Dogen and his question

[Still_Waters]

QUOTE 15 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

The relationship between word, Word and "flesh". Dogen has much to say.

It would interest me to hear more about that.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

It would interest me to hear more about that.

Obviously Dogen was a non-theist. I'm very much still engaged in seeking to understand his thought. Converting Christian contexts/themes into zen expressions, especially when seeking to truly understand the latter, is quite taxing! I'm just reading one commentary on Dogen's vast corpus of writings that makes the point that you have to understand first exactly what questions Dogen himself was asking, that Dōgen was himself was not asking questions based upon western philosophical categories, about Cartesian dualism (for instance) but was asking how Zen practices relate to enlightenment and whether one becomes a buddha through mind or body or both.

Thomas Merton, in one letter to D T Suzuki, wrote magnificently when converting zen expressions into the Christian understanding of grace. Merton was a great intellectual, a very capable writer. I struggle.

I've gained intimations that Dogen indeed addresses the points you ask about, the relationships involved, but I certainly haven't yet gained any clarity of thought to be able to say more at the moment.

In fact, I was about to post on another aspect of Dogen's own questions. I'll stick with that for now. Thank you for your interest.

[sky]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

but was asking how Zen practices relate to enlightenment and whether one becomes a buddha through mind or body or both

Does Dogen see the mind and body as two seperates unlike The Buddha ?

[sky]

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumined the other side is dark.
Dogen.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

(Edit:- I was posting this prior to seeing sky123's last two posts)

Dogen subscribed to the Mahayana teaching of "Original Enlightenment" and asked himself:- if such was so, why practice at all? (In a Christian context, if we are "chosen" and salvation is gift, given, not earned or attained, then what is there left to do? Sanctification?)

I think in the West spiritual practice has often become tangled up and confused with "self-development", a seeking of some form of personal enhancement. Dogen - according to my current commentary - would have viewed such as a "narcissistic distraction". Again, in the West we tend to reification, enlightenment being a final state of "being" that we "become", a once and for all moment.

Dogen, although having some sense of an unborn, uncreated, undying truth, nevertheless saw such truth as not static, as something that would allow one to sink into any kind of complacency. Such truth was for him a constant becoming, or as I think Thomas Merton would say, the radical freedom of God.

As a Buddhist, Dogen sought the Middle Way - never a fixed position between two extremes but rather a series of encounters, endlessly giving way to one another. "There is eternal truth in each, but it never manifests itself in a familiar way".

He spoke of the Circle of the Way. Each moment is complete in and of itself, we indeed must live "in the now", yet such does not preclude a forward momentum toward Buddha.

"Enlightenment" therefore brings activity, not rest. The aim of "practice" is not to gain something, but to serve the greater purpose, this being the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by sky123

Does Dogen see the mind and body as two seperates unlike The Buddha ?

As I understand him at the moment, mind and body are seen as "one".

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

"Enlightenment" therefore brings activity, not rest.

Very nice post to me. Lot's of little bits of wisdom and truth. That bit there reminds me of a guru who gave the example of standing in a swift moving river. If we don't stay awake and aware, the river moves us downstream. We have to stay awake and aware, and move against the current as God lies at the source of the river.

[sky]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

As I understand him at the moment, mind and body are seen as "one".

Yes I noticed in the Quote I posted

[sky]

Originally Posted by AbodhiSky

We have to stay awake and aware, and move against the current as God lies at the source of the river.

And where is the source of the river ?

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by sky123

And where is the source of the river ?

Source and river appear to be "one".