Wild Fox Zen
Here’s to the soft glow of an early spring here in Minnesota. Not much green yet but the snow is almost gone and many people here are preparing for floods.
I’ll be zipping off soon for the weekend to Boston, after the session here tomorrow night, to play with the Boundless Way Zen folks. So this’ll be my last post for several days.
Before I shift into packing mode, I want to address one of the passages from the Instructions for the Cook that has been rolling around for me. I’d like to give it a little spin in your direction:
“…Do not lose sight of either the one eye or the two eyes.”
Simple enough, eh? Click here for the full translation and scroll down to just before note 13 to see the context of the quote.
The translator inserts
“transcendent wisdom” to qualify “one eye” and “discriminating consciousness” to qualify two eyes. I agree with his interpretation.
It is central to the Zen tradition to open the wisdom eye of nonduality even once for a short period of time – or better, to realize that it’s always been open but we’ve been really busy looking off. Now that doesn’t mean you’re a spiritual failure if you don’t know for yourself what this is about. After all, we’re all in it together, success or failure.
The importance of the one eye no longer seems to be a popular view, at least in the American dharma scene, maybe because it isn’t easy and quick. How about over there in Europe? Anybody what to comment?
In terms of the one eye, this practice is to just throw ourselves into zazen and our lives and leave the way to the way. The way often doesn’t give us what we think we want when we want it. It isn’t about lusting after some thing.
And, by the way, if you do get a glimpse through the one eye, well, all hell might break loose in your life (also known as the fourth-sixth ox-herding pictures/stages), contrary to the wishful thinking that after breakthrough our complexion will finally clear up, everyone will loves us, dogs will no longer bark as we pass by, etc.
Anyway, and on the other hand, Dogen also encourages us not to forget the eye of discriminating consciousness.
No matter what Dogen said, discriminating consciousness often receives an unjust beating in Zen circles. “If you can think it, it isn’t it.” “Zen is beyond words and letters,” etc.
But where would we be without discriminating consciousness? Lobotomized zippy pinheads, completely dysfunctional. Ethics, compassion, and making a contribution to this world all require discriminating consciousness.
Imho, discriminating consciousness is our best friend, especially when we undertake a spiritual journey. In Zazenshin, the subject of the Saturday workshop, we’ll look at this more specifically in terms of how Dogen emphasizes the importance of thinking in sitting fixedly.
Further, if the buddhadharma is going to impact future generations, it will be through the deep thinking that comes from our practice and that we then bring into the blossoming global culture.
Discriminating consciousness. Don’t leave home without it.
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