The Excited Enlightenment
In Buddhist stories we sometimes find very excited and dramatic enligtenment, but when we think about the real contents of enlightenments, they are very quiet and secret changes in ANS, and so it is impossible for enlightenment to be any kind of showy, or dramatic change, but it is very unrecognizable and serene situations.
Therefore if someone insists or proclames some kinds of very gorgeous and dramatic changes as the enlightenments, we can interprete that those kinds of dramatic examples might be some kinds of delusions, or exaggerated stories, and so we should never accept such kinds of miraculous changes as any kinds of Buddhist value.
So we should think that the real enlightenments are always very difficult to recognize it clearly, and so Master Dogen have taught us "Just to Practice Zazen!" And the meaning of Master Dogen's advice suggests that "Don't worry about for us whether we have enlightened, or not, but it is just the enlighenment to practice Zazen everyday."
Therefore the most important matter for us is just to practice Zazen everyday. In our practicing Zazen, just we are sitting in the enlightenment itself. And so it is not necessary for us to worry about enlightenment, and just to practice Zazen everyday is all.
Therefore if someone insists or proclames some kinds of very gorgeous and dramatic changes as the enlightenments, we can interprete that those kinds of dramatic examples might be some kinds of delusions, or exaggerated stories, and so we should never accept such kinds of miraculous changes as any kinds of Buddhist value.
So we should think that the real enlightenments are always very difficult to recognize it clearly, and so Master Dogen have taught us "Just to Practice Zazen!" And the meaning of Master Dogen's advice suggests that "Don't worry about for us whether we have enlightened, or not, but it is just the enlighenment to practice Zazen everyday."
Therefore the most important matter for us is just to practice Zazen everyday. In our practicing Zazen, just we are sitting in the enlightenment itself. And so it is not necessary for us to worry about enlightenment, and just to practice Zazen everyday is all.
posted by GUDO NISHIJIMA | 1:17 PM
6 Comments:
Dear Nishijima Roshi,
thank you very much for your clear and wise post. Your and master Dogen's teachings of Realism and Action and continuous practice of Zazen are really important. Thank you for your wise and inspiring teachings, Roshi.
Yours,
Markus
Dear Roshi,
Do you agree that, on occasion, a person's intellectual understanding of some aspect of Buddhist philosophy and their real practice/experience of zazen may suddenly come into a state of mutual agreement?
Is such an instance a valid realisation?
Thanks & Regards,
Harry.
Dear Nishijima Roshi,
Thank you for encouraging us to sit zazen regularly. This helps me return to my zafu and attend to the great matter every day!
Best wishes on your coming move.
David Clark
Dear Uku San,
Thank you very much for your greetings.
Dear Harry San,
I agree that, on occasion, a person's intellectual understanding of some aspect of Buddhist philosophy and their real practice/experience of zazen may suddenly come into a state of mutual agreement.
We can say that such an instance is just a valid realisation, but such an example occurs in our daily life so many times, and we do not call them specially an enlightenment.
Dear David Clark San.
Thank you very much for your diligent zazen everyday.
Zazen is a practice, an Action at the present moment, that is Reality.
Thank-you, Roshi.
For reasons similar to those you point out, I think Master Dogen was very concerned with discussing and clarifying the meaning of realisation/enlightenment.
It seems to me that he felt that he should concern himself with the real meaning of realisation not because it is some wonderful 'thing', but because it was necessary for him to do so because of what people wrongly imagined 'it' to be.
I think to be unconcerned with realisation as Master Dogen understood it is to be unconcerned with zazen itself. The term seemed to have an important affirmative function to Master Dogen.
For this reason I think it may be important not to neglect the term which has been used to describe the buddhas and patriarchs' experience. It may be instead be valid to reclaim it and assert it in an original and authentic context.
Regards,
Harry.
Dear Harry San,
I also think that Master Dogen was very diligent to discuss and clarify the meaning of realisation/enlightenment.
I also agree with your idea that Master Dogen wanted to clarify the real meaning of realisation, because it has been misunderstood for more than 16 centuries.
Master Dogen's Buddhist philosophy is just Gautama Buddha's Buddhist philosophy.
Therefore it is very important for us to revere Gautama Buddha's Buddhist Teachings so much.
By the way I received a very valuable comments from members' of Master Kobun Chino's lineage, but unfortunately it was erazed. However it is very important for us to have contacts with other Buddhist groups, which have similar docrorines to us fundamentally.
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