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{"id":973,"date":"2012-03-24T09:16:01","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T15:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?p=973"},"modified":"2012-03-24T09:16:01","modified_gmt":"2012-03-24T15:16:01","slug":"why-is-dogen-so-dang-difficult-or-how-first-thought-best-thought-is-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2012\/03\/why-is-dogen-so-dang-difficult-or-how-first-thought-best-thought-is-overrated.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Dogen So Dang Difficult? Or How “First Thought Best Thought” Is Overrated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>\u201cWhy does Dogen make it so hard to understand what he\u2019s saying?\u201d<\/p>\n

So asked (or exclaimed) a student in a recent study group. We\u2019d been working through Thirty-seven Conditions Contributing to Bodhisattva Practice, <\/em>a Dogen fascicle that Katagiri Roshi likened to a dharani (a powerful and evocative but incomprehensible series of sounds) and had just tackled this passage:<\/p>\n

[29] The root of samadhi is refraining from touching the eyebrows and brushing up the eyebrows. Thus, it is beyond obscuring cause and effect and beyond falling into cause and effect. From this root of samadhi, you enter the donkey\u2019s womb, the horse\u2019s womb.\u00a0 It is like a stone wrapped around a jade. Do not say the entire stone is a jade. It is also like the earth topped with a mountain. Do not say the entire earth is the mountain. Even so, you leap out and leap in from the top of the mountain.<\/em><\/p>\n

The sincerity of the questioner made the question fresh for me too. Why does Dogen express himself in way that is so difficult to understand?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had many thoughts about this over the years and today a new one \u2013 he wanted to make us think.<\/p>\n

Thinking is often identified as the enemy in Zen practice. Could it be, at least in Dogen Zen, that the whole point is thinking?<\/p>\n

Let me digress. I\u2019ve been reading Daniel Kahneman\u2019s Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em> about our fast, intuitive thinking and the more ponderous and energy-consumptive slow thinking. Here\u2019s a little puzzle that helps distinguish fast and slow thinking.<\/p>\n

A bat and ball cost $1.10.
\nThe bat costs one dollar more than the ball.
\nHow much does the ball cost?<\/p>\n

Kahneman comments, \u201cA number came to mind. The number, of course, is 10: 10 cents. The distinctive mark of this easy puzzle is that it evokes an answer that is intuitive, appealing, and wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t tell you the right answer. Figure it out and get a taste of slow thinking.<\/p>\n

Slow thinking isn\u2019t necessarily better than fast thinking \u2013 we need both and to paraphrase Dogen, we leap out and leap in <\/em>with both fast and slow thinking. And according again to Kahneman, \u201cAs cognitive scientists have emphasized in recent years, cognition is embodied<\/strong>; you think with your body, not only with your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The zazen form is, therefore, a form of thought. Dropping thinking in zazen deepens our lives through this profoundly reflective and delicious process.<\/p>\n

Working with the above Dogen passage, invites both slow and fast thinking as the bodymind coughs up associations and these are turned and played, fast and slow, yes, like entangling vines.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"