Yesterday was the one day sitting at City Center and for much of the day I fought a losing battle with my sleepy mind. It was also the kickoff for fall practice period, which I am participating in as a nonresident. We went around the Buddha Hall stating our intention for the practice period. Mine was to make an effort and to keep a wide open heart.
[ 30 September 2007] link? →→→contact me
I have been reading Hee-Jin Kim's “Eihei Dōgen, Mystical Realist”, or more accurately, I am reading it, and trying ever imperfectly to grasp it. Of course, the “it” is a difficult concept to explain...a lingering, familiar, but unidentified, taste at the root of the tongue, a thin sliver of thorn beneath the skin, unreachable with clumsy fingers. The quote below is from Dōgen's “Dōtoku”:
“As you maintain such efforts throughout the months and years, you further cast off those months and years of efforts. In this casting off, you come to understand that different people with different modes of realization are likewise cast off, and that countries, mountains, and rivers are likewise cast off. At this time, if you decide to obtain the casting off as your ultimate norm of perfection, your decision to attain it is already the very presence of that ultimate norm. Therefore, at the time of this casting off, there is expression being realized immediately. Though neither by the strength of the mind nor by the strength of the body, expression comes forth of its own accord. When it is uttered, it does not appear to be novel or strange.”