Fall Ango Week 10: Here is the place; here the way unfolds…

December 1, 2023

Here is the place…

Dear Fall Ango Sangha,

This Wednesday will be the final Dharma Share of the Fall Ango. After that, from December 6-10, many of us will head into Rohatsu Sesshin; and then Wed. December 13 will be the Ango closing ceremony. There will be two more emails on the Genjo Koan coming your way after this one.

Here is this week’s section:

Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma.

Dogen has just been discoursing on the place and the way, including “finding” our place and our way right here in the middle of our lives.

What is “here”? Is anything excluded?

This right here is our “drop of water.” This is our place and our way. “Here” may include suffering, pain, delusion, karma and complexities, all boundless and unclear.  Realization is not somewhere else, and so here, on the inside, “the boundary of realization is not distinct.” Realization is about the life of the whole ocean. My circle of water, my “boundary” of the known, cannot apprehend realization. Whole worlds can open in this drop of birth and death, samsara, or cyclic suffering.

Earlier in Genjo Koan, Dogen says, “Those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas.” Genjo Koan is a koan of deep intimacy with this, with being right here. Intimate presence is a dynamic koan because it involves opening to this place and this way, this here, beyond grasping, beyond any dualistic apprehension as delusion or realization, suffering or freedom. 

Practice Engagement:

A way we can engage this in real life is to take up this phrase as a koan, an offering to bring into and transform any given moment.  This can be particularly potent in moments that seem super mundane, or any time we notice an idea like: “THIS moment/thought/ action/ feeling surely is NOT a place of practice/ liberation/ freedom, etc.”

Right there, in that moment, we can engage these words of Dogen’s: Here is the place; here the way unfolds.

Moments where we notice grasping, constriction, old habits, fear, worry, anxiety, pettiness, longing, confusion,  boredom, beign busy, being harried, whatever! We can notice what’s happening and then add into the mix of what’s in our awareness:

Here is the place; here the way unfolds.

And see what happens next- maybe the boundary of realization becomes less distinct?

Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

A kind of Zen poem says, “The falling flowers consciously go along with the flowing stream. The flowing stream mindlessly carries the fallen flowers along.” The first line is zazen as something I do, studying the self, keeping my eyes closely on the boat. The second line is zazen as something that does me, forgetting the self, nothing at all has unchanging self. It is the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky being reflected in the dewdrop, the great ocean all around, beyond and throughout the circle of water. 

In our practice, effort and care for the world, this is a growing capacity for ambiguity, complexity, bottomless relationality, lineages of conditioning going far back before memory.

“Its appearance is beyond your knowledge,” yet it is liberating, healing, and a resource for Bodhisattva engagement. It is the deepest nourishment for being alive together in this world. It sustains compassionate care, it sustains real love. Even though it is totally ungraspable, this is the real ground we have to stand on and walk forward together through birth and death with courage, faith, respect and gratitude.

Practice engagement:

Can we Receive the offering of a moment of liberation, without the qualification of even needing to be able to understand it?

Each time we can, we are developing a particularly Zen capacity, and a kind of comfort level and familiarity with: Oh, there’s some freedom here…  And our work in that moment is to not grasp.  Explaining, qualifying, delineating, elaborating, these are all natural impulses, and also often forms of grasping- and in that grasping we are taking the magnitude of anything arising and making it smaller than it truly is.

Instead, we can notice/ feel/ experience/ stumble upon a moment of freedom and simply bow to the many, many streams of conditions that came together right now to allow that to be possible, knowing most of them are beyond my perception.

To be human is to be the site or nexus of an immense amount of inheritances: familial, cultural, genetic, societal. religious, racial, biological, spiritual, etc… This practice of allowing things to be beyond our knowing offers a kind of alignment with the reality of what’s Here.  In this “Here is the place,” each moment we can recognize that there are multitudes, and then we can open to the possibility of even feeling and even tolerating that reality. 

What’s Here is a complex web of conditions, karma and impacts.

What’s Here, in any moment, is a complex being in this complex web.

And so Here the way unfolds…

Dharma in the wild:

More often than one might think, given the immense dualities at play in dominant society right now (and maybe always), Dharma teachings show up, even though the context is not Dharmic or even spiritual, and even though the person is not necessarily intending to offer a teaching on non-duality.  In an email Sarah recently received, it referred to an Instagram post by Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that was very much about non-duality and liberative agency in the world (stay tuned for Bao Che’s fan next week).  So we wanted to share:

After the ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked, someone asked Alexandria on Instagram, “Are we screwed?” Here’s what she had to say:

What is important in moments like these is not to think in binaries. Good/bad, screwed/not screwed. There is no doubt that things are bad. Some things, really bad. And they may likely get worse.

But that does not preclude the fact that slowly but surely, some good can be growing as other things fall apart. This is not some syrupy sweet silver lining case for optimism. Rather, it is really about a choice all of us will have to make in life, either consciously or unconsciously: will I be a person who is safe and creates good for others?

Will I be a person who stands up? Will I be a person who primarily minds my business and serves myself or try to be part of something bigger? Or will I just be a passive, “neutral” observer of it all?

What I sometimes tell my staff is that the world we are fighting for is already here. It exists in small spaces, places, and communities. We don’t have to deal with the insurmountable burden of coming up with novel solutions to the world’s problems.

Much of our work is about scaling existing solutions, many created by small, committed groups of people, that others haven’t seen or don’t even know are around the corner. So while we can’t change the world in a day, we can and do have the power to make our own world within our own four walls, or on our own blocks.

We can grow from there with the faith that somewhere out there, everywhere, others are doing the same. And we will come together.

That’s why if you’re a parent, how you parent matters. If you’re a neighbor, how you are a neighbor matters. Many of our biggest problems are results of massively scaled up isolation from others. That means many of our solutions can be found in creating community.

Ultimately, we live in this world and in this time. We have no choice but to engage in it while we’re here. Even running away is a form of engagement. So will your engagement hurt or heal? Build or bring down?

There is no neutral choice, so we can at least do our best to make good ones and learn and do better the next day.

You are allowed to be scared. To grieve. To be angry. But you are also allowed to create good, to be soft, and enjoy the small reprieves. Struggle lasts as long as we do.

Grateful to be here with you,

Charlie and Sarah

Zen Priests, Dharma Teachers

Fall Ango Week 8: No end to the water, no end to the air

Fall Week 7: Whole Worlds Are Here

Fall Week 6: Moon in a dewdrop

Fall Ango Week 5: Do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past

Fall Ango Week 4: Keep Your Eyes Closely on the Boat…

Fall Ango Week 3: When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark…

Fall Ango Week 2: As all things are Buddha-dharma…

Fall Ango Week 1: Practicing with Genjo Koan