The Realized Universe (Genjo kôan, Part 3)
These intellectual views are completely different from the practical
dimension of true reality as
mentioned in the third and fourth sentences of Master Dôgen´s quotation. In the
third sentence he describes the great and whole truth of Gautama Buddha and the
practice of life, which transcends theory, thinking, discrimination and
feeling. This is true reality.
In the fourth sentence, Master Dôgen tells us that we do not live in an
ideal world like Paradise or Nirvana. Thus, beautiful flowers will eventually
wilt and weeds grow bigger and bigger. Neither effect do we really like, but
they are reality. But Dôgen tells us that we should not become depressive as a
result of these effects, because we are the owners of the great Buddha’s truth
and the practice of Zen meditation, Zazen.
We can all realize our true Buddha Nature.
Master Dôgen doesn’t speak about rigid, separated entities like atoms,
which do not change; that is not the whole real world. He speaks about living processes and situations that we
can see and experience in reality. But even processes are thought of as
developments in linear time, which is not the
true spiritual time of the real moment, so it, too, is part of the area of thinking.
If we transcend this dimension of time, there
is just the moment of true existence
and the unlimited experience of great truth and reality.
Master Dôgen has written a special chapter about existence time, uji,
which really represents a revolutionary understanding and experience of time.
We assume, that our ideas, and especially discriminations, are normally static,
that they don’t change, but this is completely wrong. May be we know
intuitively what reality is and we stop wasting our time, wasting our moments here and now. If we understand and realize
this, we become enlightened, as Gautama Buddha wanted us to be. And the first
stage of/step to enlightenment is the practice of Zazen, as Nishijima Roshi
told us.
In the next paragraph Dôgen analyzes the action of human beings, which is so important in Buddhism. If we
are attached to objectives and goals resulting from egoism, it is impossible to transcend
delusions, we dream bad dreams and are not in
reality.
But “when the myriad Dharma’s actively practice
and experience ourselves, that is the state of realization”.
What does that mean? That we must open our Self and transcend egoistic
and egocentric thinking and acting. Important for this acting is that there is
no greed for fame or profit and that we act as in accordance with the situation
as it really is. Such acting is the essence of right Zazen practice, free from
greed for enlightenment, just sitting in the right position, as it is.
