rational zen

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There is an essay in this book, translated into English by the only contemporary human with the knowledge and the depth of understanding to touch the work of Eihei Dogen, wherein Zen Master Dogen says, "Stop doing and perform." This essay, let alone this line from it, has driven countless charlatan Zen teachers into the rafters with their inability to grasp the hem of its meaning. Even after long study, that essay turned my brain into knots, but I had been practicing reading masters without using the chattering of my left brain [see Jill Bolte Taylor behind the electric blue image in my sidebar] butting in, and so resolved to reread that puppy in a manner that would permit me to glimpse the sublime meaning there.

As I did so, I marked the corresponding Translator's Notes so I could flip back and forth between passages of Dogen and Cleary's helpful restatement, explanation, added background. I did this two or three times, and then I went back to reading the thing straight from Dogen. I think I've read that essay seven or eight times now... and it's time for me to do it again... when I can get back to my library from this latest adventure. I think it is one of the most trenchant bits of wisdom ever set down for posterity, no matter how difficult it is to understand, no matter how many miracles of karma had to converge to bring it into a form I could understand if I worked hard enough. I'm trying to think of anything else in my life that was worth that much work to fathom.

Most of what is written -- on the internet, in newspapers, in books, wherever -- is not worth the work to finish even a few lines [which is not to say that the thick-witted shouldn't keep at it for a hope of understanding the world], except of course for its entertainment value. The internet is a fabulous learning tool, and a boon for the profession of referencing... for users managing to cull the blather to get, often, to the straight dope, but it is also a kind of cosmic tent under which millions dart frantically through the tubes, pinging the planet in feverish tilts all the day and night... doing their little left brains to crisps, not performing, not manifesting even so much as an atom of positive intent... pure, stressful, entertainment. Is it worth it?

Could we learn to call it "entertainment" so as not to confuse ourselves about our obsessive doing being the actual performance of beneficial things? not to confuse others that it is the manifestation of our positive intent?

From the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha: "What do you call the world?"

When you call things what they fundamentally are not, you are trapped in a stuffy little coffin of delusion, even if you happen to be a world famous journalist who globe trots for pay. Unfortunately, this stultifying state of affairs is not then limited only to just that one erroneous namer of things, but also to everyone who subscribes to that nomenclature, and to everyone who is affected by that nomenclature. For instance: the citizens of Iraq, or, say, the homeless here, or the starving everywhere. You get my drift. It's moot that the naming of stuff is NEVER any part of the stuff named. That's for people who want to devote their lives to enlightening being. Let's just keep it on the terms suffering sentient beings can use.

You call setting out your opinion, or your reasoning for wanting what you want, for yourself or for the world, "action" and this world is as it is. You call an invasion of a country for oil the "Global War on Terror" and this world is as it is. Look around you. Do you begin to get the idea that not jailing the perps for the mere use of that term was a BIG mistake? Or did you have that idea right away and then spend the intervening years on the other side of the delusion coffin, calling your opinions about this "opposition"?