MZC HERE-NOW

Good morning!

Today is the equinox, the middle of the five-day o-higan, yonder shore, identified as nirvana, the time of receiving spirits of ancestors, who are thought to be in nirvana. Equinox day is equal in daytime and nighttime. We say there is heat and chill up to o-higan. Until yesterday we had a spell of hot dry days, but rain yesterday and today brought cool air and abundant green leaves around us. We can now appreciate brilliant beautiful flowers on our altar.

Dogen described the path of the Awakened Way in his Genjo-koan, Realization of the Universal Truth, as follows: To learn the Awakened Way is to learn the self. To learn the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all dharmas. To be verified by all dharmas is to drop off the bodies and minds of one’s self and others’ selves. The trace of awakening is at rest and ceased. Traceless awakening is furthered on and on.”

I’ve been translating the Fukanzazengi-no Hanashi, Talk on the Universal Recommendation for Right Zazen, by Eko Hashimoto Roshi, who says that zazen is the King Samadhi practiced throughout life even after awakening. He also calls it ji-ju-u-zanmai, lit. self-receiving-using samādhi, which I translate as self-appreciating samādhi. The Buddha said there are two refuges: self and dharma. Self sits, sees, receives, uses, and becomes dharma, thus undefiled.

We are life forms like flowers, so appreciate them, use them like familiar furniture or meritorious medicine in our medicine chest to appreciate or to be appeased together with buddhas and ancestors. We ordinarily say “self and other,” but Dogen says one’s self and other’s selves. Other often turns to absolute other and even enemy to be slaughtered. If we actualize others’ selves like ourselves, we can’t commit sins of slaughtering, stealing, etc.”

September 21, 2019 C.E. Dharma talk

Note: I touched on the pictures below, taken and sent by Mr. Noriyuki Otsuka, showing both phases of the Pacific Ocean – in calmness on ordinary days and raging at typhoon time – a Peace Ocean and Surging Sea. The Pacific Ocean with its placid, pure, mirror-like surface can reflect the sun, stars, and scenes of skies and lands in clarity and calmness, like nirvana. The empty space in special sea situations stir small winds that grow into typhoons, hurricanes, hurakans, orkans, cyclones, etc., causing surging seas and a wrecked world, claiming casualties like the wind of karma. Sitting stills karma, sees the Dharma of all dharmas (Norm of forms, Law of phenomena, i.e., Dependent Co-origination), settles in the original calmness and clarity of it like the vast space of śūnya (suňňa, sifr, zifr, zero) before stirring and surge.

お早うございます！

今日は秋分、涅槃を意味するお彼岸の中日、ですが、涅槃に入ったと考えられる先祖の霊を迎える時です。秋分は昼と夜が等しい日です。私達は「暑さ寒さも彼岸まで」と言います。昨日までは暑く乾燥した日々が続きましたが昨日と今日の雨が涼しい空気と潤沢な緑を私達の回りに齎しました。祭壇には今映える美しい花があります。

道元は覚道の道を現成公案で次のように述べました：「仏道をならふというふは、自己をならふなり。自己をならふといふは、自己をわするるなり。自己をわするるといふは、万法に証せらるるなり。万法に証せらるるといふは、自己の身心および他己の身心をして脱落せしむるなり。悟迹の休歇なるあり,休歇なる悟迹を長々出ならしむ。」

橋本恵光老師の「普勧坐禅儀の話」を翻訳してきましたが、老師は坐禅は悟りを得た後も一生実践する王三昧であると言われます。老師は又それを自受用三昧、文字通りでは自ら受け用いる三昧ですが、英語には自賞三昧(Self-appreciating Samadhi)と訳しています。仏陀は自洲と法洲の二洲があると言われました。自は坐し法を見、受け、用い、法になり、不染汚です。

私達は花のように生命体ですからその佳さを賞味し、仏祖と共に我が家の家具の如く用いたり薬籠中の薬として安らぎも得ます。私達は普通「自他」と言いますが、道元は自我と他我と言います。他者は縷々絶対他者あるいは屠刹する敵にも転換します。もし私達が他我を自我と同様に実現すれば殺戮、窃盗などの罪を犯すことは出来ないでしょう。

2019共通年9月21日　法話

註：以下の太平洋の日常の静穏と台風の怒涛―平和洋と怒涛海―を見せてくれる大塚卿之さんが撮り送ってくれた写真についても触れました。平らかで清浄な鏡のような海面の太平洋は涅槃のように太陽、星々、天空や陸地の風景を静穏明澄に映すことが出来ます。特殊な海の状況での空間は業風のように小さな風を起こし、台風、ハリケーン、フラカン、オルカン、サイクロンなどに育ち、怒涛の海や破壊の世界を生じ、死傷者も生みます。坐は業を静め、諸法の法（形の規則、現象の法則、縁起法）を見、刺激や怒涛の前の空（くう、シフル、ジフル、ゼロ）の大宇宙のように始源の静穏と明澄に安住します。