« Let go of the body and mind. »
For more than 800 years, we have brought out this luminous injunction by Dogen Zenji,
Let’s sift it once again with the holes of light from my damaged plank of darkness.
Let’s realize that it is not really an imperative form.
It is closer to a hidden layer… The practice of shinjin datsuraku lifts the veil on the question of who is really leaving this body-mind.
Who is he ? And where does he return?
After sitting 20 years with this injunction,
Sit another 20 years with the question it contains.
So they say.
The practice of shinjin datsuraku hits the ground and fractures into a splintered question :
Who is the one we are leaving ?
©FJ April 2022
Recueils — Participations
Groupe De Pratique
Merci à tous…
Notes & Silence 
Whether it is an imperative is a grammatical issue. I know nothing of, possibly antiquated, Japanese grammar.
For the rest…
This side of the grave, I doubt there is a leaving, but, maybe, a gaining of consciousness of multiple parts.
I see this as an injunction to the percipient to perceive.
Tha rest is a tangled web of this life’s experiences and actions, all of which would be no different if sensed or done by an automaton.
But I have no sure insight.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
according to the smell bit of knowledge I’ve bee able to gather, It might as well be an infinitive form.
But again, this is not the level out of which it should be approach…though highly interesting, a linguistic outlook will always come short of unveiling the fruitful meaning.
An ‘injunction to perceive’…certainly. To further investigate
until everything strips off.
including our reflexes of identification to the body+ stream of thoughts.
this formulation though (injunction to perceive) may be received with reluctance by anyone versed in Buddhist environments, for perceptions are an important gearwheel along the production line of illusions.
Well.
An injunction to investigate…maybe
this adventurous aspect of spiritual practice is outrageously underrated.
This is what keeps me involved.
the wildest adventure one can ever have.
J’aimeJ’aime
(the most easily corrupted as well….this is why the underrating mentioned above is a good thing))
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Are not all illusions perceptions? Is not the issue to perceive with (the only term I can think of at the moment) dispassion? To recognise illusions for what they are?
How does one investigate without perceiving?
J’aimeJ’aime
Doesn’t it all boil down to investigate perceiving ?
There is much appeasement to be found in the unreliable nature of the perceiving process.
The question is who ?
who perceives the unreliable nature of perception ?
How many layers of perception do we have to investigate before reaching non-perception ?
(I’m thinking of a possibility to over interpret lines from BOb Marley here :
how many rivers to we have to cross,
before we can talk to the boss ?
(from « burning and lootin' », i think)
Crossing rivers of perception to face a divine nature ?
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I will concentrate on your final line, as that seems to sum up your thought process.
Look within. Look deeper. Pierce the darkness (which we all carry) Accept whatever you see as being that which is presented to you, but still look further to find a core of reality.
Quietly, without analysis, without words. Just look.
Maybe you will perceive reality.
Maybe you will become the percipient.
Maybe you will achieve unity with your own nature.
Maybe…
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
this is as wordless as a worded answer can get.
This is as worded as a wordless answer can be.
Eventually, this is what is has to come to.
Writings are the body of practice.
And bodies are to disappear for one eager to travel through.
Thank you Simon
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