The Study Of A Flip

We’ll be in sesshin this weekend, studying the flip, as Dogen says below (the above photo is a real groaner). Sesshin is a rare and wonderful opportunity to taste the deep settled mind, a treasure hidden in the open field of this oh-so-busy, going-in- circles world.

As I drove into work this morning through light snow, roads wet with thick slush, I listened to a talk by Katagiri Roshi about dharma transmission, “Plum Blossoms,” and wondered if the next generation will be patient and persistent enough to pass on this jewel.

What is the essence of what is passed on? That’s what we’ll be taking up this sesshin by dipping into a short passage from an old plum tree, bent and gnarled, we call Dogen. In Extensive Study (click here for the new-ish translation from the Soto Zen Text Project), he wrote:

The great way of the buddhas and ancestors is study and penetration of the ultimate limit; it is to “go without a string at your feet”; it is “clouds arose underfoot.” Nevertheless, though this is so, it is “a flower opens and the world arises”; it is “I always care for this.”

Therefore, “the sweet melon is sweet through to its stem”; “the bitter gourd is bitter to its root”; the sweet sweetness is sweet through to the stem.” This is how it has been studied.1

… The principle of extensive studying is the study of a flip; it is “don’t do even the noble truths”; it is “what stages are there?”3

I’m not going to comment on this now because I want the sesshin participants to have the opportunity to taste it freshly and to sit with it. I’ll come back to it after sesshin and share some thoughts here.

One thing I will share now is about studying the flip together in the company of Dogen’s words. But rather than blather on myself, here’s another couple voices.

Steve, of the practice period support team asked the others to fill in the blank, Whether you are a Buddhist or not or ever read this Japanese guy Dogen, he is really interesting to study because:

Dhyan wrote, Well, I have to say I am one who read the first passages in Dogen and FREAKED OUT! I had NO idea what he was talking about and my nicely, honed logical mind was extremely resistant. I wanted to give up. HOWEVER! Dosho encouraged me to just “swim in the water” for awhile and see what happened.

I was not required to “demonstrate understanding” and what I did come up with served nicely as a starting point for conversation, deepening practice, and insight. I got a lot from the insight of others. Additionally, I am probably a better person for not just moving straight into what Dosho calls “crabbiness with self and others” and learning to patiently work away at something that doesn’t immediately make sense to me.

This was not only an incredibly interesting process, but something that is going to positively change other areas of my life. Dhyan/Boulder, CO USA.

The Study of a Flip