If you say that making a fist, giving a shout, holding a staff or showing a needle are but ordinary actions …
In Enlightenment Unfolds Kaz Tanahashi said, “Nirvana is regarded as the realm of nonduality, where there is no distinction between large and small….self and other. ….To experience this…in the midst of the passage of time, change, and decay, is a miracle.” He said, “For Dogen, this miracle can happen each moment, as each moment of duality is inseparable from a moment of nonduality. Duality and nonduality, change and no-change, relative and absolute, coexist and interact with each other. Dogen calls the experience of this dynamic ‘actualizing the fundamental point.’” In Zen, miracles are nothing other than such activities as drawing water and carrying firewood, when we realize, really realize, each moment of samsara as inseparable from a moment of nirvana. http://www.intrex.net/chzg/pat41.htm
We see in the past that those who transcended the ordinary and transcended the sacred and those who died while sitting or died while standing, relied totally on this power. Moreover, changing of the moment through the action of a finger, a [flag]pole, a needle, or a wooden clapper; and exact experience of the state through the manifestation of a whisk, a fist, a staff, or a shout, can never be understood by thinking and discrimination. How could they be known through mystical powers [*] practice and experience? They may be dignified behavior beyond sound and form. How could they be anything other than criteria that precede knowing and seeing? [Nishijima]*[the word ‘or’ found here likely should be omitted]
In surveying the past, we find that transcendence of both mundane and sacred and dying while either sitting or standing have all depended entirely on the power of zazen. In addition, triggering awakening with a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and effecting realization with a whisk, a fist, a staff, or a shout-these cannot be understood by discriminative thinking; much less can they be known through the practice of supernatural power. They must represent conduct beyond seeing and hearing. Are they not a standard prior to knowledge and views? [SZTP]
Press on arrow for ‘play’
.
Read Previous Post