Gakdo-yojin-shu (10) The practice should be done for pursuing the Truth.

The meaning of the title is that we sould know first whether the direction of our way to pursue the Truth is true, or false.
The great personality, Gautama Buddha, when he looked at the bright star of the Venus sitting in Zazen under the Bodhi Tree, he suddenly realized the supreme Truth at once.
What he realized at that time, can never be supposed by Buddhist monks, who have only interest in listening to theorectical Buddhist teachings, or who like only to live in quiet and natural circumstances.
Gautama Buddha has realized the Truth by himself, and the truth has never been broken off until today.
How is it possible for anyone, who has realized the Truth, not to be Buddha himself?
The meaning of the words "whether the direction of our way to pursue the Truth is true, or false," mean to clarify totally the whole Truth of Gautama Buddha's teachings. It is just to clarify the total structure of Gautama Buddha's teachings.
The Buddhist Truth exists always under our feet, and that suggests that the Truth exists always on the earth, or in this world.
Being restricted by the Truth itself, the Truth is always realized just at this place clearly, and being restricted by the experience of the Truth, the person, who has experienced the Truth, accomplishes himself perfectly.
Relying upon such situations, it seems that even though the person has realized the Truth perfectly, but he pretends as if he hasn't realized the Truth perfectly yet.
This is just the elegant way to face the Truth.
However, nowadays, people, who are pursuing the Truth, before they haven't clarified whether they have realized the Truth, they violently like to have the clarifying examples of getting the Truth.
Who is it possible for them not to make their mistakes like that?
They throw away their own father Gautama Buddha, and run away from their own country, throwing their jewels, and wadering in others' countries.
Even though they are each an important son of a rich family, they have become a humble person in a freign country, and there is a conspicuous reason exactly.
Generally speaking, a person, who likes to pursue the Truth, wants to be regulated by the Truth itself.
The meaning of the words, "to be regulated by the Truth," is to forget the past facts having realized the Truth before.
A person, who practices the Buddhist Truth, should believe in Buddhism first.
A person, who believe in Buddhism, should believe that he, himself, originally exists in the center of the Truth itself by himself, never to be deluded, never to be put upside down, never to be suffered from increase or decrease, and never to have any mistake.
To promote such a kind of belief, to clarify such a kind of the Truth, and to practice it, are just the fundamental criteria of studying the Truth.
The habitual criteria of it, is first to cut the root of idealistic efforts in practicing Zazen, and we do not make ourselves intend to follow the way of sensitive perception or intellectual consideration.
This is just the traditional method to recommend and introduce beginners into Buddhism.
And after then, it is the second situation that we throw away consciousness of body and mind by making our autonomic nervous system balanced with Zazen, and we perfectly become free from delusion and enlightenment.
Generally speaking, it is the most difficult for us to get the person, who thinks by himself, or herself, that he, or she, is just in the Buddhist Truth itself already.
If they believe that they are just in the Truth, they can understand the real situations of the realization and delusion, and will know the cause of delusion and enlightenment.
Please tentatively try to cut the cause of intention by practicing Zazen, and eight people or nine people among ten people will realize the Truth at once.

(comment)

In this Chapter Master Dogen instructs us that the most important point for studying Buddhism for us is to know whether our direction of Buddhist practice is going to the true direction, or to the wrong direction.
Originally, Buddhism is the fundamentally reasonable philosopy perfectly without having any point, which is doubtful, at all. Such a kind of Truth has been found by the great genius Gautama Buddha, and such a kind of Truth has been transmitted from Patriarchs to Patriarchs until today. Therefore it is necessary for us to carry on Buddhism as the absolute truth, and so Master Dogen describes first how it is mostly important for us to know whether our efforts is going to only one true direction, or not.
And when we think about where the Gautama Buddha's teachings really exist, Master Dogen proclaims that the Gautama Buddha's teachings really exist under our feet. And the expression of "under our feet" means just on the ground, or in the world. The Gautama Buddha's teachings can never be a fantastic dreamy story, which has been produced in the human brain. But at the same time it is never the simply materialistic world, which has been caught by our sense organs. The Gautama Buddha's teachings are just the real world, in which we are living now, and it is just the stage, on which we are playing our own drama called our life. Therefore we Buddhists have grasped this world as only one world, where we live, and Gautama Buddha have taught us the teachings of Realism as the only one Truth keeping the basis of practicing Zazen.
However we, human beings, because of being deluded by idealism, which was thought only in our brain, or being misled by materialism, which is based on our sensitive perception, have forgot the real world, which we should rely upon first, and so forgetting the real world, where we are just living. We have been prone to spent thousands years at least misunderstanding that we were just living in the curious or strange fantastic worlds of idealism, or materialism, without noticing the real facts at all.
Therefore it is necessary for us to practice Zazen for finding the simple facts that we are just living in this world really by making our autonomic nervous system balanced and waking up in the simple fact that we are just living in this real world here and now.