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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.”
…
“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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