The Dog

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,

It is 4:30 AM. I just took Suki out and am settling in to write. The morning air is delicious. I would love to sit outside to compose this message, but I am afraid Suki would be a maniac with the rabbits and birds.



Suki lives in Buddha-nature. It is direct living, living that is in actualized contact with function viz a viz the world around her. For Suki it is automatic; for human beings it must be a choice. We choose to live deliberately or not. We choose to keep our eyes shut or open then. We choose to open our heart/mind or not.



Some may argue that eyes shut or open is duality. It is. Asleep or awake is duality? Yes. Dogen Zenji says the following in the Genjo-koan: “When all dharmas are the Buddha-dharma there are delusion and enlightenment… When the myriad dharmas are all without self, there is no delusion, no realization…” Yusatani comments, “”It’s the relative position that has the absolute position as its ground. In other words it’s the relative in the midst of the absolute.” Duality and non-duality are the same, just as we in the Mahayana tradition say nirvana and samsara are the same. A whole awake to itself cannot be divided: its every facet will be awake to its wholeness.



Our practice is to live seamlessly. Thoughts and feelings, mind and heart, do not respond to the environment; they are the environment. When we practice and our body/mind falls away, the shell that seems to separate us from the universe falls away. We are water in an ocean of water, aware we are water in the ocean of water. As we come to be a wave, are we not still water in water? Even so, waves are waves and have their function. So too, we. What is wave? What is water? What was our face before our father and mother were born?



This face is no face at all. Just walk the dog.



Be well.