After meditation this morning at the small Zen center down the street, we talked about the Genjo Koan again and of course, read it aloud again in the odd soto zen way of reading – a rush of words. What stood out – this time, “Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.”
That is what I have been so hung up on for so long is the knowing – I’ve just been trying to figure it out, I mean what is it? Where is it? Is this it? And then along comes this meditation that leads me into buddhism then zen then soto zen and now I’m hearing you can’t know everything, and maybe this is it, maybe it isn’t, maybe that’s okay, and not.
“As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.
And all this time I took to heart what Jeff Bridges said, “The dude abides.” He does not, it turns out, because the dude is without an abiding self. Just like me. And you.
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