Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Study Hall - Extensive Record

In addition to the photo assignment I mentioned yesterday, I did a similar job a couple of weeks ago for another friend for their website, and got paid handsomely for my time. Having long wished to add it to my collection, I went to the bookstore on Saturday and picked up Dogen's Extensive Record. This is something I intend to dip in and out of rather than read front to back, but here is a selection:
"Seeing Buddha, we make prostrations to Buddha; riding an ox, we search for the ox. Why is it like this? This is the reality of our practice. Where wisdom does not reach, totally avoid speaking. If you speak, horns grow on your head.
Dogen held up his whisk and said: Horns have even now grown on our heads, and we have been speaking. Already there are horns. Is this an ox or a horse; Gautama or Bodhidharma? Wind whistles through the branches; rain breaks up the clumps of earth. Toads croak and earthworms cry out. Simply see that peach blossoms open by the mountain huts. A thousand gates and ten thousand doors face the valley streams in spring.
Dogen put down his whisk and descended from the seat".

Moon rising last night
A misty autumnal morning


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