Genjokoan 14: One Thing at a Time.

 


When a human being is practicing and experiencing the Buddha’s truth in this state, to get one dharma is to penetrate one dharma, and to meet one act is to perform one act. In this state the place exists and the way is mastered, and therefore the area to be known is not conspicuous. The reason it is so is that this knowing and the perfect realization of the Buddha-Dharma appear together and are experienced together. Do not assume that what is attained will inevitably become self-conscious and be recognized by the intellect. The experience of the ultimate state is realized at once. At the same time, its mysterious existence is not necessarily a manifest realization. Realization is the state of ambiguity itself.


Master Dogen moves from the vast view of life as endless oceans and skies with birds and fishes to the direct experience of practicing the Way in life.

Even though our life is vast and diverse we experience it one unique situation, or one unique thing, at a time. We just meet real things and situations directly and squarely as they arise in our life. This is the mode of practice Master Dogen is indicating.

'The area to be known' therefore is not conspicuous, because it's not some principle or theory or belief that we can reduce things to, but is the ongoing real activity of our ever-changing lives.

We live in reality all the time, and our lives are reality manifesting all the time, but we don't always directly notice or realise the fact as we get caught up in the thoughts and narratives of 'self' in the mind. 'Dropping off body and mind' in zazen we can notice that direct experience is not something we 'get' intellectually. From the point of view of the intellect the action of zazen is therefore 'the state of ambiguity itself'.

We might have noticed that the mind isn't satisfied with grand new theories and great explanations for very long, and it can't provide us with deep satisfaction on that basis, so Buddhist practice is fundamentally different in nature to that. 

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