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August 30, 2018 - March 22, 2021
nor is it my personal “self-power.” It is the energy of life.
While the reality of the life of the self exists beyond the thoughts of this individual, it is at the same time the very power actually functioning as this small individual.
Everything—mountains, rivers, trees, grass—attained buddhahood. I think these words clearly show that what Shakyamuni became enlightened to was this universal self.
However, in Buddhism the fundamental definition of “belief” is totally different. It is clarity and purity.
Pure Land school.
Amitabha Buddha of the Pure Land school is just another name for universal self,
Amitabha Buddha is that life which connects all things.
“Namu amida butsu,” “I put my faith
in Amitabha Buddha.”
This attitude is exactly the same as our attitude...
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When people of the Pure Land school chant Namu amida butsu, they are doing zazen with their mouths, and when we do zazen, we are performing Namu amida butsu with our whole body.
that we possess the dissatisfaction that
serves as the force for developing and progressing is also certainly a wonderful thing.
He wrote earlier that a dry, comfortable temperature, quiet environment is best for meditation. AC and other building technology facilities that environment, so to some extent technology has brought more spiritual peace if we use the technology for spiritually enhancing endeavors.
It is becoming increasingly urgent to establish true religion alongside this civilization based on science and technology, to enable us to regain spiritual peace.
We must pursue in a practical and serious way a religion incorporating peace in the truest sense—a peace that cannot be achieved by the development of scientific technology but is not incompatible with it.
Buddhism does not raise the question of god.
the first undeniable reality, that all things are flowing and changing,
the third undeniable reality, that all things are insubstantial.
The Middle Way is nothing other than seeing interdependence as it is, moment by moment; it is seeing our life as it is, without being caught up in our thoughts.
demolish all concepts set up in our minds and, without fixing on reality as any particular thing, to open the hand of thought, allowing life to be life.
egocentricity lies at the basis of whatever we see or do.
zazen is for the Buddhist much as God is for the Christian.
Taking as reality what precedes division,
Acting in accordance with the entire earth and with all beings is zazen practitioners’ whole life direction, and simultaneously it is their direction right here and now. In Buddhism, this life direction is referred to as vow.
“If you wish to repent, sit zazen and contemplate the true nature of all things.” In other words, it is in doing zazen that true repentance is actualized.
A person who discovers the direction of his life in zazen, who vows and at the same time lives by repentance through zazen, is called a bodhisattva.
A bodhisattva living by vow is distinguished from a person living by the continuation of his karma. There is no need to deprecate ourselves thinking that, since we are ordinary human beings, we aren’t qualified to be bodhisattvas.
Most people live by their desires or karma.
In contrast to that a bodhisattva, though undeniably still an ordinary human being like everyone else, lives aiming at the well-being of everyone, as the direction of his or her own life.
A person who feels he has to defend himself every time his teacher says something to him isn’t really practicing Buddhism.
If you aren’t able to forget criticism by others, how can you really be living out the full reality of your life?
magnanimous mind—or, in Japanese, daishin—
This type of categorization or discrimination is nothing but a distinction we make in our minds and is totally removed from the reality of life.
Joyful mind does not mean a feeling of excitement at the fulfillment of some desire.
Rather, joyful mind is discovering one’s worth and passion for life through the action of parental mind toward everything we encounter.
When we try to put everything in order using only our brains, we never succeed.
a big problem—for example, which of two things we should choose—we struggle to resolve it in our heads. But if we open
the hand of thought, the problem itself dissolves.
When we let go of our thoughts and become vividly aware, all the illusions that create desire, anger, and group stupidity vanish immediately.
“practice and enlightenment are one.”
“The expansive sky does not obstruct the floating white clouds.”
Dōgen Zenji said, “If you cannot find a true teacher, it is better not to practice.”
the zazen each of us practices is the only true teacher.
Me?
We need to remind ourselves of the clear distinction between personal, conditioned self and universal, original self.
The whole self appears when we strip away karmic illusions. And that means “opening the hand of thought.” This is original, universal self.
shin ki gen (“one who has returned to the origin”).
For Uchiyama, he is the creator of everything he knows or is, everything in his world, including what appears “outside.” Creating one’s world implies nurturing an awareness of that world.
Kū is written with the character that also means sky (Jp., sora). The term derives from the Sanskrit terms akasa, which is vast, all-pervasive space, and sunyata, or emptiness.
