What is Buddha

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,

Awake, I make coffee, let the dogs out, and open my notebook. Below me, under the table, I hear chewing. I check. Good grief, Suki has just chewed up a toy plastic knife! There are pieces everywhere. I pull a tidbit from her mouth and pick up the rest. It is what we do.



Student Shoji paraphrased a teaching yesterday. He said, “when everything is One, what is there to talk about?” This is a very important question as it points us in the direction of our aim. It is kindred to Dogen Zenji’s question raised in the Bendowa, if we are already enlightened, then why practice?



In Zen, our chief question is function. This function is within a context. What am I to do always depends on a context of relationship within a context of buddhahood. How am I to manifest my True Nature knowing that every act is a manifestation of that nature.



First, we must forget we are buddhas. To act with that knowledge is to act with a conceptualization of buddhahood and such an act would, as a result, be inauthentic. Second, we must act without hesitation. Form and function are one, yet not without practice. Without practice, to act “without hesitation” is to act out of self.



All of this gets us to Dogen’s teaching in the Genjo koan,



“To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the myriad dharmas. To be enlightened by the myriad dharmas is to bring about the dropping away of body and mind of both oneself and others. The traces of enlightenment come to an end, and this traceless enlightenment is continued endlessly.”



Be well.