This Dream of You: Seeking the Original Self Genjokoan Post

I remember a passage in one of the Carlos Castenada books where Carlos was going to save a turtle by moving her off the road. Don Juan wouldn’t let him interfere with the turtle’s life. That passage came to mind recently while riding my bike around Bald Eagle when I saw a kind man trying to help a turtle. I stopped and talked with the man. He said he was sure that the turtle wanted to get back to the side of the road he had come from.

“How do you know?” I asked, thinking that if the turtle was crossing the road, how did the guy know she didn’t want to do that.

“She wants to go back there,” repeated the man.

Move the turtle or let the turtle cross the road and maybe get run over. And which way does the turtle want to go? What to do?

Like this passage from Genjokoan.

When a person first seeks after the dharma, the person becomes far from the boundary of the dharma. When the dharma is correctly transmitted to the self, the person is immediately the original person.

Now there is a lot of nonseeking pablum chewed up in modern Zen circles and all that comes of it is constipation and passivity – no enlightenment.

Above we have old man Dogen recognizing seeking and the estrangement that comes from it. But without seeking, how can that be right? Anyway, every body’s looking for something so stop BS’en. Sweet dreams are made of this.

If you gotta seek, seek for dharma, seek for what’s really true. In so doing, you gotta become alienated and isolated. That’s the way. Turning toward and turning away both wrong. Confused. Damn. What to do?

Sit down. Shut up. Tolerance for the inconceivable. Be turned by the dharma when the dharma is good and ready to turn and it won’t be by your timetable, buddy.

It’s like being home and asking, “Is this my home?” And then investigating. “Resting in curiosity,” as one person said here in the study group. Being willing to sit in the corner where you cannot move an inch. The terminal abode that is simultaneously the start of the journey. Katagiri liked to talk about that.

“There’s a moment when all old things become new again
But that moment might have come and gone
All I have and all I know is this dream of you which keeps me living on.”

Here’s Bokusan:

…We should be aware of the tendency for beginners to say, “It’s not good to seek for dharma, so I will not pursue it.” Don’t make this mistake…. It is not possible to perfectly fit with dharma at the beginning of our practice. So not seeking for the dharma is out of the question. You must endeavor with urgency, even sacrificing filial piety for your own mother. By doing so, you come to understand that nonattainment is the true face of the dharma.