“Vast sky transparent throughout;
a bird flies like a bird. ”
- Dogen
What Zen Is
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
- Dogen
To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.
- Dogen, from the Shobogenzo, the new complete version from Shambhala Publications, translated by Kauaki Tanahashi.
The Blogisattva Awards
This is cool. I just saw that a post I wrote for Elephant Journal has been picked as a finalist in the annual Blogisattva Awards for excellence in Buddhist themed blogging.
My post “Pizza: My One Obstacle To The Pure Land of Veganism” is a finalist in the category Best Achievement with Humor in a Blog or Blog Post.
Give the post a read over at Elephant Journal.
Thanks, Blogisattva judges. That’s really cool.
The Complete Shobogenzo
Wow. The complete master work of Dogen Zenji translated by Kaz Tanahashi.
The Treasure of the True Dharma Eye is 1616 pages of writings, commentary and notes on one of the most profound documents ever written.
I can’t wait to read this. Thanks, Kaz.
Kaz Tanahashi Article
Check out this fantastic article on the acclaimed Dōgen translator, brush artist and calligrapher Kaz Tanahashi. I love his treatment of Dōgen Zenji’s writings. In the article, in reference to Dōgen, Tanashi says,
“He challenges us with an urgent question: How do we live each moment fully and meaningfully? He makes us feel not confined and tiny, but free and enormous.”
The new edition of Dōgen’s spiritual masterpiece is a true gift, as is Kaz Tanahashi.
Whitman, Dogen & the Essential Path
I find this passage from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman to be so very connected to the beautiful non-dualty of the great Zen mystics. Dōgen wrote at length about the intimacy that arises when the separation between the self and other fall away.
Whitman wrote this:
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through
the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
Likewise, Dōgen wrote that: ”To hear sound with the whole body and mind, to see form with the whole body and mind, one understands them intimately.” This is the essence of Zen. It’s also as ordinary as taking a breath, walking, eating. It is this very life, this very moment.
Simple. Beautiful.
Mary Oliver is a Blessing
I love so many of Mary Oliver’s poems, but this one has recently struck my heart.
Why I Wake Early
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with the warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
from the poetry collection, Why I Wake Early, by Mary Oliver
Who says my poems are poems? My poems are not poems. When you know that my poems are not poems, Then we can speak of poetry.
- Ryōkan