The long haul

Grass, trees, fences, and walls bring forth the teachings for all beings, usual people as well as sages. And they in accord extend this Dharma for the sake of grass, trees, fences, and walls. Thus, the realm of self-awakening and awakening others is fundamentally endowed with realization lacking nothing, and realization itself is actualized ceaselessly. (Dogen, Bendowa, tr. Hoshin and Daien)

Historically, Buddhists have been all about "nature" and some masters, more than others, have included rocks and "fences and walls" within, or hinted that they should be included within, the circle of "sentient beings."

Suppose we, as individuals, were proved to be a kind of baggage, hauled around by the consensus chorus of our mitochondria as convenient packages of nutrients, "intended" as means of preserving the long chain of replication and nothing more?

Lovelock and Margulis proposed, after studying the evidence that Earth's biosphere and geosphere seem to form a self-regulating system that "just happens" to keep the Earth within the temperature and humidity ranges that protect the integrity of DNA-carrying organisms, a hypothesis that the system is itself purposive, a survival project, so to speak.

Were we to decide that's how it is, wouldn't Dogen's quote above remain much the same? All support all, but some may realize it less than others, simply because the illusion of self-importance promulgated by our DNA code is quite powerful. Even those who "get it" relapse continually, and zazen is often described as a process of noticing this and returning, again and again, to realization. 

So, patience is prajna practice for good reason. I say to myself, "hey, self! Be patient with yourself and others." A few minutes later, I may say it again. This is practice. Life is short, yet we are all in this for the long haul.

 -- shonin 

 

 

It's a thing

Dogen makes much of shikan-taza as being the whole of practice. "Although it is said that there are as many minds as there are persons, still they all negotiate the way solely in zazen." 

He's not wrong. Stillness is where you find true-ness. At the same time, his monks had to get up and go clean the zendo sometime, and there was also construction, maintenance, cooking, water carrying and farming going on. His explanation was that at the root of all this activity there is still that same stillness. Whether or not you fan yourself, air is air.

When we lived for eight years in the outskirts of one small city and I worked in the larger city across the river, I often biked to work along established bicycle routes and across the wide river on a bike bridge, a scenic round trip of some sixteen miles. In heavier weather, I took the bus.

Bodhidharma splits up practice in much the same way. If wall-gazing does it for you, he says, gaze away! It is, when you do it, the entirety of practice. On the other hand, everything else is waiting for you as practice: the whole of life's activity. One of my hardest-working spiritual teachers, a Hutterite, Barbara Maendel, put it drolly when handing out our farm chores from a seemingly endless list: "a change is as good as a rest."

Zazen is the bicycle. Just get on it and go. In heavier weather, a change is good too. Just get on the bus and go.

Life practice is the bus. If you're sitting in the doctor's waiting room, sure, you can work on your stillness, but also there's the check-in and the visit, which may provide vexations. The arriving and the departing may stress as well -- that near-miss in the parking lot, say. Everything seems to push and pull. To deal with these as Dharma practice, form Dharma life habits.

Bodhidharma breaks life practice into four parts: absence of resentment, acceptance of circumstances, absence of craving, and accord with Dharma. 

To form the habit of not resenting can be a big change in lifestyle for many of us. It means accepting circumstances just as they are, with no craving for them to be any different. That doesn't mean don't swim when you fall into the water, it just means don't spend your swimming energy on uselessly grieving the fall or being angry that you were bumped. Swim. 

Accord with Dharma means embodying Buddha's truth by living the six wisdoms (paramitas). Six tools are available to bring us to the place of non-resentment: giving, ethical discipline, patience, effort, meditation, wisdom.

"Giving" is practice in being kind, a way of cultivating a cooperative, productive and peaceful community.

"Ethical discipline" is self-regulation: holding anger, greed and delusion in check, we foster a cooperative, productive and peaceful community.

"Patience" is practice in accepting circumstances as they are; it's rooted in letting go of the past and especially the future, allowing the community's cooperation, productivity and peace to unfold unforced.

"Effort" here is not the willful struggle that might be envisioned by the ascetic, but the steady self-application to practice that leaves behind the constructed self composed of greed, anger and delusion. This too benefits the community.

"Meditation" in the midst of life practice is that stillness in the doctor's waiting room, increasingly expanding into the visit and the coming and going. You may call it equanimity. It is beneficial to the community.

"Wisdom" here is "prajna," an ongoing appreciation of the ontological truth of the Dharma: "thusness." An insight into thusness is provided by the idea of dependent origination: all things are what they are together, in the same nowness, and nothing exists separately. As our illusion of separateness fades, our actions spring from this realization, and we benefit the community.

shonin painted six rocks, each with a paramita, as mnemonic devices. What, she's 76.

To see Dogen's practical application of the principle of life practice, samu practice, read his "Instructions to the cook," Tenzo Kyokun.

If you only have wild grasses with which to make a broth, do not disdain them. If you have ingredients for a creamy soup do not be delighted. Where there is no attachment, there can be no aversion. Do not be careless with poor ingredients and do not depend on fine ingredients to do your work for you but work with everything with the same sincerity. If you do not do so then it is like changing your behaviour according to the status of the person you meet; this is not how a student of the Way is. (tr. Anzan Hoshin and Yasuda Joshu Dainen)

Hongzhi sums up. "You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the ten­dencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness."

The bicycle in good weather carried me to the entrance of the building where I worked. I arrived exercised and healthy, ready to benefit the community.

The bus, in heavy weather, stopped right in front of the same building. I arrived rested, composed, ready to benefit the community.

Not saying I always rose to the occasion. But that clear circle of brightness -- it's a thing. We should all look into it.

 -- shonin