Bill!,
I know it's very late where you are, and we may hear again from you again in a
while as the Sun touches your shore in some hours. So, I'll say, in hopes of
continuing:
Maybe I don't do best, or my best, to call both "real".
Perhaps I can do better to call both "natural".
When we attach to a self, it's natural to suffer; when we are not attached,
it's natural to be free and for Wisdom and Compassion to arise in accord with
circumstances.
But now to put it in a way that Edgar may also appreciate, for example, and
probably others; some of the upshot of this may be what Edgar has been saying,
even if we don't happen to identify with or fully understand his methods as he
expresses them.
We have the "Relative", functioning within the "Absolute". I mean, there is
the moment-by-moment functioning of the relative within absolute existence.
This is what the Sutras call "Suchness", and it is the mutual inter-functioning
which is also called... "things as they are".
"Buji-Zen" is squelched and deflated by our noting that it's not enough for
things in the relative realm just to drift: they are then unguided by their
nature. And the absolute does not just sit as the absolute: it admits of all
of us, and functions as us, in us, through us.
Dogen ends a poem with two lines that express an understanding of this mutual
inter-operability or inter-functioning. He chooses natural entities to do the
acting... just as *I* am probably better to call both Absolute and Relative
"natural", rather than "real".
Maybe I'll correct myself. Here's Dogen:
Water is clear to the bottom;
fish swim like fish.
The sky is vast, penetrating the heavens;
birds fly like birds.
-------------------------------
There you have it; the Dogen.
Suchness -- things as they are. All natural.
Clarity and vastness, represent the Absolute; Fish swimming, birds flying, the
Relative.
That inter-participation is natural. So is each.
Are they real? We don't have to "go" there.
Suffering is a natural result of wanting it only one way.
(Good morning, Bill!, when you receive this. I'll go ahead and have my own
breakfast, now. I'm one coffee into it).
with Cheers,
--Joe
> "Bill!" <BillSmart@...> wrote:
>
> I 'see'; I empathize with you, but I do not agree.
>
> IMO to label something as 'real' that I know through experience is not just
> because it 'feels' real, or just because I 'think' that doing so is the
> compassionate thing is contraindicated in zen practice.
------------------------------------
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