Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Two Significant Insights Verified by Normal Human Experience


Two Significant Insights Verified by Normal Human Experience

 

1.       You do not and cannot know anything beyond your knowledge (i.e. experience; epistemology).

 

While this is a simple truism, it warrants close attention; what you know as ‘you’ is delineated by your experience of ‘you.’ What you know as ‘other’ (than you) is delineated by your experience of ‘other.’ Thus, apart from your experience of ‘you’ and ‘other’ you do not and cannot know anything at all. For you, your knowledge is all that exists in the whole universe – that is, for you, your knowledge exists as the whole universe. This is true for every individual ‘you’ throughout the whole universe.

 

2.       Existence (i.e. being; ontology) is equivalent to knowledge (of self and other).

 

What exists (as both ‘you’ and ‘other’) is delineated by your knowledge. No ‘you’ or ‘other’ exists beyond your experience. This too is true for every individual ‘you’ throughout the whole universe. In sum, reality – the totality of the existence (ontology) of you and other – consists entirely of your knowledge (epistemology); knowledge – the totality of your experience (epistemology) of you and other – consists entirely of your existence. This is true for every individual ‘you’ throughout the whole universe.

 

“The body learning the truth” means learning the truth with the body, learning the truth with a mass of red flesh. The body derives from learning the truth, and what derives from learning the truth is, in every case, the body. “The whole universe in ten directions is just the real human body.” “Living-and-dying, going-and-coming, are the real human body.”
 
(Shinjitsu-nintai, the words of Master Chōsha Keishin. See Chapter Thirty-seven (Vol. II), Shinjin-gakudō; Chapter Forty-seven (Vol. III), Sangai-yuishin; Chapter Fifty (Vol. III), Shohō-jissō; Chapter Sixty-two (Vol. III), Hensan; and Chapter Ninety-one (Vol. IV), Yui-butsu-yo-butsu.)


 

“The human body” is the four elements and the five aggregates. Neither the great elements nor the smallest particles can be wholly realized by the common person, but they are mastered in experience by the saints. Further, we should clearly see the ten directions in a single particle. It is not that the ten directions comprise single particles. In some instances a monks’ hall and a Buddha hall are constructed in a single particle, and in some instances the whole universe is constructed in a monks’ hall and a Buddha hall. On this basis [the whole universe] is constructed; and construction, on this basis, is realized. Such a principle is that “the whole universe in ten directions is the real human body.” We should not follow the wrong view of naturalism. That which is beyond spatial measurement is not wide or narrow. “The whole universe in the ten directions” is the eighty-four thousand aggregates of Dharma preaching, it is the eighty-four thousand states of samādhi, and it is the eighty-four thousand dhāraṇīs. Because the eighty-four thousand aggregates of Dharma preaching are the turning of the wheel of Dharma, a place where the wheel of Dharma turns is all the world and is all of time. It is not a place without directions or boundaries: it is “the real human body.” You now and I now are people of “the real human body” that is “the whole universe in ten directions.” We learn the truth without overlooking such things. As we continue, moment by moment, to give up the body and receive the body—whether for three great asaṃkheyas of kalpas, for thirteen great asaṃkheyas of kalpas, or for countless great asaṃkheyas of kalpas—the momentary state of learning the truth is always to learn the truth in forward steps and backward steps. To do a prostration and to bow with joined hands are the moving and still forms of dignified behavior. In painting a picture of a withered tree, and in polishing a tile of dead ash, there is not the slightest interval. The passing days are short and pressed, but learning the truth is profound and eternal. The air of those who have given up their families and left family life may be bleak, but we are not to be confused with woodcutters. The livelihood is a struggle, but we are not the same as peasants. Do not compare us in terms of deludedness or of good and bad. Do not get stuck in the area of wrong and right or true and false. “Living-and-dying, going-and-coming, are the real human body”: These words “living-and-dying” describe the aimless wandering of the common person and at the same time that which was shed by the Great Saint. The effort to transcend the common and transcend the sacred is not simply to be described as “the real human body.” In this effort there are the two kinds and the seven kinds [of life-and-death]; at the same time every kind, when perfectly realized, is totally life-and-death—which, therefore, we need not fear. The reason [we need not fear life-and-death] is that even before we are through with life, we are already meeting death in the present. And even before we are through with death, we are already meeting life in the present. Life does not hinder death, and death does not hinder life. Neither life nor death is known to the common person. Life may be likened to a cedar tree and death to a man of iron. Cedar trees are restricted by cedar trees, but life is never restricted by death, for which reason it is the learning of the truth. Life is not the primary occurrence, and death is not the secondary one. Death does not oppose life, and life does not depend on death.

 

Zen Master Engo says:

 

Life is the manifestation of all functions,

Death is the manifestation of all functions.

They fill up the whole of space.

The naked mind is always moment by moment.

 

We should quietly consider and examine these words. Although Zen Master Engo has spoken like this, he still does not know that “life-and-death” is beyond “all functions.” When we learn going-and-coming in practice, there is life-and-death in going, there is life-and-death in coming, there is going-and-coming in life, and there is going-and-coming in death. “Going-and-coming,” with the whole universe in the ten directions as two wings or three wings, goes flying away and comes flying back, and with the whole universe in the ten directions as three feet or five feet, steps forward and steps backward. With life-and-death as its head and tail, “the real human body” that is the whole universe in ten directions can turn somersaults and turn around its brain. In turning somersaults and turning around its brain, it is as if the size of a penny, or like the inside of an atom. The flat, level, and even state is walls standing a thousand feet high. And the place where walls stand a thousand feet high is the flat, level, and even state. Thus the real features of the southern continent and the northern continent exist; examining their [real features], we learn the truth. The bones and marrow of non-thought and non–non-thought exist; resisting this [idea], we solely learn the truth.

Shobogenzo, Shinjin-gakudō, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

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