An End, A Beginning
Friday is typically conceived as the end of the work week. The truth is, one’s work never ends. To be alive is to work. We make these conventional assumptions, arbitrary lines. They are illusory and evaporate under the pressure of reality. What we think is reality gets in the way of reality. So here I am at Starbucks, a few more minutes to write, then the next stop on my journey of this day.
I read a translation of Mountains and Waters Discourse delivered Zen Master Dogen in the year 1240 to the assembled monks at Kannondori Kosho Horin Monastery. Maybe I understood 1% of what I read. That smidgen was worth the effort. I intend to read the seven page text again, and again.
The lecture is about what it says: mountains and waters. Here are some lines that hooked my imagination.
6. Even if you have the highest understanding of mountains as all Buddha’s inconceivable qualities, the truth is not only this. These are conditioned views. This is not the understanding of the Buddha ancestors, but just looking through a bamboo tube at the corner of the sky.
7. You should understand the meaning of giving birth to a child. At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but that you also become a child. This is the actualization of giving birth in practice-realization. You should investigate this thoroughly.
