One day Master Ungan said to an assembly: There is a child of a human family. If you ask him a question, there is nothing that he cannot explain.
Master Tozan asked: Are there any books in his house?
Master Ungan said: There are none, not even one character.
Master Tozan said: How was it possible for him to obtain so much knowledge?
Master Ungan said: He didn’t sleep night and day.
Master Tozan said: If we ask him about the truth, can he answer?
Master Ungan said: Even if he knew how to express the truth, he would never express it.
10 comments:
Practicing zazen sincerely, or doing anything wholly and completely, is sort of like being a kid again.
There's no long-term game plan. Everything is sharp and immediate and instantaneous and alive and new and full of wonder and glorious Technicolor (in between tantrums, that is, and even those are quite a ride).
It's not a matter of learning or theory as everything I need to know is going down exactly here already.
To express it in words might be to risk making another one of those insufferably dreary adult pursuits out of it for some poor soul... how boring would that be!!!
Regards,
Harry.
Dogen was sincere.
He had a long-term game plan when he went to China.
Am I mistaken?
Hiya, Michael.
I dunno. He may well have done.
What I do know is that zazen is a method of unyoking myself from my thinking and planning for a while... which is nice. I don't know about dead old Dogen, but I have to make plans: I haven't got the luxury of living in a monastery and having my whole day planned out for me consistently.
Regards,
Harry.
as dogen seems to have spent half his life writing i think the view on words is mistaken !
the other thing people don't pick about dogen is he likely picked up TB at a chinese monastery
TB is not fun!
it's solitude or being alone that is necessary, zazen per se is not some answer, in fact i think can induct circulation problems, especially once you get over thirty
what dying of TB is like !
http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters/severn1.html
Well, I said 'to express it in words **might be** to make it insufferable' etc etc.
I think Dogen certainly had his 'on days' with words, Genjo-koan being the shining example. Some other stuff is not so hot, a bit rehashed by comparison. Nobody's perfect. At any rate, what Dogen did is not some universal law to be deferred to. Some people find big tomes boring, some not so boring. That need'nt be a hindrance.
The words of one man's liberation can be rendered a doctrine of our very own stupidity by another. It's really a matter of what we do with it ourselves. People have even made a living out of confusing themselves and others with the words of TB boy himself.
I think zazen is already the answer, just never the answer we expect. Of course, even expectation is always the answer too, as we can appreciate through certain forms of conduct.
Regards,
Harry.
i think you are fooling yourself harry
you didn't even read that page on keats with TB did you ?
dogen is unusual because he is half mad like you and me which is perhaps the attraction to us !
you aleady know it so i guess i have not got a lot to say !
Andrew,
I'm not interested in Keats and TB at the moment.
Sorry, nothing personal.
Harry.
non-
human
can
give
rise
to
human
and
vice
versa !
you have a good eye for koans, your blog is interesting
i think since you reverence dogen so much it's worth a read out of sympathy for him to understand what he went through
both keats and dogen died miserable excrutiating deaths in the power of others and if that doesn't speak the futitltiy of effort and life what does?
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