October 18, 2023
Dear Practice Period Participants,
We want to begin by acknowledging pain, and grief and loss, and also rage and outrage and despair- to not separate from these, and to feel the support of this practice engagement of non-duality and the treasure of Sangha to feel these thoroughly and all the way through, and care for them with vigor, skillfulness and great heart.
Last week we asked: How is the practice engagement of non-duality going for you?
This week we would like to inquire: How is the practice engagement of Duality going for you? How is living with dualistic constructs? What have you found when you have had a look at how dualities work in your life, where do they show up? Which ones really toss you around? Are there any that are softening as you bring them into the light of your awareness? Are there some that feel intractable…or even “real” or inescapable?
And how do we find our way through the great commotion of all these views?
How is it to engage non-duality as finding ways to bring dualistic frameworks out front, to relax with, illuminate and find a sense of play with dualistic modes of thinking, feeling and experiencing?
As this week’s passage makes vividly clear, when we study Zen and Dogen, the study intimately circulates between everyday suffering, the teachings of Genjo Koan, back to the concrete relationality of this moment, inwardly and outwardly to everything happening here, and back yet again to the dharma, the self, all things, endlessly. This is “all-inclusive study.”
Here is this week’s passage:
To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
When you first seek dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. But dharma is already correctly transmitted; you are immediately your original self.
When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.
To study the buddha way is to study the self.
What is this study? It is not the dualistic study of a subject examining an object. It is nondual intimacy. It is not about knowing. “Not-knowing is most intimate.” Below Dogen says, “When you practice intimately and return to where you are…” This is study.
What is the self? The pervading experience of separation, of existing on my own. All the ways the core delusion of separation is coursing through my ancestral and cultural conditioning and into my reactivity, perspectives, beliefs, dispositions. The sense of a constant, unchanging “I” that links ever-changing experiences. The root and branches of suffering. Is there a constant “me”? Is there something not totally intertwined with all things? What is the self?
What is intimate study of the self? How is it to study the subject rather than the object? How is the intimate illumination of my conditioning? How is the intimate illumination of the core delusion of separation?
To study the self is to forget the self.
As in the second sentence of the Genjo Koan, “As the myriad things are without an abiding self…,” here again is the encouragement to forget the self, see through it, see more of it that we usually do. Let the self grow beyond our bounds of knowing.
To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.
How is it to study the non-separation, co-arising, co-dependence, and total interrelationality of subject and object? “To be actualized by myriad things” echoes last week’s passage, “That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.” Intimate relationality.
When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.
We sometimes hear that Dogen had a big opening upon hearing his teacher say, “Drop off body and mind” and we see this is a key phrase in Dogen’s teaching. So right now we can ask: How am I grasping body? How am I grasping mind? How am I grasping self? How am I grasping other?
No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
No trace is not abiding, not grasping at threads of insight and opening. Not trying to make them last, not trying to make them go away. This traceless practice or non-abiding realization “continues endlessly.” This is like “leaping beyond” from two weeks ago, and “buddhas go on actualizing buddhas” from last week.
When you first seek dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. But dharma is already correctly transmitted; you are immediately your original self.
Dogen is illuminating a dualistic frame that can live in practice and any aspiration, casting a goal, fulfillment, happiness, freedom, awakening as something far away. What is your original self?
When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.
Finally, here is a nice, tangible image to work with! We are the boat. Studying the self means keeping a close eye on the boat, moment after moment. So close, with patience and diligence, in fact, that at some point the boat that seemed solid and still reveals itself to be moving and unfixed.
This unfolds “studying the self”: “keep your eyes closely on the boat,” “practice intimately and return to where you are.” It is the practice of “As all things are Buddha-dharma” and “When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body and mind.”
And this unfolds “forgetting the self”: “you can see that the boat moves,” “it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.” A relational self is always a changing self, while carrying around the delusion of separation may give the sense of an unchanging self that has experiences of things changing without being actualized and transformed through every encounter. The opening is to how the shore, the boat and the water are all changing through mutually actualizing each other in intimate relationality.
Resources:
– Article by Rev angel kyodo williams “Your Liberation is on the Line” considers how liberation itself can never be dualistic or personal, but always manifests as the liberation of all beings.
– We mentioned this article by Kosen in an earlier email, but refer to it again as it centers on the teaching from this week, “To study the Buddha way is to study the self.” “Waking Up to Whiteness”
Please care for yourselves and all beings with great and diligent tenderness,
In Sangha,
Sarah & Charlie
Zen Priest, Dharma Teachers