A Virtuous Circle?
The Lotus Sutra teaches us that the Universe in which we are living, and our living in it, are good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end.
Experience shows, however, that our efforts to do good can never be successful. Why not? Because good is not something we do.
The good things in life take care of themselves. (Have you ever watched a woman grow and a child being born, for example?)
What is very easy for us to do is our bad habits. So the primary intention which Gautama Buddha recommended us to have is not the intention to practice good. The primary intention in Buddhism is rather the intention NOT TO DO what is so easy for us to do--our wrong unconscious habits.
So-called Zen teachers who recommend in regard to Zazen that we should "do it right," or who proclaim "proper posture required," fail to understand this most fundamental point in Buddhism. What they are teaching is not true Buddhism.
For people who profoundly believe in cause and effect, I would like to try again to express in English the fundamental teaching of Gautama Buddha, perhaps more accurately than it was expressed in our original translation of Shobogenzo chap. 10, like this:
Not to do bad habits,
To let all the good things happen,
Naturally causes this very intention to become clear;
This is the teaching of the buddhas.
.
.
Experience shows, however, that our efforts to do good can never be successful. Why not? Because good is not something we do.
The good things in life take care of themselves. (Have you ever watched a woman grow and a child being born, for example?)
What is very easy for us to do is our bad habits. So the primary intention which Gautama Buddha recommended us to have is not the intention to practice good. The primary intention in Buddhism is rather the intention NOT TO DO what is so easy for us to do--our wrong unconscious habits.
So-called Zen teachers who recommend in regard to Zazen that we should "do it right," or who proclaim "proper posture required," fail to understand this most fundamental point in Buddhism. What they are teaching is not true Buddhism.
For people who profoundly believe in cause and effect, I would like to try again to express in English the fundamental teaching of Gautama Buddha, perhaps more accurately than it was expressed in our original translation of Shobogenzo chap. 10, like this:
Not to do bad habits,
To let all the good things happen,
Naturally causes this very intention to become clear;
This is the teaching of the buddhas.
.
.
posted by Mike Cross at 12:50 PM
8 Comments:
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Mike, you wrote on Pierre's blog:
"During the second world war, when Gudo Nishijima was a young officer in China, what happened between Japan and her enemies was truly ugly. If Oxeye paid attention to the twirling flower of history, he might think that recent Anglo-Japanese disagreements were no big deal. Indeed, seeing the twirling flower, he might just smile."
Your taking the name of your Zen teacher and implying something by placing it next to your statement about the ugliness of what happened between China and Japan in war renders me speechless.
And I think I pay pay too much attention to the twirling flower of history. I hope to get the point some day where it all just makes me smile.
My impression is that the Buddha recommends a gas pedal as well as a brake. Right Intention and Right Effort work in two directions:
1) To cultivate wholesome acts, and
2) To abstain from unwholesome acts
Oxeye,
It's just the force of deluded habit. Someone punches me and my instinct is to punch them back, twice.
That's all it is. A Buddhist monk who fails to practice what he preaches.
You can't pay too much attention to the twirling flower. We all tend to jump to wrong conclusions,on the basis of too little attention to actual events. That has always been my way--jumping in where wise men fear to tread.
Addenda,
Yes, I basically agree with you.
The stillness of samadhi, as I understand it, is a kind of dynamic balance between inhibition and excitation.
But in the Buddha's original teaching it is always that way round: 1) dukha, inhibition, not to do; 2) marga, right direction, allowing the right thing to do itself.
You expressed it the wrong way round. But worse things have happened at sea.
Hello Snowlion's Tail,
What can I say? Welcome!
johndoe,
Nowadays you write fluently but years ago you had to learn the letters of the alphabet, one by one.
Similarly, before trying to hit the target in discussing Buddhist philosophy, one has to learn the ABC of Buddhism--which might be, for example, Attention, Balance, Coordination.
In what you write, I sense no hint of such application or discipline, but rather a kind of intellectual wildness. My advice to you is to find a practical teacher of some art or way that interests you, and devote yourself to that.
An ancient master said: "Flowers in space open up from the ground."
Thank you for your comment, muso. It looks to me like the words of someone who is trying to be right, not the true mumbling of earthworms. If you investigate the problem in more detail, you may find that real enlightenment has to do with finding the body to be wrong.
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