no matter how high you must shoot or no matter how deep you must plumb.

“Without arousing this wholehearted will for the Buddha Way, how can anyone succeed in this most important task of cutting the endless round of birth and death? Those who have this drive, even if they have little knowledge or are of inferior capacity, even if they are stupid or evil, will without fail gain enlightenment.

“Next, to arouse such a mind, one must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world. This realization is not achieved by some temporary method of contemplation. It is not creating something out of nothing and then thinking about it. Impermanence is a fact before our eyes. Do not wait for the teachings from others, the words of the scriptures, and for the principles of enlightenment. We are born in the morning and die in the evening; the person we saw yesterday is no longer with us today. These facts we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. You see and hear impermanence in terms of another person, but try weighing it with your own body.

“Even though you live to be seventy or eighty, you die in accordance with the inevitability of death. How will you ever come to terms with the worries, joys, intimacies, and conflicts that concern you in this life? With faith in Buddhism, seek the true happiness of nirvana. How can those who are old or who have passed the halfway mark in their lives relax in their studies when there is no way of telling how many years are left?�?/SPAN>

Think of those who gained enlightenment upon hearing the sound of bamboo when struck by a tile or seeing blossoms in bloom. Does the bamboo distinguish the clever or dull, the deluded or enlightened; does the flower differentiate between shallow and deep, the wise and stupid? Though flowers bloom year after year, not everyone who sees them gains enlightenment. Bamboo always gives off sounds, but not all who hear them become enlightened. It is only by virtue of long study and much practice that we gain an affinity with what we have labored for and gain enlightenment and clarity of mind.

The most important point in the study of the Way is zazen. Many people in China gained enlightenment solely through the strength of zazen. Some who were so ignorant that they could not answer a single question exceeded the learned who had studied many years solely through the efficacy of their single-minded devotion to zazen. Therefore, students must concentrate on zazen alone and not bother about other things. The Way of the Buddhas and Ancestors is zazen alone. Follow nothing else.

At that time Ejo asked: “When we combine zazen with the reading of the texts, we can understand about one point in a hundred or a thousand upon examining the Zen sayings and koans. But in zazen alone there is no indication of even this much. Must we devote ourselves to zazen even then?�?/SPAN>

Dogen answered: “Although a slight understanding seems to emerge from examining a koan, it causes the Way of the Buddhas and Ancestors to become even more distant. If you devote your time to doing zazen without wanting to know anything and without seeking enlightenment, this is itself the Ancestral Way. Although the old Masters urged both the reading of the scriptures and the practice of zazen, they clearly emphasized zazen. Some gained enlightenment through the koan, but the merit that brought enlightenment came from the zazen. Truly the merit is in the zazen.�?/SPAN>

The basic point to understand in the study of the Way is that you must cast aside your deep-rooted attachments. If you rectify the body in terms of the four attitudes of dignity, the mind rectifies itself. Students, even if you gain enlightenment, do not stop practicing, thinking that you have attained the ultimate. The Buddha Way is endless. Once enlightened you must practice all the more.

Dogen (1200-1253)

Excerpted from The Roaring Stream - A New Zen Reader

Edited by Nelson Foster and Jack Shoemaker 1996

One of the challenges to a life of practice is to protect and nourish the Mind that seeks the Way. In the beginning it is easy to have the intensity of Beginner’s Mind; everything is so fresh, so vital, so exotic sounding. Here, though, a student is questioning Dogen about his lack of attaining enlightenment, a feeling many in practice experience from time to time.

Dogen answers by assuring him that anything you devote your energy to with intensity and sincere desire will over time bear fruits for your labor. Later on he answers more directly by stating: “If you devote your time to doing zazen without wanting to know anything and without seeking enlightenment, this is itself the Ancestral Way.�?/SPAN>

At some point in training sitting is just enough in and of itself; the “goals�?of practice take more of a back seat. Meditation is just sitting in the lap of the universe and expressing your nature.

All of us have our own genjo koans, or life questions that help to keep practice vital. To settle for answers to unanswerable questions dulls the mind and practice. To live with our questions each day, to see them in our lives, and to see them evolve into new questions keeps the practice “keen and sincere.�?/SPAN>

May your Way Be Clear,

Elana, Monkess for Daily Zen

On The Way

From the Record of Lin-chi

Lin-chi (d. 867)

Someone asked: “What do you mean by the true Buddha, the true Dharma, and the true Way? Would you be good enough to explain to us?�?/SPAN>

The Master said: “Buddha is the cleanness and purity of the mind. The Dharma is the shining brightness of the mind. The Way is the pure light that is never obstructed anywhere. The three are in fact one. All are empty names and have no true reality.�?/SPAN>

“Suppose you yearn to be a sage. Sage is just a word, sage. There are some types of students who go off to Mt. Wu-t’ai looking for Manjushri. They’re wrong from the very start! Manjushri isn’t on Mt. Wu-t’ai. Would you like to get to know Manjushri? You here in front of my eyes, carrying out your activities, from first to last never changing, wherever you go never doubting; this is the living Manjushri.

“Your mind that each moment shines with the light of nondiscrimination, wherever it may be, this is the true Samantabhadra. Your mind that each moment is capable of freeing itself from its shackles, everywhere emancipated, this is the method of meditating on Kwan-yin. These three act as host and companion to one another, all three appearing at the same time when they appear, one in three, three in one. Only when you have understood all this will you be ready to read the scriptural teachings.�?/SPAN>

“You can’t seem to stop your mind from racing around everywhere seeking something. That’s why the Ancestor said, ‘Hopeless fellows using their head to look for their heads!�?You must right now turn your light around and shine it on yourselves, not go seeking somewhere else. Then you will understand that in body and mind you are no different from the Ancestors and buddhas, and that there is nothing to do. Do that and you may speak of ‘getting the Dharma.�?/SPAN>

“In my view, there are, in fact, no great number of principles to be grasped. If you want to use the thing, then use it. If you don’t want to use it, then let it be.

“People here and there talk about the six rules and the ten thousand practices, supposing that these constitute the Dharma of the buddhas. But I say that these are just adornments of the sect, the trappings of Buddhism. They are not the Dharma of the buddhas. You may observe the fasts and observe the precepts, or carry a dish of oil without spilling, but if your Dharma-eye is not wide open, then all you’re doing is running up a big debt.

“As for those who go off to live all alone on a solitary peak, eating only one meal a day at the hour of dawn, sitting in meditation for long periods without lying down, performing circumambulations six times a day; such persons are all just creating karma. Then there are those who cast away their head and eyes, marrow and brains, their domains and cities, family, horses, the seven precious things, throwing them all away. People who think in that way are all inflicting pain on their body and mind, and in consequence will invite some kind of painful retribution. Better to do nothing, to be simple, direct, with nothing mixed in.

“Followers of the Way, don’t take the Buddha to be some sort of ultimate goal. Bodhisattvas and arhats are like chains for fettering people.

Followers of the Way, there is no Buddha to be gained, and the Three Vehicles, the five natures, the teaching of the perfect and immediate enlightenment are all simply medicines to cure diseases of the moment. None have any true reality. Even if they had, they would still all be mere shams, placards proclaiming superficial matters, so many words lined up, pronouncments of such kind.

“Followers of the Way, even if you can understand a hundred sutras and treatises, you’re not as good as one plain monk who does nothing. As soon as you acquire a little of such understanding, you start treating others with scorn and contempt, vying and struggling with them like so many asuras, blinded by ignorance of self and others, forever creating karma.

When you get hungry, eat your rice;

When you get sleepy, close your eyes.

Fools may laugh at me,

But wise people will know what I mean.

Ming-tsan

“Followers of the Way, don’t search for anything in written words. The exertions of your mind will tire it out; you’ll gulp cold air and gain nothing. Better to realize that at every moment all is conditioned and without true birth, to go beyond the bodhisattvas of the Three Vehicle provisional doctrines.

“Don’t dawdle your days away! In the past, before I had come to see things right, there was nothing but blackness all around me. But I knew that I shouldn’t let the time slip by in vain, and so, belly all afire, mind in a rush, I raced all over in search of the Way. Later I was able to get help from others, so that finally I could do as I’m doing today, talking with you followers of the Way. As followers of the Way, let me urge you not to do what you are doing just for the sake of appearances. See how quickly the world goes by! A good friend and teacher is hard to find, as rarely met with as the udumbara f lower.

“If you want to be always in accord with the Dharma, never give in to doubt. ‘Spread it out and it fills the whole Dharma-realm; gather it up, and it’s tinier than a thread of hair.�?Its lone brightness gleaming forth, it has never lacked anything. ‘The eye doesn’t see it; the ear doesn’t hear it.�?/SPAN>

“What shall we call this thing? A man of old said, ‘Say something about a thing, and you’re already off the mark.�?You’ll just have to see it for yourselves. What other way is there?�?/SPAN>

Lin-chi

Excerpted from The Roaring Stream - A New Zen Reader

Edited by Nelson Foster and Jack Shoemaker 1996

So much of life and teaching seems to be “neti, neti�?(not this, not that). Our tendency seems to be to latch onto answers or a practice in order to put the mind to rest. But any resolution we come to in words or concepts can only be a partial view. How we wish we could hang around to enjoy a sense of enlightenment. But who is it that is around to enjoy it? Any sense of separation is just that.

The working of the mind seems similar to being on a runaway horse at times. Restlessly moving from one emotion, idea, or construct to another. Meditation is like reining the horse in, drawing the awareness back inside. And with practice the Return happens more and more gracefully.

"All questions are reducible to one: 'Who am I?' This question is the Quest for the Self, by which the egoless state is won. In that State there is only the One and nothing else, and hence there are no questions or answers, but only Silence."

Ramana Maharshi

In Reflection,

Elana, Monkess for Daily Zen

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