original faces?
posted by Mike Cross at 4:04 PM
Sunday, November 25, 2007
About Me
- Name: Mike Cross
- Location: Aylesbury, Bucks, United Kingdom
From 1982 to 1997 I worked on the translation of Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, and understood the primary importance in the Buddha's teaching of full lotus sitting. Until 1994 my attitude to this sitting practice could be summed up in the words: "Don't think. Just do it!" Then in 1994 I returned from Japan to England to train to be a teacher of the FM Alexander Technique, and experiences with Alexander work woke me up to the opposite standpoint of "Don't just do. Think it!" Far from smoothing my path, however, Alexander insights (or reactions to them) caused a lot of trouble between me and my aging teacher in Japan. Then in 2008, seeking clearer water further upstream, I found a new lease of life in the extant Sanskrit works of the 12th ancestor in Dogen's lineage -- the great Indian teacher Ashvaghosha.
Previous Posts
- Ma-Ma Mantra
- ANI SHUGYO NO KYAKUTO O MOCHIURU MONO NARAN YA?
- OYOSO TOSHO O HANAREZU
- TARE KA HOSSHIKI NO SHUDAN O SHINZEN?
- ZENTAI HARUKANI JINAI O IZU
- NANZO KUFU O TSUIYA SAN?
- SHUJO JIZAI: The Fundamental Vehicle Naturally Exists
- IKADEKA SHUSHO O KARAN?
- ENZU: All-Round Pervading
- DO MOTO: Enlightenment Originally
11 Comments:
Really lovely photos, Mike.
Thank you, Michael. The credit is due to my son's friend George, who helped us all to smile -- and not with too much self-consciousness, I hope. He even managed to catch this inveterate worrier in a rare unworried moment.
Mike,
Such wonderful smiles.
Thank you,
Jordan
Thank you, Jordan.
The conception, gestation, birth, and upbringing of our sons was totally tangled up with sitting-zen -- as in the story you related a few months ago about your daughter invading your sitting-zen.
Gen & Dan don't sit in lotus recently, but it is always there for them to come back to if they wish.
Thanks again.
All traces of grim determination vanish at once....
Thank you, MT, for this comment and for staying with my blogging experiment, through thick and thin, these past two years.
We have arrived at the place where the two versions of Fukan-zazengi, the original and the revised versions, temporarily diverge from each other.
It seems to be a good place to pause.
It might be a good place to stop, and rest.
It might be a good place to dig down deeper for the end-gaining idea at the root of grim determination, just in case there might remain a slight trace, unbeknowns to us, ... as I suspect there indeed just might.
This might be just the place to relinquish all views, blowing real Buddhism and the Alexander Technique out of our noses, pissing out the philosophy of action, and shitting out realism.
Nice!
Regards,
H.
Mike,
I like the 'piss' and 'shit' analogy (if you'll pardon the pun). Pissing and shitting builds up its own, natural and unavoidable 'will'.
This is from another blog, maybe it is slightly relevant:
"We could say that the great 'barrier' between our mind and the rest of the cosmos was our perceptions: we can't 'think' and 'will' the can of beans 'out there' to open, so it can't possibly be 'me'. But what if this was just an illusion created by our narrow perceptions of a much broader reality? Sure, we can't do a Yuri Geller trick and will the beans to spew forth with the power of our brilliant minds alone, but what does this prove? Can you will yourself to stop thinking or feeling? Can you will yourself to die from stopping breathing? Can you will your blood to flow in the opposite direction?"
Regards,
Harry.
Hello Harry,
Master Dogen exhorted us to sit away the 37 elements of bodhi. Sitting away the 37 elements of bodhi means, in other words, just to sit.
Similarly, to shit out realism means just to shit out shit. Only that. To piss out the philosophy of action simply means to piss out piss. Not an analogy of anything.
People will always tend to turn the simplest of teaching into something complicated, and to turn even the truest of teaching into its opposite.
For example:
Thy will be done
<<>>
My will be done.
Just sitting as a way of studying the self and of forgetting the self
<<>>
Pulling in the chin of others.
Coming back to this place, where I belong, and learning the backward step of turning light and shining, may also be a kind of turning something into its opposite.
Wonderful looking lads. It is a real joy to catch a glimpse of your original-computerized faces. To see you again.
I started the process of translating Fukanzazengi. Not That I am worthy of it, or able, It is just an impossible task. Cannot endgain here. Don't know how long it will take. Just do a bit everyday. Think about translating what you wrote in 2003 as well. Do you agree?
Take care
Thanks Pierre.
Your comment inspires me to make a start on what, for me, is even more of an impossible task.
Whatever you do I agree with. And whatever you do, it is always: Not that!
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