Basic Assumptions

First, sorry about the weird formatting here. I “upgraded” to the new blogger and am struggling with it.

We have a couple day sesshin here at Transforming Through Play, starting in a few hours and going through Sunday morning. We’ll focus on the next part of the of the Genjokoan work:

Investigate: Is water great or small and discerning the width or narrowness of the moon in the sky.

Sound like fun?

Along these lines, this morning I worked on first chapter of my upcoming book (due out in 2014 if I work really hard at it). I start with some basic assumptions:

The Buddha’s great discovery can be realized in this life.
The Buddha’s great discovery is an extraordinarily subtle point.
Zazen and Buddha’s enlightenment are in intimate relationship and such zazen is a necessary condition for its rediscovery.
Usually, a necessary condition for realized zazen practice is that it is undertaken with the intimate guidance of someone who had made this discovery.
Usually, a necessary condition to become a zazen person who without fail drops off body and mind is to do years of zazen – and yet zazen itself is probably insufficient.
Zazen done as a means to an end is not the most effective practice.
How we think about our practice and how we think in our practice powerfully influences its efficaciousness (i.e., right thinking) in realizing the subtle truth – and yet thinking itself is certainly insufficient (see all of the above).
Such thinking includes the renunciation of upside-down views, especially means – ends strategizing.
One way to refine our lives and the lives of the many beings – without moving a speck of dust or destroying a single form – is through wholehearted zazen and carefully studying the works of Zen teachers, in this case, Dogen.

However, all of this amounts to nothing unless and until we open our hearts to the suffering of ourselves and others and to the great possibility of this life, delighting in uncertainty, and singing with Tom Waits (but with your sweeter voice):

She said “How you gonna like ’em, over medium or scrambled?”
You say “Anyway’s the only way,” be careful not to gamble
On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here
It’s a tired bus station and an old pair of shoes
This ain’t nothing but an invitation to the blues….