Practice is Enlightenment
The Missouri Zen Center’s Spring Egg Hunt takes place this Sunday.
It’s a takeoff on the traditional Easter egg hunt. However, since we’re a
Buddhist organization, no particular overt belief in the Easter Bunny is
required. What’s that you say? An egg hunt doesn’t really sound all that
Buddhist? Well, to tell you the truth, it doesn’t sound all that Christian
either!
For those readers unfamiliar with
the modern Easter egg hunt, it generally involves putting candy or chocolate or
perhaps coins inside hollow plastic eggs which are then hidden around the
garden just as the Easter Bunny would have hidden them in days gone by.
Children seem to love it – the exception being those occasions when the older ones
find ten times more eggs than any of the hapless and uninitiated toddlers in
their midst.
About this time last year a few of
us were standing around after meditation and chatting about the upcoming event.
“What do you put inside the eggs?” somebody asked. “Well, we’re Buddhist,”
someone deadpanned, “so, of course, they’re empty!” Ba dum bump… No, no, no,
they’re not really empty; at least not on the level of mundane reality, anyway.
We Buddhists are generally not cruel people. There’ll be something inside, I’m
sure – perhaps some edamame, or a little wad of sea vegetable, or maybe even a
nugget of granola. Hey, I’m teasing!
We do tend to think of our
spiritual practice in terms of an Easter egg hunt sometimes, don’t we?
We search through the world’s greatest literature. We comb through the writings
of the wisest of teachers. We travel hither and yon to practice and pray and
ponder; refine, reflect, and retreat. Now, come on, be honest here… isn’t there
just a teensy part of us that half expects to stumble upon a little Easter egg somewhere
along the line that’ll crack wide open and overjoy us with – voila! – infinite
acceptance, absolute release…, choirs of heavenly angels, a life of unending
ease…, enlightenment, Truth, transcendence…, communion with the saints…, supreme
wisdom, perfection, nirvana…, oneness with all things…, grace, the face of God,
ecstatic union with godhead…, our True Self, heaven, on and on, ad infinitum.
When Buddhist’s speak of emptiness,
we are speaking of the ultimate nature of reality – reality beyond individual
existence, beyond the duality of self and other, beyond time and space (both of
which are predicated on the existence of “things”). But if this is the ultimate
nature of reality, then what are we to make of our usual way of thinking about
practice as some sort of gradual perfection of our “self” until such time as
enlightenment is “attained”. This way of thinking, of course, requires the
existence of selves that are at this time deluded but which will at some future
time become enlightened. Needless to say this is a very dualistic way of
thinking about practice, the self, and the world. It must have been just such a
predicament that prompted Dogen Zenji to conclude that practice IS
enlightenment. Hmmm…, perhaps we should savor that for a moment. Practice IS
enlightenment. Nothing is “attained”.
So, if reading this post has
prompted you to conclude that you’ve been on something of an Easter egg hunt –
good. But don’t necessarily stop what you’re doing. Simply devote yourself
wholeheartedly to your “search” (practice) without anticipating that you’ll
ever find that egg. Oh, and if you do happen to find an egg – don’t expect
anything but emptiness to be contained therein!
Let me close with three translations of a poem by
Dogen which, for me, beautifully conveys the nature of wholehearted practice. The first is from Tanahashi (1985, p. 214); the second is from Heine (1997, p. 117); and the third is from Yoshida (1999, p. 76). I'm also inspired to offer another take on this poem based upon these three versions and my own understanding of the essence of what Dogen is saying. I would be honored if it were to be considered worthy of being called a fourth translation. I'll call this version Practice:
Bowing
Formally
A
snowy heron
on
the snowfield
where
winter grass is unseen
hides
itself
in
its own figure.
Worship
A
white heron
Hiding
itself
In
the snowy field,
Where
even the winter grass
Cannot
be seen.
Prostration
No
winter-grass being seen
A
white heron in snowfield
Hides
itself in
Its
own form.
Practice
A white heron
On a snowy field
Loses itself within
The vastness of being.
References
Heine, S.
(1997). The Zen poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace
Tanahashi, K.
(1985). Moon in a dewdrop: Writings of Zen master Dogen. (Tanahashi, K. ed.) North Point Press; Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York.
Yoshida, R.
(1999). Limitless life, Dogen’s world: Translation of Shushogi, Goroku, Doei. The
Missouri Zen Center.
Image Credits
Red and Blue Easter Eggs by Pål Berge via:
Broken Egg by Nuttapong via:
Copyright
2012 by Maku Mark Frank
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