Good morning!
The polar vortex is causing extreme cold weather with snow. Fortunately it is without
snow today. Our sitting is like today, clear and cool without difficulty and danger of
coverings and cloudiness.
The equator vortex causes hurricanes, El Niños, etc., and in between these vortexes
we have typhoon, tornadoes, etc. Our ordinary life has karma vortexes causing
stormy skies and snowy streets.
The Buddha taught the Four Holy Truths and the Eightfold Holy Way at his first
Dharma Wheel turning. At the end of his career, he made sure that the Four Holy
Truths were understood, and he gave the Eightfold Great Person’s Wakefulness.
The Eightfold Holy Way are the introduction of principle to anyone to live the
Awakened Way, and the Eightfold Great Person’s Wakefulness is the conclusion
of practice of great persons to abide by in the Awakened Way.
Dogen intended his recompilation of his Storage of the True Dharma Eyes to consist
of 100 volumes, but he had to stop it at the twelfth volume, reiterating the Eightfold
Great Person’s Wakefulness as his last words.
He lamented that only one or two persons out of a thousand learners know of them
and stressed that without knowing and practicing them none can be said to be the
genuine disciples of the Buddha.
He said that the Eightfold Great Person’s Wakefulness is the True Dharma Eye
Stored in the Exquisite Heart of Nirvana and that by learning, attaining, and
delivering them one becomes awakened as Shakya-muni Buddha.
The first is “small or no desire” (appiccha). The Buddha taught that craving (taṅhā)
is the cause of suffering and its cessation is nirvana, which gives unsurpassed
awakening to assure one in Nirvana-dhātu and Dharma-dhātu (root/domain).
The second one is “satisfaction” (santuṭṭhi) or contentment. Happiness consists in
contentment. One is rich and happy even lying in the streets, possessing nothing.
One is poor and unhappy in palaces, possessing everything.
The third is “isolated” (pavivitta) or lone living, enjoying equanimity, ceasing the
root of suffering, rather than mingling with the masses like birds alighting on a
dead branch, breaking, or an elephant mired in a mud marsh or quicksand.
The fourth is “striving” (viriya), which makes anything possible, like continuous
dripping makes a hole in a rock, but without which nothing is achieved, like
stopping striving to make fire with two sticks.
The fifth is “right mindfulness” (sammā sati), giving merits like guarding one from
defilement intruders, or protecting like armor in the battlefield, so one is harmed
by no one or nothing.
The sixth is “right zen (meditation)” (sammā jhāna), settling in and seeing the
Dharma of origination and destruction, unobstructed by them, maintaining
riverbanks well and so retaining the abundant water of wisdom always.
The seventh is “right prognosis” (sammā paññā) or insight into dharmas, attaining
liberation like a strong ship crossing over the seas of disease and death, a light in
the darkness, medicine for the sick, and a sharp knife to cut through defilements.
The eighth is the “no projections” (appapañca) or speculations/fantasies that
disturb the mind, and from which even renunciants can never attain liberation.
To enjoy equanimity one must be emancipated from them.
“You mendicants wanted to transcend the worldly. All worldly things are
impermanent. Stop speaking. Time passes. I am passing away. These are my last
words.” Thus, the Buddha breathed his last into Parinirvana.
If we live thus, we can enjoy holy (wholly wholesome) harmony, health, and
happiness without problems of the triple poisons of delusion, desire, and the
divisiveness of ego, its economy and ecology.
Then, we solve the triple maladies of me-ism, materialism, and militarism
as well as the triple ending in exclusion, exploitation, and extermination of
the Dharma-dhātu, like all jig-saw puzzle pieces fitting firm and fine.
1/26/14
Note: The above Pali terms are to fit to Dogen’s writing. The other versions in
the Anuruddha Mahavitakka Sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya are as follows:
1. Appiccha, 2. Santuṭṭhi, 3. Pavivitta, 4. Āraddhaviriya
5. Upaṭṭhitasati, 6. Samāhita, 7. Paññāvant, 8. Nippapañcārāma
The eighth was advised by the Buddha: delight in no mental fabrications
(cf. Birthless Zen by Bankei, nirodha, cessation, nirvana, windlessness).
NASA photo: PIA17017: Bubbles Within Bubbles