Buddhist<\/a> discourse, it seems to refer to a private mental experience like being aware or mindful. This doesn\u2019t capture the deeper dimensions of the original term or what\u2019s happening when I talk with my friend.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat does Dogen mean by \u201cpractice,\u201d for example, when he uses the term in the first line of the\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Genjokoan<\/span><\/span><\/i>?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nReflecting on this led me to look up the characters that Dogen uses \u2013\u00a0<\/span><\/span>shu<\/span><\/span><\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>gyo<\/span><\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Shu<\/span><\/span><\/i>\u00a0is to \u201cgovern oneself, conduct oneself well.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Gyo<\/span><\/span><\/i>\u00a0is a radical that refers to \u201cgoing\u201d or \u201caction.\u201d Together,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>shugyo<\/span><\/span><\/i>\u00a0is \u201ctraining, practice, discipline, ascetic practices, discipline.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nGyo<\/span><\/span><\/i>, however, is a very important little word for understanding and practicing Dogen Zen that I\u2019ll just offer just a lttle more about for now by going back to gyo<\/span>\u2018s original Chinese meaning. Here\u2019s\u00a0Peter D. Hershock\u2019s from\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch\u2019an Buddhism:<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\u201cOriginally,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>hsing<\/span><\/span><\/i>\u00a0(Japanese,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>gyo<\/span><\/span><\/i>) had the primary senses of walking or walkways and doing in the sense of working. Indeed, of the twenty or so most common terms incorporating the hsing<\/span> radical, fully half have the meaning of a road, marketplace, or thoroughfare. In a largely nonvehicular society, walking connects us, establishing and maintaining in the most concrete and daily fashion our ongoing interrelation. No path or thoroughfare proceeds from wilderness or desert to more of the same, but only from family to family, from village to village. Our roads and markets lining them are evidence of the divers manners in which we are continually being led together, the unique ways in which we benefit and share with and in one another\u2019s labor.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThere\u2019s much more in Hershock\u2019s contemplation on all this in his important book \u2013 click here for what\u2019s available in Google Books.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nGyo<\/span><\/span><\/i>, or practice, in its original sense, then had to do with moving and doing and connecting \u2013 with intimacy much more than with an isolated, private experience.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nClearly, then, we cannot practice alone.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a>40 degrees and snowing now in White Bear!