![]() Teisho 1: The Most Important Thing
Saturday, October 6, 2001
from the series Turning the Wheel of the Way"
Commentaries of Dogen's "Gyoji: Continuous Practice"
Presented by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi
© Copyright 2001 White Wind Zen Community
To understand something clearly you cannot stand too close to it or too far from it. If
you stand too close to it, you lose any recognition of its context. If you stand too far
away, its significance is lost.
When people try to understand the Buddha Dharma, the Way of Awakening,
they might try to stand here or stand there. Some people would say that the most
important thing in Buddhism is compassion. Others would say that it is about clarity.
Others perhaps say that it is a matter of renunciation or tranquility or meditation or
wisdom or whatever they themselves are interested in. Some Buddhists say that it is
surrendering to the boundless compassion of Amitabha Buddhas vow and being born
again. It is possible to say that Buddhism is just about anything at all because there
is no such thing as Buddhism as such. There are however many people who call
themselves Buddhists and so whatever they might say that Buddhism is, it is also
that. But whatever Buddhism might be, this is none of our concern as Zen
practitioners and students of the Buddha Dharma.
At the very beginning of his text Gyoji: Continuous Practice, Eihei Dogen zenji
tells us that, In the great Way of the Awakened Ancestors the most important thing
has always been continuous practice.
The Buddha Dharma, the Way of Awakening, is a practice. It is something to
be done, something to be engaged, and something to be embodied. If we want to
understand the Buddha Dharma, the most important thing for us to do is to do what
the Buddha did. And what did he do? He did zazen. He sat and practiced mindfulness
and engaged a deep radical questioning into experiencing and experiences. So for
anyone to understand the Dharma, no matter whether we stand close or far, above
or below, within or without, we must sit. We must do zazen.
Zazen is the great open secret that reveals the primordial luminosity of
experiencing and the radiance of experiences. The posture of the body in zazen
reveals the mind of the Buddhas, the Awakened Ones. In Zanmai-O-Zanmai Eihei
Dogen zenji calls zazen posture the Butsu-shin-in, the mind seal of the Buddhas. If
there is no zazen, there is no Dharma, there is no Zen. At all. The Dharma is
understood and realized through zazen.
But merely doing zazen once will not bring us to any understanding of the
Dharma. Sitting once a week, sitting once a day, sitting three or four or five times a
day will unfold for us as much as we are willing to receive. But it is a vast treasury
and its riches are inexhaustible. We can sit for decades and not come close to even
beginning to fully understand the Dharma. In fact, we could do zazen, sitting
practice, in such a way that it has nothing to do with Dharma or is even the opposite
of Dharma.
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