The Autumn Wind - Revisited

 The need to use terms/words (as I see it) involves the Two Truths, conventional and absolute. I've read a few expositions of the Two Truths doctrine but my mind/heart still seeks clarification. Much remains a jumble.

Looking at Buddhism very broadly, Theravada is the conventional truth, Mahayana speaks from the viewpoint of enlightenment (absolute truth) while Ch'an (zen) seeks to relate the two in existential life/reality.

I feel fortunate that I began very much with Theravada, this before entering the murky waters of Mahayana, waters that can turn the brain to mush in an instance!

Anyone interested, here is the Theravada Elder Nyanaponika Thera (born Sigmund Feniger in Germany) who was once a great guide for me. He is speaking of the transcending of Opposites:-

One should, however, know well and constantly bear in mind that the relinquishing of both sides, the transcending of the opposites, is the final goal — a goal which comes at the end of a long journey. Because this journey unavoidably leads through the ups and downs of samsara, the traveler will repeatedly encounter the play of opposites, within which he will have to make his choices and select his values. He must never attempt to soar above the realm of opposites while ill-equipped with feeble wings or else his fate, like that of Icarus, will be a crash landing. For a time, to the best of his knowledge and strength, he must firmly choose the side of the "higher" against the "lower," following what is beneficial from the standpoint of the Dhamma and avoiding what is harmful. But he should regard his choices and values as a raft, not clinging to them for their own sake, always ready to leave them behind to embark on the next phase of the journey. While still on the mundane plane, he must never forget or belittle the presence within himself of the "lower," the dark side of his nature, and he must learn to deal with this wisely, with caution as well as firmness

To cross the ocean of life and reach "the other shore" safely, skill is needed in navigating its currents and cross-currents. In adapting oneself to those inner and outer currents, however, one must always be watchful. The currents can be powerful at times and one must know when it is necessary to resist them. Sometimes right effort has to be applied to avoid or overcome what is evil and to produce and preserve what is good. At other times it is wise to restrain excessive and impatient zeal and revert to a receptive attitude, allowing the processes of inner growth to mature at their own rate. By wisely directed adaptation we can learn to give full weight to both sides of every situation — to the duality in our own nature and in the objective circumstances we face. Only by confronting and understanding the two sides within one's own experience can one master and finally transcend them.

These are wise words. At least, I think so. The Dharma is a raft "for crossing over not for grasping" and yet if we cease to "grasp" too soon we will find ourselves in mid-ocean, sinking. Nice to think of "living in the now" but it is easy, out of pride, to fool ourselves.

That said, I do think that the heart of the Dharma can be found in Zen , among all its apparent nonsensical quips, koans and suchlike.

One koan especially stays with me, maybe a life koan, one that shimmers and changes its meanings as you grow (or dissolve!) along with it.....

A clearly enlightened person falls into the well. How is this so?

Now, this relates in my mind/heart with the words of Dogen in his Genjokoan:-

Therefore flowers fall even though we love them; weeds grow even though we dislike them.

Salvation/enlightenment is not to be "above" suffering. It is to remain "just as we are", with all others, and yet, in some strange way, to find this "beyond" suffering.

Returning to words and expressions, and the need for them, at the moment I still turn to Dogen. His thought is complex, expressed often in poetic language - and commentators often seem to come to differing conclusions of what he actually meant.

Boxing around this, words that simply point, that are not "the thing itself" and all that sort of thing, Wittgenstein insisted that:- 'An expression has meaning only in the stream of life.'

Extract the words from their context and all is lost. The treacherous sea of language.

Language is no longer linked to the knowing of things, but to human freedom.

(Michel Foucault, "The Order of Things")

(I love this name dropping, I hope others are suitably impressed.......)

Well, I had better finish, my coffee is beginning to get cold. On Buddhist Forums you will not go far without finding the expression "Don't mistake the finger that points for the moon itself". Dogen saw this as pure duality. There is the finger, and there is the moon - the mind is in two places at once. Here is Kim-Jin Kim commenting Dogen's thought, an extract from his book "Eihei Dogen:Mystical Realist":-

Words and letters, however socially constructed, are never mere signs in the abstract, theoretical sense, but alive and active "in the flesh and blood." Contrary to the conventional view that language is no more than a means of communication, it is profoundly internal to an individual's life. Language flows individually and collectively through the existential bloodstream, so much so that it is breath, blood and soul of human existence. Herein lies the essence of Dogen's radical phenomenalism. Thus knowledge becomes acesis, instead of gnosis or logos - "seeing things as they are" now means "making things as they are." In this light the indexical analogy of "the finger that points at the moon" is highly misleading, if not altogether wrong, because it draws on a savifically inefficacious conception of language.

Just a little bit deep and over my head at times, but I begin to get the drift of it.

Wherever we are I think we must try to be real and true to ourselves, not get ahead of ourselves. Way back I would read Krishnamurti and he would often say "When seen it is over." The analogy I thought of was of a red hot-plate. The red is seen, therefore you do not touch. You know it will burn. You need no instruction, no moral code. You live truth, not think it.

"When I speak well of myself and ill of another the autumn wind chills my lips" (Buson)

Living in the autumn wind there can be a spontaneity in our lives, that can issue in grace and mercy, not of ourselves, but of Reality-as-is.