Wisdom of the Masters
Zen Master Dogen 道元 - Selected Pointers for Meditation - Zen Buddhism
31 Jul 2021
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Dōgen Zenji in Zen Buddhism?
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A flower falls even though we love it, and a weed grows even though we do not love it. Your body is like a dewdrop on the morning grass. Your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain. It is lost in a moment. This dew-like life will fade away. Avoid involvement in superfluous things. Life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed. Do not squander your life.
Chapter 2: How does Dōgen describe the impermanence of life?
one must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world. If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves. Everyone possesses the Buddha nature. Do not demean yourselves.
No matter how compelling or beautiful they may be, words appeal in the main to the linear thinking mind that thinks in words. Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately. You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child
working with plants, trees, fences and walls. If they practice sincerely, they will attain enlightenment.
Chapter 3: What insights does Dōgen offer about the nature of truth?
Do not be concerned with the faults of other persons, Do not see others' faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others' faults, then naturally seniors and venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others' faults. Just cultivate virtue. Buddha prohibited unwholesome actions, but did not tell us to hate those who practice unwholesome actions.
A fool sees himself as another, but a wise person sees others as themself. Prefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools. To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.
If you have compassion and are imbued with the spirit of the way, it is of no consequence to be criticized, even reviled, by the ignorant. But if you lack the spirit of the way, you should be very wary of being thought of by others as having the way, What you think in your own mind to be good or what people of the world think is good is not necessarily good.
To enter the Buddha way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad. The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the dharmagate of repose and bliss. The practiced realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality.
Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water. Like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there
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Chapter 4: How can one cultivate virtue according to Dōgen?
In zazen, the right dharma is manifesting itself, and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside. Know that the true dharma emerges of itself during the practice of zazen, clearing away hindrances and distractions. Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization,
This is not only practice while sitting. It is like a hammer striking emptiness. Before and after, its exquisite pearl permeates everywhere. How can it be limited to this moment? Like the sun illuminating and refreshing the world, this sitting removes obscurities from the mind, enlightens the body so that exhaustion is set aside.
Each moment is all being. Each moment is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment. Only those who have the great capacity of genuine trust can enter this realm, the realm of the Buddhas. Those who have no trust are unable to accept it, however much they hear it.
No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind disappear.
Chapter 5: What is the essence of zazen practice as explained by Dōgen?
must cease. Forgetting oneself is opening oneself. There is a simple way to become Buddha. When you refrain from unwholesome actions and not attach to birth and death and are compassionate toward all sentient beings respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a Buddha. Do not seek anything else.
To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains. And this no trace continues endlessly.
If you want to travel the way of Buddhas and Zen masters, then expect nothing, seek nothing, and grasp nothing.
Sous-titrage ST' 501
Long ago a monk asked an old master, When hundreds, thousands or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done? The master replied, Don't try to control them. What he means is that in whatever way objects come, do not try to change them. Whatever comes is the Buddhadharma, no objects at all. Do not understand the Master's reply as merely a brilliant admonition.
but realize that it is the truth. Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled. The longness and shortness of the present moment can be recognized by utilizing a big image of the moon, which is reflecting on the surface of the ocean, and a small image of the moon on the surface of a cup of water.
Or, in another example, the very wide scale of the whole sky itself, and the very narrow space of the moon, which is shining in the sky.
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Chapter 6: How does Dōgen's teaching relate to understanding self and enlightenment?
Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters. After a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters. After enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains am waters, once again waters.
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treading along in this dreamlike illusory realm without looking for the traces I may have left. A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home. Hearing this, I tilt my head to see who has told me to turn back. But do not ask me where I am going as I travel in this limitless world, where every step I take is my home.
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