Seeking OR understanding

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Difficult to articulate exactly what I am asking/saying. Maybe this is not even the correct section of the forum.

Possibly the best place to start is with the Mahayana teaching of "Original Enlightenment". Which already suggests that "enlightenment" is more "realisation" than "attainment".

My experience, thinking back, was that I was "seeking", which suggests a search for something, a state of being, that we are yet to find/know. Now I find myself with Faith. Complete trust in Reality-as-is. Not really sure where the transition occurred. But I'm far happier now with the reality of the mind/heart seeking understanding of "faith" rather than any idea of "seeking" as such.

"Faith seeking understanding" is very much a Christian phrase, and many seem to be uncomfortable with the word "faith" in Buddhist circles, particularly here in the West. Yet "faith" figures much in the thought and writings of the 13th century zen master Dogen. Here in the West Dogen is often seen simply as the advocate of "zazen only". There is also a mood that I catch of hours spent on the zafu being some sort of determining factor of any possibility of genuine insight/understanding/attainment.

Here is "Dogen":-

That the self advances
And confirms ten thousand things
Is called delusion;
That the ten thousand things
Advance and confirm the self
Is called enlightenment.


I'll leave it there. As I said, I'm not really sure exactly what I am trying to articulate, apart from faith seeking understanding.

Any comments welcome.

[sky]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

My experience, thinking back, was that I was "seeking", which suggests a search for something, a stare of being, that we are yet to find/know. Now I find myself with Faith.

Any comments welcome.

Sounds like you found what you were seeking.... 'Faith'

Faith seeking understanding.


Faith in what?
Understanding what?


Faith is? Trust?
Trust that what?
I have faith I will wake up tomorrow, but that is just because I don't like to think about the alternative..



So is faith some innate quality in and of itself? It somehow implies a goal. Faith that something is true even though I have yet to experience it. Because after the experience faith transforms into knowing..


Just a few ponderings.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Eelco

Just a few ponderings.

Thanks, it's good to ponder rather than judge and assert.

If I were to articulate my own faith and give it substance, it is that Reality-as-is is infinite compassion, infinite wisdom, infinite potential. It therefore has content. Yet it is compatible with the Christian verse:- Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Or in Pure Land parlance:-

Whether heading for the Pure Land
Or heading for hell
All is in Amida's hands.
Namu-amida-butsu!

In that sense it has no content. Absolutely nothing is guaranteed in terms of desire.

Pondering, it is trust in the healing nature of Reality.

Also it has the call......to be that Reality towards others.

Just to add, in Pure Land faith (shinjin) is "salvation". Non-dual. It is not Salvation by faith.

I came across this today in "on the path" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Similarly with the ultimate level of right view: The judgment that eventually you have to abandon even the most skillful qualities of the mind goes against the grain when you’ve put so much effort into developing them, so the wisdom of this judgment, too, has to be taken on faith.
But in every case, the faith required is not a blind faith in unreasonable ideas. Instead, the reasonableness of the Buddha’s teachings is presented as one of the signs that it is worthy of faith, as is the fact that each person is invited to test the teachings in practice for him- or herself. But to test them, you have to trust that they are worth the time and effort needed to give them a fair try.

Seemed apt.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Eelco

Seemed apt.

Yes, it is. Thank you.

One of the Pali words that is used to describe the Dharma is ehipassiko, or "come and see (for oneself)

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

It is really surprising just how much "faith" in all its dimensions and depth is mentioned in Buddhist texts/scriptures/sutras. Dogen is a case in point. Here in the West Dogen is often spoken of in the context of "zazen only", founder of the Soto zen school. It seems, often, that the "only" is emphasised, by those who equate any possibility of "insight" with the number of hours each day clocked up on the zafu. One commentator of Dogen's thought suggested that Dogen might well have seen such preoccupation as simply "narcissistic grooming". i appreciate that this could all be seen as contentious but it is not intended to be.

Dogen sought not to create a new "school". He sought his own "time and place" (and found it) As we all must do. Unique. (And yet, there is a "universal" dimension)

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

Difficult to articulate exactly what I am asking/saying.

The title says it all really. But what the understanding is can't be expressed in words to anybody who does not already understand it.

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

Any comments welcome.

You seem quite besotted with Dogen. Did you train at Eihei-ji?

Do you know what "ten thousand things" mean? It is a classical Chinese phrase. Dogen is decidedly Japanese.

It all began in India. Then, it went to China. Onward to Japan. Now, to you in the west. What you are seeking could be a variant of what transpired in Sarnath.

Here's one view I read today by Ananda Moyi Ma from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

“My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Father, ‘I was the same’. As a little girl, ‘I was the same.’ I grew into womanhood, but still ‘I was the same.’ When the family in which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, ‘I was the same.’ “And, Father, in front of you now, ‘I am the same.’ Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, ‘I shall be the same"
Ananda Moyi Ma

We never change! Here's what does change though. What we identify with!

Ananda Moyi Ma does not refer to herself as “I” and she uses humble terms like this body” or “this little girl” or “your daughter.” Nor does she refer to anyone as her “disciple.”

A camera cannot take a picture of itself nor can we perceive ourselves. We are that which perceives. We can however be aware of our source and perceive that we are perceiving. We can perceive aspects of consciousness as well, awareness and understanding. Anything we perceive cannot be us by definition. The perceiver, us, is not the perceived.