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SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

FromTREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST


SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

FromTREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

ratings:
Length:
12 minutes
Released:
Jan 21, 2012
Format:
Podcast episode

Description



This week, Japanese Lineages of Soto Zen celebrate the 811th BIRTHDAY OF MASTER DOGEN! YEA! YIPPEE!

But in some ways, MASTER DOGEN IS VERY OLD AND OUT OF DATE!

Oh, don't misunderstand! So many of Dogen's Teachings are FOR ALL TIMES AND ALL PLACES. In fact, his vision of Time and Timelessness, BEING-TIME, is ALL TIME IN EVERY TIME, THIS TIME AS TOTALLY THIS TIME AND THAT TIME, ITS OWN TIMELY TIME, EACH TIME OR HALF TIME JUST A WHOLE TIME, A WORMHOLE-TIME, A RABBIT HOLE TIME ...THE WHOLE HOLY TIME. Dogen once-upon-a-time wrote this ...

Do not think that time merely flies away. Do not see flying away as the only function of time. If time merely flies away, you would be separated from time. The reason you do not clearly understand the time-being is that you think of time only as passing. In essence, all things in the entire world are linked with one another as moments. Because all moments are the time-being, they are your time-being. The time-being has the quality of flowing. So-called today flows into tomorrow, today flows into yesterday, yesterday flows into today. And today flows into today, tomorrow flows into tomorrow.

In my way of reading the old boy, DOGEN IS A RIFFING JHANA JAZZ MAN-POET, free expressing-bending-unbinding-reexpressing-releasing the 'standard tunes' of the Sutras and Koans, making time and keeping time in syncopation of time ...

Zen master Guixing of She Prefecture ... taught the assembly:

For the time being mind arrives, but words do not.

For the time being words arrive, but mind does not.

For the time being both mind and words arrive.

For the time being neither mind nor words arrive.

Both mind and words are the time-being. Both arriving and not-arriving

are the time-being. When the moment of arriving has not appeared, the moment

of not-arriving is here. Mind is a donkey, words are a horse.

Having-already-arrived is words and not-having-left is mind. Arriving is not

"coming," not-arriving is not "not yet."

That's Dogen-Time, Man! Digg It!

But sometimes Dogen is JUST A MAN OF HIS CULTURE AND TIMES, preaching about things with limited relevance today. You can take Dogen out of ancient samurai Japan, but you cannot take the ancient Japanese samurai out of Dogen. I find him sometimes obsessive, sometimes grumpy, sometimes naive and ill informed, sometimes perhaps downright wrong in his advice then and now (as in this guidance to a prospective monk on leaving his old infirm mother to fend for herself)

A monk inquired,

“My aged mother is still alive. I am her only son. She lives solely by my support. Her love for me is especially deep and my desire to fulfill my filial duties is also deep. ... If I leave the world and live alone in a hermitage, my mother cannot expect to live for even one day.

Dogen instructed,

If you abandon your present life and enter the Buddha-Way, even if your mother dies of starvation, wouldn’t it be better for you to form a connection with the Way and for her to permit her only son to enter the Way? Although it is most difficult to cast aside filial love even over aeons and many lifetimes, if, having being born in a human body you give it up in this lifetime, when you encounter the Buddha’s teachings you will be truly fulfilling your debt of gratitude. Why wouldn’t this be in accordance with the Buddha’s will? It is said that if one child leaves home to become a monk, seven generations of parents will attain the Way.

http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/common_ ... 03-14.html

Hmmm.

(Also, to the mention of "many lifetimes" I offer another agnostic 'Hmmm'.)

At other times, Dogen spoke out of Both Sides of His No-Sided Mouth, for example, sometimes saying this about the practice of lay folks (usually when writing to lay folks, as here in Bendowa)

Q: Can a layman practice this zazen or is it limited to priests?

A: The patriarchs have said that to understand Buddhism there should be no distinction between man and woman and between rich and poor. ... It has nothing to do
Released:
Jan 21, 2012
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Dharma talks by Jundo Cohen & others from Treeleaf Zendo