Edgar,
If you work as Dogen did, and as his current disciples work, then all's right
with the world.
To be enlightened by all things is to have no models, no itinerary, and no
fixed ideas. Everything has fallen away. There is experience, is all.
If you were proposing add-ons, Edgar, then of course you were deviant. If you
were not proposing add-ons, then perhaps we misunderstood your proposals to
add-on.
Anyway, no need to go on further about it, because we are discussing Zen, and
Zen practice.
And William brought up Kant, and Kant's "Thing in itself". Who knows what Kant
had in mind, I'll say, just to be expedient. I don't think it's what we're
talking about, and it could be at cross-purposes to the program of Zen
practice, which, as Dogen described, is about not- thinking, and non-thinking,
and other words to that effect, which is a real effect, made available through
devoted zazen, and then an openness to all things. It makes available a
transformation which has little or nothing to do with zazen, and is not a
training-effect, and which has everything to do with all things.
But, we go in steps. Although ...Dogen, in his short life, served up the whole
shebang, because he taught from the perspective of enlightenment, not from that
of delusion, instigated and perpetuated by attachment.
Dogen's way is pure and true, and that's why so many people cannot approach it
correctly, and usually get it wrong. A teacher of the proper temper is almost
always required to help any student in Dogen's way, or in any other approach to
Zen awakening through practice.
I assume we've all had teachers, or are going to have teachers.
Meanwhile, umpteen theories, miscues, and false-practices abound; Caution.
Strong practice!,
--Joe
> Edgar Owen <edgarowen@...> wrote:
>
> Joe and William,
>
> Dogen's "Being enlightened BY ALL THINGS" is exactly what I've been
> explaining here for years to the continued scoffs of Joe and Bill.
>
> Being enlightened by all things MEANS seeing the Buddha Nature in the world
> of forms. It accepts and embraces the world of forms. It doesn't try to
> escape from the world of forms as Bill and Joe claim we have to do...
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