Nine Standards Rigg

Yesterday
in the evening
with blue sky
sunshine
AND strength.

Ah! The climb
The view
from the top –
on the way down
From the Nine Standards Rigg

Congratulating myself on this evening expedition a woman I know strode up towards me. I HAVE to run down she said not even breathless, So I will pass you. Bye! There is always the opportunity to compare oneself (unfavorably) with somebody else. But it’s not necessary to take up the opportunity!

That which is manifesting

right before one’s eyes (genjo)

is the absolute reality. (koan)
Genjo Koan is the first chapter of Great Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Scholars regard the Genjo Koan as foundational to Dogen’s religious understanding, with the rest of the Shobogenzo being a development of the teaching embedded in Genjo Koan.

Here are the opening four lines of Genjo Koan. But first a reminder from me.
Read.
Be still.
Be very still.
And watch your mind as you read.
And then let it go!
I’ll say no more.

When all things are just what they are [apart from discrimination], illusion and enlightenment exist, religious practice exists, birth exists, death exists, Buddhas exist, and ordinary beings exist. When the myriad things are without self, there is no delusion, no enlightenment, no Buddhas, no ordinary beings, no birth, no extinction. Since the Buddha Way from the beginning transcends fullness and deficiency, there is birth and extinction, delusion and enlightenment, beings and Buddhas. However, though this is the way it is, it is only this: flowers scatter in our longings, and weeds spring up in our loathing.

Francis H. Cook, Sounds of Valley Steams

I am no Dogen scholar. A book fell into my hands this morning and opened at Genjo Koan. I read it, I read it again. And then came back to it again this evening. All I can say is, This is profound. And simple.

Better get to bed now. Please don’t lose sleep over this!

Buried now the bench in the woods

and beside the path…
Even when the flower of meditation is overtaken by the weeds of busy summer living there is still a place to sit. Though it does become harder and harder to find!