Dharma Inquiry Discussion

Please join us for a time to explore and discuss a reading from our Boundless Way Zen sutra book. Michael and Paul will facilitate reflection and discussion on the reading Fukanzazengi (Page 45 in the BoWZT Sutra Book).

Each of us will share our impressions and consider the perspectives of others with guidance. And we will all take refuge in Sangha as we speak and explore the Dharma together. The gathering is open to everyone (pre-registration is not required), with a suggested donation of $10 – $20, which can be given on our Temple donation page to support our ongoing engagement in the dharma.

Join the discussion using the Boundless Way Zen Worcester Temple link.

Fukanzazengi — “Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen”

by Dogen

The Way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice?

And yet, if there is a hair’s-breadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If a trace of disagreement arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the Way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entranceway, but you still are short of the vital Path of emancipation.

Consider the Buddha: although he was wise at birth, the traces of his six years of upright sitting can yet be seen. As for Bodhidharma, although he had received the mind-seal, his nine years of facing a wall is celebrated still. If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice?

Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest.

If you want to attain suchness, practice suchness immediately.

Put aside all involvements and suspend all affairs. Do not think “good” or “bad.” Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. How could that be limited to sitting or lying down? Think not-thinking. Not-thinking—what kind of thinking is that? Beyond-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

This zazen is not meditation practice; it is simply the Dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the koan realized; traps and snares can never reach it. If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. • For you must know that the true Dharma appears of itself, • so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside.

(Page 45 in the BoWZT Sutra Book)