Enlightenment

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

When we speak, we are communication thoughts. It is important to know that thoughts are not the things they point to or describe or name. Thoughts are just thoughts. So when we talk about being "awake" we are speaking about something, but not the thing, only our thought about the thing. All talk of enlightenment is a barrier to the experience itself.

Some intellectual practitioners, academics, and so forth, get themselves all excited about enlightenment. Its like people at a chess club discussing various "lines" in a game. All very esoteric, abstract, and a lot of fun. But not particularly useful.

Zen is about doing awake: Not being awake, not seeking awake, not being led to awake. The Buddhas and the Patriarchs, says Master Dogen, practiced awake. How? Zazen.

Master Dogen writes, "To suppose that practice and realization are not one is nothing but a heretical view; in buddha-dharma they are inseparable. Because practice of the present moment is practice-realization, the practice of beginner's mind is itself the entire original realization." (Bendo-wa, as translated by Tanahashi-sensei in Moon in a Dewdrop, p. 151)

So, let us not speak so much of this enlightenment. Let us rather do enlightenment. As Yun Men says, "When walking, walk; when sitting, sit; Above all, don't wobble."


Be well.