The Dragon's Song: A Zen Teaching Part 3

This is the third in a series of seven brief talks on Ryugin, "The Dragon's Song", written by Dogen Zenji, the 13th Century founder of the Soto Zen School of Buddhism in Japan. The talks explain the meanings of various traditional Zen metaphors and are meant to support zazen, Zen meditation practice. I recommend following each talk with a period of silent zazen.
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Transcript

Welcome to the third talk in this series on A. H. Dogen's Ryujin, The Dragon's Song. In the next section of his text, Dogen continues his critique of quietist practices and beliefs that we began to explore in the previous talk. And he writes, And I quote, They think that a withered tree is a dead tree, Which does not grow leaves in the spring. Dead ash, Like withered tree, Also means sitting in stillness, However, It is also associated with quietist practices. Dogen criticizes quietist practices that endeavor to eliminate thinking altogether. He contrasts such practices with shikantaza, Or just sitting meditation. By leaves in the spring, He means coming into a realization of whole being. That is, We blossom and open like spring flowers, And our innate wisdom and compassion shine forth in a total experience of the world. In other words, Being open to everything, Without grasping, Pushing away, Or judgment. It's very important to endeavor to bring this orientation to your practice. And I'll repeat, No gaining mind, No judgment, Just sitting with whatever arises and falls, Without grasping after anything, And without trying to push anything away. Everything has an equal measure. He then continues to differentiate his practice of shikantaza, Or just sitting, From quietist practices, By explaining that, And I quote, The withered tree, Spoken of by Buddha ancestors, Is the understanding of the ocean drying up. The ocean drying up is the withering tree. The tree withering encounters spring. In other words, The tree withering, That is just sitting, And encountering spring, That is realization, Are one. He's very insistent about this, As he says elsewhere in his writings, Which he describes as shusho ichinyo in Japanese, Which means, Practice and realization are one. That is to say, There is no realization without practice, And no practice without realization. Now there are several metaphors here that need our attention. Withered tree, Which we've spoken about before, Ocean drying up, And encountering spring. The ocean drying up is another metaphor, Like withered tree, For sitting in shikantaza, Which, While there is still water, Meaning that we still have thoughts, But they don't interfere. In other words, We recognize their existence very clearly, But we don't get caught by them. We don't get seduced by them, And we don't react to them, And we certainly don't drown in them. We make no attempt to get rid of them, Or to hold on to the more pleasant thoughts. We simply notice their rising and falling in and out of awareness, Just like water flowing. We just sit and notice, With complete ease and clarity. We might also ask, What is it that's drying up? Now that refers to the residue of old karma that dries up, Because when we sit, We burn it off, And with no gaining mind, And without trying to intervene, We don't create new karma. Dogen adds, The immovability of the tree is its witheredness. In other words, We just sit in the stillness and dynamic energy of being. He refers to the mountain trees, The ocean trees, And sky trees, Which he says right now are all withered trees. When you sit, Can you be the mountain, Sitting stone still? Can you sit like the ocean, Sitting in the depths of the true reality of being? Can you sit in the vastness of sky, In the unconditioned, Infinite, The unbounded, In the vastness of infinite becoming? Or as Dogen notes in Zanmai O Zanmai, The King of Samadhis, And I quote, Just in the moment of sitting, What is the sitting itself? Is it a somersault? Is it a state of vigorous activity? Is it thinking? Is it beyond thinking? Is it doing something? Is it not doing anything? Is it sitting inside of sitting? Is it sitting inside of the body-mind? Is it sitting that is free of the inside of sitting? And so on. There should be investigation of thousands and tens of thousands of points like these. So sit in the Zazen posture with the body. Sit in the Zazen posture with the mind. Sit in Zazen, He concludes, Being free of body and mind. The point here that he is stressing is that we endeavor to sit in the ever-present stillness that is already our inherent being, Without attachment, Aversion, Or judgment, With the ongoing and continuous movements of whatever flows in and out of awareness. Please just keep sitting, No matter what. Thank you.

Reviews

Thank you again Seiso. There is so much to try and understand here. I'll be listening again. In the meantime, I'll be just sitting. 🙏

This is feeling so positive! I can imagine repeating these lessons over and over until I have really absorbed them. Many thanks