Shobogenzo Shoaku-Makusa 4: Learning 'Not-Doing'.

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Image of a red kite by Thomas Kraft: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en


Master Dogen's view is that if we don't do wrong then right is already happening. This is why he takes the practical position of emphasising 'do not commit wrongs'. Jumping ahead in the text a bit:


When it becomes the preaching of the supreme state of bodhi, and when we are changed by hearing it, we hope not to commit wrongs, we continue enacting not to commit wrongs, and wrongs go on not being committed; in this situation the power of practice is instantly realised.


Through sitting zazen, sitting 'dropping off body and mind', we can learn intuitively that many of our actions based on our thoughts and feelings are taking us a wrong direction, and that we needn't follow them. This is a key point to Buddhist ethics that distinguishes it from a theoretical or intellectual position: we have to practice and realise it directly in dropping off theories and positions.


A little later in the text:


At just this moment, the truth is known that wrong does not violate a person, and the truth is clarified that a person does not destroy wrong.


We can see directly in practice that even our worst, most potentially destructive thoughts and feelings can be allowed to just come and go, without harming ourselves or anyone else; nor is this potential source of wrong 'destroyed'... we don't seek to suppress or deny such thoughts and feelings.


When we devote our whole mind to practice, and when we devote the whole body to practice, there is eighty or ninety percent realization [of not committing wrongs] just before the moment, and there is the fact of not having committed just behind the brain.


When we're sitting zazen we are physically not committing wrongs in the real world of our actions and/or our refraining from actions.  Our actions are real and happen in the real world, as opposed our thoughts which only happen in our heads. Practicing zazen alligns our body-mind with this fact.

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