shobogenzokandoのblog

This blog presents Kando Inoue roshi's activities, mainly his dharma talks of shobogenzo in English. Kando is the top advocate of shobogenzo by Zen Master Dogen.

2020年06月

Thirty seven items of Bodhi was advocated at Entuji in Krashiki city Okayama in 2016. Kando Inoue roshi has advocated Dogen’s Shobogenzo through his entire life in Japan.
Thirty-seven items of Bodhi are considered as the methods to get enlightened in Hinayana Buddhism. However, Master Dogen did not discriminate the two Buddhist schools, Mahayana and Hinayana. He explained that there existed only the Buddhism that the Buddha taught. Dogen Zenji advocates this Thirty-seven items of Bodhi to explain the true way of practice. What he preaches unfolds differently from that of Hinayana school. It is not the practice to improve ourselves by observing ourselves as object but it is the way to clarify our true nature provided originally by learning ourselves. 
Kando Inoue roshi succeeded Master Dogen’s teaching and makes us practice the basic of Zen; to observe birth and death rightly, pure-sitting. He preaches us that the practice is to be in the state here and now as it is, as the working of six organs without inserting our thoughts, the way thinking, and views. 
The Four abodes of mindfulness are the first of the Thirty-seven items of Bodhi. In his writings, Master Dogen speak from the perspective of enlightenment, and Master Kando also speaks from that perspective.That is "We are already the body and mind of our original Dharma nature, so we do not need to practice now to make ourselves splendid.”
Master Dogen says “the observation that the body is not pure” is the Buddha’s seeing the morning star. It is not we clean ourselves up because we are dirty. As the Buddha experienced, we should realize that we are in the state of enlightenment. 
What the Buddha realized is that the working of body and mind is carried on before we recognize it. When he saw the morning star, he realized the reality for the first time. There is the difference between the reality and what we perceive. That is why we need zazen practice as the Buddha did. We need zazen practice of non-thinking, the only way to get enlightened. 
Kando Roshi shows us how to be free from discretion. He insists that the practice is not just during zazen, but all the time you should be away from thoughts, no matter what we are doing.
Once we realized, we will know we are inborn nature just like the Buddha. Then there will be nothing that bothers us and we can live freely.
You can appreciate the depth and accuracy of Kando Roshi's knowledge of words and phrases.
I am truly grateful for Knado roshi’s kind guidance.
                                                   Shizuka Tatsuta
                                                     Shimanto-cho,
                                                     Kochi-ken
                                                     Japan
                                                     2021 Feb.




 “Shakyamuni Buddha says “All buddhas and bodhisattvas rest in this Dharma forever as it is a sacred womb (a sacred body of the buddha).” Go on living like this. Nothing is more comfortable than this. What’s more, it is a sacred womb. Can we call it the sacred body of the buddha? There might be a long word ‘Seitai choyo, a sacred womb and long rest.’ “So all buddhas and bodhisattvas have regarded these Four Abodes of Mindfulness as a sacred womb, a sacred body of buddha, you should know that they are the sacred womb of balanced realization. And the sacred womb of subtle realization.” There was a person who expressed the content of realization as the stage of fifty-two ranks such like balanced realization or subtle realization. Among such studying there are this sort of expression though, in a word, it means whichever condition you are in. Whoever he is, he is really in the state of his own and see though the thing of this sort like this. The first is the observation that the body is not pure, the second is the observation that feeling is suffering, the third is the observation that mind is without constancy, the fourth is the observation that Dharma is without self. This is the practice that the Buddha did. Therefore, in Buddhism, Dharma Seals is firstly expressed, namely, all things are impermanent, all dharmas are selflessness, Enlightenment leads serenity, which are Three Dharma Seals. That is how it is called as the truth of things.

 “It has already spoken of all buddhas and bodhisattvas, and so buddhas are not the subtle realization, also regard it as the sacred womb. Bodhisattvas who have sprung out being prior to balanced realization or beyond subtle realization also regard these Four Abodes of Mindfulness as a sacred womb.” Not only the realized people but also people on the way of practice go on practicing on this way. The way like this is said, “Truly, the skin, fresh, bones, and marrow of the buddhas and the patriarchs” which says that the fine realized people’s life is such in content. What are they doing? Although they live in the same way and live together, the place they are touching is different. There is big difference between just being there randomly or being able to receive the content correctly. If you don’t know things truly, you live the same life, it is entirely different. And the way of life comes to change completely. You don’t know what they are doing as it is the matter of the other, you might not know, but I can know well that there are many people around me whom I have known dozens of years. Such people have come to change. Their life has come to change utterly. If I say what they are doing, they don’t especially live differently than before. They do the same thing every day.

Therefore, firstly the four abodes of mindfulness, the four ways to touch things are. For the present I would like to finish here. Itemized like this and entitled, you are easy to study. (The end)




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