Shobogenzo Ch17 (I) Hokke-ten-hokke - Introduction

Hokke-ten-hokke is translated as "The Flower of Dharma Turns the Flower of Dharma".

What is the 'Flower of the Dharma'? It is just the 'Lotus Universe'. And the Lotus Universe is just this Universe — our Universe viewed from an enlightened perspective.

“The content of the buddha lands of the ten directions” is the “sole existence” of the “Flower of Dharma.” Herein, “all the buddhas of the ten directions and the three times,” and beings of anuttara samyaksaṃbodhi, have [times of] turning the Flower of Dharma, and have [times of] the Flower of Dharma turning.

From an enlightened perspective, we can see that when we are in the state of perfect enlightenment (anuttara samyaksaṃbodhi), we turn the Flower of the Dharma. In contrast, when (or perhaps even when) we are not in the state of perfect enlightenment, the Flower of the Dharma turns our Universe and us.

The Lotus Universe is grounded in an all-inclusive view of time and space. It is the manifestation of 'emptiness' in form. Because it is all-inclusive in time, because it is all-inclusive in space, because sometimes we turn the Flower of the Dharma and sometimes the Flower of the Dharma turns us, the Universe is in a state of equilibrium from which there can be no regression or deviation:

This is just the state in which “original practice of the bodhisattva way” neither regresses nor deviates. It is the “wisdom of the buddhas, profound and unfathomable.” It is the “calm and clear state of samādhi...”

The Dharma Flower’s turning may be preaching it as the “disclosure, display, realization, and entering” of buddhas who are rightful successors, and of rightful successors of buddhas. This [real wisdom] is also called the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, and it is “the method of teaching bodhisattvas.” Because this [real wisdom] has been called “all dharmas,” “Vulture Peak” exists, “space” exists, the “great ocean” exists, and the “great earth” exists, with the Flower of Dharma as their “national land.” This is just “real form”; it is “reality as it is”; “it is the wisdom of the Buddha”; it is “the constancy of the manifestation of the world”; it is “the real”; it is “the Tathāgata’s lifetime”; it is “the profound and unfathomable”; it is “the inconstancy of all actions”; it is “samādhi as [the state of] the Flower of Dharma”; it is “Śākyamuni Buddha”; it is “to turn the Flower of Dharma”; it is “the Flower of Dharma turning”; it is “the right Dharma-eye treasury and the fine mind of nirvana”; and it is “manifestation of the body to save living beings.” As “affirmation and becoming buddha,” it is maintained and relied upon, and dwelled in and retained.

The last line above suggests to me that once we have a sense of the Lotus Universe, it has a lasting effect on our perception of ourselves and our actions. That 'sense' imparts wisdom from which there is no going back -- a wisdom that "is maintained and relied upon, and dwelled in and retained."

***

Turner or the turned,
The one buddha vehicle,
Flower of Dharma.

Lotus Universe —
True wisdom of samadhi,
Dwelled in and retained.

Reflections: We're All Connected - Visualizing Metta and the Metta Sutra

With the speed of 'news' these days it's easy to get caught up in large scale tragedies, especially natural disasters. Whether we know people directly affected or not, our ability to respond to such events with actual help is limited by distance and other conditions and circumstances.

The truth is we're all connected. When we can't provide actual physical assistance, we have a choice: We can respond by getting tangled up in these events to a degree that negatively affects our ability to respond to what our own circumstances confront us with or we can respond with metta (loving-kindness).

If one visualizes the spreading wave of pain and suffering it becomes a little easier to see that getting tangled up in and adding to the outcry of pain and suffering is unlikely to be helpful. And it becomes easier to see the helpfulness of metta as a restorative calming influence:

The Metta Sutra

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!


Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

~ The Buddha

(obtained from: http://asuradharma.blogspot.com/2010/08/unemployment-by-county-2007-2010.html) Thanks Jordan.. for citing the Sutra, for any involvement you may have in relief efforts, and for your dedication to practice..

Shobogenzo Ch16 Shisho (II) - More on the Certificate of Succession

Quoting Dogen's Master:
There are few who have even seen and heard of the causes and conditions of the certificate of succession and the succession of the Dharma. Among a hundred thousand people there is not even one!


So what is the "concrete situation of the certificate of succession"? Dogen writes:

...some succeed to the Dharma on clarifying the sun, the moon, and the stars, and some succeed to the Dharma on being made to get the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow..

...some receive a kaṣāya; some receive a staff; some receive a sprig of pine; some receive a whisk; some receive an uḍumbara flower; and some receive a robe of golden brocade. There have been successions with straw sandals and successions with a bamboo stick.

This suggests that the causes and conditions giving rise to succession vary (and also suggests we should not view succession as something we're entitled to after completion of a program of study). Not surprisingly, the forms of certificates recognizing succession also vary:

When such successions of the Dharma are received, some write a certificate of succession with blood from a finger, some write a certificate of succession with blood from a tongue, and some perform the succession of Dharma by writing [a certificate] with oil and milk; these are all certificates of succession.



Dogen was able to view several certificates of succession during his travels. The specifics of these certificates varied tremendously. However, that he did not regard all certificates as valid should not come as too much of a surprise. He comments:

They receive the Dharma from fellows of fame and repute of the present generation, or from old veterans who are intimate with kings and ministers, and when they do so they have no interest in getting the Dharma but are only greedy for fame and reputation.

they have become uselessly entangled in the net of theory, and so they do not know the method of liberation and they do not hope for the opportunity to spring free.



While reading I found it difficult to judge which of the certificates of succession Dogen described was valid, if any. I wonder if that ambiguity was intentional since Dogen harbored doubts of his own, although it seems that he gained some insight during these encounters.

Dogen quotes his master as saying: ..wherever [people] are sincerely pursuing the truth they are able to see and to hear that the certificate of succession exists. “To have seen and heard” may be “learning the state of truth” itself.

In the end, Dogen admits that it was not until he understood, through the teaching of his Master which resonated deeply, that succession of the Dharma between master and disciple arises co-dependently that he "accepted, for the first time, the existence of Buddhist patriarchs’ succession of the Dharma, but also got rid of an old nest."


***

Sprig of pine, a whisk,
Or udumbara flower ―
Signed with blood or milk.

Simple and so real ―
Co-dependent arising ―
Succession of truth.

Shobogenzo Ch16 Shisho (I) - The Certificate of Succession

Buddhas, without exception, receive the Dharma from buddhas, buddha-to-buddha, and patriarchs, without exception, receive the Dharma from patriarchs, patriarch-to-patriarch; this is experience of the [Buddha’s] state, this is the one-to-one transmission, and for this reason it is “the supreme state of bodhi."

In our time, and Dogen's as well, masters give certificates of succession — documentation of Dharma transmission — to disciples that have studied with them. A certificate of succession, however, is not a diploma, which is received after completing the requisite coursework, it is recognition of one-to-one transmission and "..[this] is realization of the truth before the Seven Buddhas; it is the same realization of the truth shoulder-to-shoulder with, and in time with, the many buddhas; it is realization of the truth before the many buddhas; and it is realization of the truth after all the many buddhas."

The different views of time, as described in Uji, are significant in our understanding of the succession from buddha to buddha. For example, Dogen writes:

..without buddhas it has no time.

[It]..is profound and eternal; it is without regression or deviation and without interruption or cessation.

One-to-one transmission and succession occur in linearly in time as we commonly view it — in other words, in coming-and-going time, and also occur in Now, both the immediate moment and the eternal Now. The Buddha's truth also moves via us, much in the same way as time moves via us. If we understand succession in terms of these different views of time, we can begin to understand the truth of the following:

The fundamental point is this: although Śākyamuni Buddha realizes the truth before the Seven Buddhas, it has taken him a long time to succeed to the Dharma of Kāśyapa Buddha...There is also the principle to be mastered in practice that Kāśyapa Buddha succeeds to the Dharma of Śākyamuni Buddha. Those who do not know this principle do not clarify the Buddha’s state of truth.

The state is like, for example, stones succeeding each other as stones, jewels succeeding each other as jewels, chrysanthemums succeeding each other, and pine trees certifying each other, at which time the former chrysanthemum and the latter chrysanthemum are each real as they are, and the former pine and the latter pine are each real as they are.


Transmission of the Buddha's truth and succession arise co-dependently. Their origin and existence are rooted in the interdependence of all things.

---

Not grouped together
Nor succession in a line —
The gift of Dharma.


Profound, eternal
Passage of truth, no regress
Or deviation.

A Poem... A longtime favorite: The Changes

The Changes
by Robert Pinsky (from The Figured Wheel)


Even at sea the bodies of the unborn and the dead
Interpenetrate at peculiar angles. In a displaced channel

The crew of a tanker float by high over the heads
Of a village of makers of flint knives, and a woman

In one round hut on a terrace dreams of her grandsons
Floating through the blue sky on a bubble of black oil

Calling her in the unknown rhythms of diesel engines to come
Lie down and couple. On the ship, three different sailors

Have a brief revery of dark, furry shanks, and one resolves
To build when he gets home a kind of round shrine or gazebo

In the small terraced garden of his house in a suburb.
In the garden, bees fumble at hydrangeas blue as crockery

While four children giggle playing School in the round gazebo.
(To one side, the invisible shaved heads of six priests

Bob above the garden's earth as they smear ash on their chests,
Trying to dance away a great epidemic; afterwards one priest,

The youngest, founds a new discipline based on the ideals
Of childlike humility and light-heartedness and learning.)

One of the sailor's children on his lunch hour years later
Writes on a napkin a poem about blue hydrangeas, bees

And a crockery pitcher. And though he is killed in a war
And the poem is burned up unread on a mass pyre with his body,

The separate molecules of the poem spread evenly over the globe
In a starlike precise pattern, as if a geometer had mapped it.

Overhead, passengers in planes cross and recross in the invisible
Ordained lanes of air traffic—some of us in the traverse

Passing through our own slightly changed former and future bodies,
Seated gliding along the black lines printed on colored maps

In the little pouches at every seat, the webs of routes bunched
To the shapes of beaks or arrowheads at the black dots of the cities.

Shobogenzo Ch15 Busso (II) - Confidence

A few additional thoughts on confidence, faith, and trust have come up while I've been thinking about the following quote from Busso:

The realization of the Buddhist patriarchs is [our] taking up the Buddhist patriarchs and paying homage to them. This is not of only the past, the present, and the future; and it may be ascendant even to the ascendant [reality] of buddha. It is just to enumerate those who have maintained and relied upon the real features of Buddhist patriarchs, to do prostrations to them, and to meet them. Making the virtue of the Buddhist patriarchs manifest and uphold itself, we have dwelled in and maintained it, and have bowed to and experienced it.

In particular, the phrase "it may be ascendant even to the ascendant [reality] of buddha" seems significant. Why would Dogen say that paying homage to the buddhas is superior even to the reality of buddhas?

Paying homage to the Buddha ancestors is something we do in the present moment. Especially during prostrations raising the palms above the forehead means I am giving myself up to this practice, giving up doubt, giving up resistiveness. Moreover, I am recognizing that practice is more important than any beliefs or doubts I have about any specific Buddhist patriarch in the lineage.

There are Buddhist ancestors and Buddhist patriarchs that lived to the point. We can never know all the details about any one specific individual and whether they were constantly buddhas in perfect perfection. What we can have confidence, faith, and trust in, however, is that the extent to which these individuals were buddhas in perfect perfection reflects the extent to which they were sincere in their practice. In other words, the 'real features' of Buddha ancestors include sincerity in practice.

Practice is right here and now, it's not some attainment or goal in the future we aspire to.
Practice involves maintaining a soft and flexible mind.
Our own practice is something we can have confidence, faith, and trust in.

...

Ascendant even
To the ascending buddhas —
Honoring buddhas.

Shobogenzo Ch15 Busso - The Buddha Ancestors

In many ways Busso and the following chapter, Shisho, seem so obvious that I was tempted not to cover them. Because of that feeling though, skipping these chapters may be exactly the wrong thing to do.

Every Sunday at my Center we honor the buddhas with a chant containing a list of named similar to the list presented in Busso. As Dogen says, by paying homage to the Buddha ancestors, we cause, or at least assist in, their realization:

The realization of the Buddhist patriarchs is [our] taking up the Buddhist patriarchs and paying homage to them.

According to the introduction, Busso can be translated as Buddhist Patriarchs or Buddha Ancestors. Indeed, the list of names contains those patriarchs who have found their way into the lineage of Dogen's tradition, and is not that different from the ancestral line in our chant, so in this sense 'Buddhist Patriarchs' seems okay. However, Dogen also states:

This is not of only the past, the present, and the future; and it may be ascendant even to the ascendant [reality] of buddha. It is just to enumerate those who have maintained and relied upon the real features of Buddhist patriarchs, to do prostrations to them, and to meet them. Making the virtue of the Buddhist patriarchs manifest and uphold itself, we have dwelled in and maintained it, and have bowed to and experienced it.

In my view, the above quote conveys a broader intent to pay homage to all buddhas, not only patriarchs recognized by a given tradition, so in this sense at least 'Buddha Ancestors' seems more appropriate. Moreover, who are the buddhas of past, present, and future? They are just us in our buddhahood.

...it was [the realization of] buddhas alone, together with buddhas.


Haiku for Busso:

Honoring buddhas
Together with buddhas — past,
Present and future.

A Poem: Recall the Sound that Water Makes

Recall the sounds that water makes ―
The slow hiss, pop and sputter of water
Moving up a faucet, long disused, or
The steadiness inherent in chaotic drip
That would threaten some to madness.

Or, should you prefer, the multitude of sounds
That accompany torrential rains in summer,
Pelting splatters on a sidewalk, roaring swirls
Along roadsides brown with mud, torn leaves,
And assorted broken bits, or yet,
The softer sound of hot steam rising
Off sunstruck rooftops like smoke.

Yet none of these is the true sound
Of water, which makes no sound at all,
But is transformed to sound
By movement, movement to and movement from,
The sound of subject and object in collision, the sound
Of the erosion of differences, until there is
Not a single grain of sand left.

Shobogenzo Ch14 (III) Sansuigyō - Water: Not Matter, Not Not Matter

In the first part of Sansuigyō Dogen draws parallels between the existence of mountains and human existence. Here, in the second half, Dogen is drawing a parallel between water and the human spirit, soul or even, to go a step further, agape — unconditional, absolute love. Maybe its just the romanticist in me, but I like using those terms here because I sense it so readily in this Chapter, even though the more Buddhisty terms are Buddha nature, true self, Universal self, unconditioned self, etc... I say 'human' spirit, but I don't see any reason why we can't include all spirit. Water is the bones and marrow of the Buddhist patriarchs and it is by virtue of riding on the water that the mountains, even though they are physically stuck in the same place are 'unstuck':

Great Master Unmon Kyōshin says, “The East Mountain moves on water.” The point realized in these words is that all mountains are an East Mountain, and every East Mountain moves on water.

“The East Mountain moves on water” is the bones and marrow of the Buddhist patriarchs. Waters are realized at the foot of the East Mountain; thereupon mountains ride the clouds and walk through the sky. The crowns of the waters are mountains, whose walking, upward or downward, is always “on water.” Because the mountains’ toes can walk over all kinds of water, making the waters dance, the walking is free in all directions and “practice-and-experience is not nonexistent.”

Dogen describes many qualities or virtues of water, which, to me, seem to parallel qualities we associate with spirit. The following quote is just one example of several in this Chapter:

Water is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor warm, neither existent nor nonexistent, neither delusion nor realization. When it is solid it is harder than a diamond; who could break it? Melted, it is softer than diluted milk; who could break it? This being so, it is impossible to doubt the real virtues that [water] possesses.

When I think of spirit or true self, I get the sense that spirit, instead of being contained or caged within our individual selves, is something that we share with all of the rest of the Universe. In fact, we tap into spirit in our experience of 'emptiness' when we sit:

..water is the palace of real dragons; it is beyond flowing and falling. If we recognize it as only flowing, the word “flowing” insults water, because, for example, [the word] forces [water] to be what is other than flowing itself. Water is nothing but water’s “real form as it is.” Water is just the virtues of water itself; it is beyond “flowing.”

Although Dogen tells us not to think of water as flowing, water does, in fact, flow and Dogen recognizes this in the following quote:

We can say that the way of water is beyond the recognition of water, but water is able actually to flow. Water is [also] beyond non-recognition, but water is able actually to flow.

What happens when water flows and falls? It forms clouds, rain, puddles, rivers, lakes, and oceans. This is the cycle of water...:

Common and stupid folk today assume that water is always in rivers, streams, and oceans. This is not so. Rivers and oceans are realized in water. Thus, water also exists in places which are not rivers and oceans; it is just that when water descends to the earth, it takes effect as rivers and oceans.

So in the parallel to human existence, what are these clouds, rain, puddles, rivers, lakes, and oceans that water results in the realization of...?

None other than cause and effect.

And it is in this context that the quote "although there are many kinds of water, it seems that there is no original water, and no water of many kinds" makes sense to me. We all have spirit/soul/agape/true self, but the way that spirit falls and flows is cause and effect realized in our lives. Spirit is transformed by our selves and the way we're able to connect with others as that spirit is converted into cause and effect.

It is also in this context that "Because the mountains’ toes can walk over all kinds of water, making the waters dance, the walking is free in all directions" gains meaning. Without the mountains that make the waters dance, water would just be water, and clouds, rain, puddles, rivers, lakes, and oceans would not be realized. Even though the mountains are stuck as mountains, by virtue of their walking on water, their walking becomes free in all directions.

If cause and effect are just the manifestation of spirit or true self, why does life seem so difficult at times? Because the transformation/conversion processes are not clean, they are contaminated by our desires, distortions and errors in our perception and conceptualization (how we fit perceptions into the ongoing stories in our head), as well as by our inability to communicate/connect with others clearly due to habits we've been taught or suffer from due to injuries we've sustained. And its not only our own transformation/conversion processes we have to consider, but those of everyone we come into contact with.

Once we have incorporated the teachings of the mountains and water into our understanding, the following quote gains special significance for our practice, or my practice anyway...:

For the present, we should learn in practice the moments in which it is possible to put on the eyes and look in the ten directions at the water of the ten directions. This is not learning in practice only of the time when human beings and gods see water; there is learning in practice of water seeing water. Because water practices and experiences water, there is the investigation in practice of water speaking water. We should manifest in reality the path on which self encounters self. We should advance and retreat along the vigorous path on which the external world exhausts in practice the external world, and we should spring free.

To summarize some of what I've learned from Sansuigyō so far:

1. Most of us in our lives are stuck just like mountains. Moreover, each of us has flaws and faults just like mountains do, and these flaws and faults are also what makes us beautiful and unique.
2. But like mountains we flow in our forward and backward walking.
3. Like the mountains, our walking causes water, or our true self or spirit, to dance and to be manifested as cause and effect.
4. Once we begin to accept the "mountain-like" aspects of our existence, once we recognize that cause and effect are just true self manifested, and once we see that it's the transformation/conversion processes of ourselves and others that are the main cause of the difficulties we encounter in our lives, we can acknowledge things as they are, "spring free", and begin to work on those processes.

Haiku for the second half of Sansuigyō:

The toes of mountains
Make waters dance, walking free
In all directions.

Water knows water
Yet water knows not — it flows
From clouds to oceans.

Shobogenzo Ch14 (II) Sansuigyō - The Meaning of Water

This song, also named 'The Water Song', is one of the most beautiful songs I've discovered in the last year. I can just hear the sun shimmering on the surface of the water, the love and forgiveness of it, how water wears away all differences. Wherever the water is -- a river, a lake, an ocean, or held in the clouds. If I die today or 30 years from now, I hope this song is played for me.

Peace to us all...



...and don't you just love Blixa's thump on the bass? So simple. So perfect.