Easy In The Truth

Bendowa Chapter One (Nishijima/Cross translation of Shōbōgenzō)

Dōgen traveled all around visiting good teachers and completing the great task of a lifetime of practice. (My paraphrase) He says:
“I came home determined to spread the Dharma and to save living beings—it was as if a heavy burden had been placed on my shoulders. Nevertheless, in order to wait for an upsurge during which I might discharge my sense of mission, I thought I would spend some time wandering like a cloud, calling here and there like a water weed, in the style of the ancient sages. Yet if there were any true practitioners who put the will to the truth first, being naturally unconcerned with fame and profit, they might be fruitlessly misled by false teachers and might needlessly throw a veil over right understanding. They might idly become drunk with self-deception, and sink forever into the state of delusion. How would they be able to promote the right seeds of prajna, or have the opportunity to attain the truth? If I were now absorbed in drifting like a water weed, which mountains and rivers ought they to visit? Feeling that this would be a pitiful situation, I decided to compile a record (…….)”
“I will leave this record to people who learn in practice and are easy in the truth, so that they can know the right Dharma of the Buddha’s lineage. This may be a true mission.”

“Learn in practice”—“Easy in the truth”—“This may be a true mission”

Wordless understandings manifesting in words seem to me to qualify as miracles.

 As a Karate teacher I often struggled to express my understanding that Karate could teach itself to any student who was serious, dedicated, relaxed, sensitive, apt, and supple in mind. A teacher was only necessary to provide the reminder that practice was the key to everything, and to provide a useful context for each individual’s discoveries. As a contemplative, I have moved through and past applications related to Karate alone, and extended my understanding to include all aspects of reality.

It also became clear to me just how easy it is to put the cart before the horse. Just now it occurred to me that what Dōgen meant by the phrase “easy in the truth” might be exactly what I described using the words “serious, dedicated, relaxed, sensitive, apt, and supple in mind.”

I don’t think “enlightenment” means something that can be called an achievement. It isn’t an end-state at all. I think “enlightenment” is what happens when a person is engaged in practice. It’s what’s going on anytime a person is consciously employing their inner capacity for understanding. The markers I described as “serious, dedicated, relaxed, sensitive, apt, and supple in mind” can be used to recognize enlightened activity not only in other people, but in ourselves through the function of self-awareness and observation.

I’m a little shy about aligning myself with Dōgen’s phrase, “This may be a true mission,” but that is exactly how I feel about my endeavor to record my reflections and post them on a blog.

May my practice always manifest as understanding, and my understanding as practice.