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Master Bodhidharma said of Zen:

“A special transmission beyond Scriptures,

Not depending on words or letters … “

So is there nothing worth study? No place for books and learning? Why should we master an ancient philosophy and arcane teachings ‘just to be’ now?

Dogen says that Zazen is all that is required. Merely to cross the legs and straighten the back IS Enlightenment itself. Zazen is not about learning Zen, but about doing-non-doing Zen.

However, the person who ignores the learned words and perspectives of old teachers like Bodhidharma, Hui Neng and Dogen is likely traveling blind.

What is called sitting-Zen is not learning Zen meditation. It is just a peaceful and effortless gate to reality. It is practice-and-experience which perfectly realizes the Buddha’s enlightenment. The Universe is realized, untouched by restrictions or hindrances. To grasp this meaning is to be like a dragon that has found water, or like a tiger before a mountain stronghold. Remember, true reality is naturally manifesting itself before us, and gloom and distraction vanish at a stroke. [NISHIJIMA]

The zazen I speak of is not [learning] meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the koan realized; traps and snares can never reach it. If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. For you must know that the true dharma appears of itself, so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside. [SZTP]

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