Genjokoan discussion

misecmisc1

Anybody interested in explaining Genjokoan's line - That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. - what does this line means? Please suggest. Thanks in advance.

Fosdick

I can explain nothing (alas), but I was just reading "Returning to Silence" by Dainin Katagiri-roshi, and he touches briefly on this area.

There are several paragraphs, but the one most closely relevant to your question is probably this one:

" Zen Buddhism sees or hears or understands the world and human life as action that is constantly going on. Dogen Zenji particularly mentions that, under all circumstances, we should understand the human world in terms of the flow process and not in terms of concepts. The world we usually see is something already conceptualized. But if the world is present as something other than our conceptualization, we are very confused, because there is nothing to depend on. People usually depend, consciously or unconsciously, on their conceptualizations of the world. The Buddha and the ancestors tried to present the world before conceptualization. It is a little difficult to understand. But it is important that we taste it and understand it."

zenff

For anyone interested here's the full text:

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan_Aitken.htm

zenff

I’m not going to try to improve Dogen’s explanation but I think the full statement is: “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.”

Two similar quotes:

• Someone (supposedly awakened) used the expression of the “centre of weight”. After awakening the psychological “centre of weight” is no longer settled in anything at all. That’s freedom.

• “The nature of all things is Liberation” (Vimalakirti)

Jeroen

The full quote does make more sense I feel. It seems to have something to do with the sense of 'I' which is supposed not to exist... The myriad things seem to do their business regardless

DairyLama

@zenff said: I’m not going to try to improve Dogen’s explanation but I think the full statement is: “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.”

Is this saying something similar to the Bahiya Sutta?

"When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.than.html

zenff

@SpinyNorman
Yes, I think it desrcibes the same realization.
But Dogen ads a warning:

Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

misecmisc1

so is zazen just about being in the present moment? please suggest. thanks in advance.

federica

BUDDHISM is about being in the Present Moment (among other things). That's what Mindfulness is.

Zazen is about developing Insight into the Nature of Existence.
Rinzai studies Koans.
Soto prefers an approach where the mind has no object at all, known as shikantaza

Read more here.

You're welcome.

zenff

@misecmisc1 said:
so is zazen just about being in the present moment? please suggest. thanks in advance.

You're not contributing to the "discussion" yourself an awful lot here.

federica

(Which is why, in the three threads @misecmisc1 has posted the above same question, I have posted the above same answer.)

DairyLama

@zenff said:
@SpinyNorman
Yes, I think it desrcibes the same realization.
But Dogen ads a warning:

Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

I get the bit about not grasping realisations, but what does the last line mean, "It's appearance is beyond your knowledge"?

namarupa

@misecmisc1 said:
Anybody interested in explaining Genjokoan's line - That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. - what does this line means? Please suggest. Thanks in advance.

My guess is:

That

Myriad - "As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death."

Things
Come forth - Walk the path (Eightfold Path)

Experience themselves - realization

Is awakening.

misecmisc1

@zenff said:
But Dogen ads a warning:
Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

So as per Dogen, realization seems to be an activity, which has no finish line. Even Buddha would not have said the statement that he is awake, because as per Dogen, this statement itself has delusion in it. If we take that out of compassion, Buddha taught his teachings, for which we are grateful to him, but still from the point of Dogen - how was Buddha able to teach and claim about his enlightenment, if Buddha would not have known through his knowing regarding his own realization. Moreover, Buddha got enlightened at one moment sitting under the Bodhi tree - correct? then how does this thing matches Dogen's idea of no definite single time instance on which a person can become realized, rather as per Dogen realization seems to be a process, which has no finish line.

federica

Dogen came after Buddha. I would suggest looking at the original, and classifying all that followed as an interpretation or variation, not an alternative.

Test everything and see the truth in it for yourself. Do not accept that everything 'written' after the Buddha's lifetime, is anywhere close to being correct, at face value.

lobster

@SpinyNorman said:
I get the bit about not grasping realisations, but what does the last line mean, "It's appearance is beyond your knowledge"?

Tee Hee!
When is 'it' never in appearance? To know it is to grasp it and think it known ...

Yes friends - we haz to Know without knowing! Iz plan.

If anybody asks - I was not here ...

DairyLama

Oi dunno.

Iz plan!!

namarupa

To know without knowing I believe is similar to believing that karma exists yet not knowing why or how it works. Maybe?

federica

Iz plan, Iz plan, Iz plan.... @lobster - this is your doing! You wait until I get a hold of you....!

@namarupa, that's actually quite a good way of describing my side of things.... that (karma) and rebirth....

zenff

@misecmisc1 said:

how was Buddha able to teach and claim about his enlightenment, if Buddha would not have known through his knowing regarding his own realization

No easy question, but I’ll give it a shot.

The six senses (in Buddhist thought) include the mind.
What the mind can sense is a mind-object; a thought or a feeling.
Understanding and bliss for example are sense-objects and belong to the category of “myriad things”.

The mistake about giving up moment-to-moment awakening for the idea of having reached a level of understanding (or a state of bliss) is that it puts you in this position that is described as delusion. “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion”.

When Buddha claims Enlightenment I suppose he states that he is not ever going to fall into that trap again. His “state” of enlightenment is not a concept he has reached or a feeling he experiences; it is beyond all that.

zenff

@SpinyNorman
When we “know” something we are there to know it. I suppose.
Moment-to-moment awakening is not an intellectual accomplishment.

misecmisc1

so if that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening, then how does a person knows whether he is awakened or not?

zenff

how does a person know whether he is awakened or not?

He doesn’t ask himself that question.
He's busy with moment-to-moment awakening.

I think another way of saying that is that he "practices for the sake of practice"

lobster

@misecmisc1 said:
so if that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening, then how does a person knows whether he is awakened or not?

Ah yes ... mmm ...
There be tests ...

One of my favourite is the 'Life of Brian' test also used for testing messiahs

Any further questions to the Enlightened Purelanders ...

misecmisc1

@zenff said:
He's busy with moment-to-moment awakening.

what does the above statement mean exactly? or any example/analogy to understand the above statement?

zenff

No.
The way I see it, we all have to find out for ourselves; every moment again.