As You Sit ... The Buddhas Sit

(BENDOWA XIII)

We’ll spend a few days with the words of this passage from Bendowa.

Here, Master Dogen presents his view that, as you sit Zazen, the stones, grass, trees and stars are sitting Zazen. All the Buddhas and Ancestors sit Zazen in that moment, all sitting Zazen through and as your sitting.

And what’s more, because a moment of Zazen is a moment of Enlightenment itself, Reality realized, a perfect action in that moment … thus, all the stones, grass, trees, stars, Buddhas and Ancestors and all of Reality is Enlightened, is Enlightenment, in that moment.

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When one displays the buddhamudra with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in this samadhi even fora short time, everything in the entire dharma world becomes buddha mudra, andall space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. Therefore, itenables buddha-tathagatas to increase the dharma joy of their own originalgrounds and renew the adornment of the way of awakening. Simultaneously, allliving beings of the dharma world in the ten directions and six realms becomeclear and pure in body and mind, realize great emancipation, and their ownoriginal face appears. At that time, all things together awaken to supremeenlightenment and utilize the buddha-body, immediately go beyond the culminationof awakening, and sit upright under the kingly bodhi tree. At the same time,they turn the incomparable, great dharma wheel and begin expressing ultimateand unfabricated profound prajna.

From: Talk on the Wholehearted Practice of the Way -Kosho Uchiyama (with Shohaku Okumura, Taigen Daniel Leighton)

(remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells;

a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)

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