Ishizuri Jakucho. 1770
Have decided to take the plunge. Jump in. No longer just an observer. I will practice. I will breathe zazen. I will contain all opposites and not look back. Will do Mu and find emptiness in all forms and form in all emptiness. Will do what is necessary to eliminate I.
The wheel. The great karmic wheel. How to get off it. Why wait? Why wait a thousand lifetimes? Why not now? Total immediacy, total naturalness, complete such-ness. Now. Within this one lifetime, which is all that there is, the nothing and the everything, the nowhere and the everywhere, the center and the circumference, I will get off the wheel. Why wait? Why postpone it? There is only now. There is only here, now.
It’s not just about one. It’s two and three as well. One and none. One and infinity. How to hold the concept of nothing and everything in the mind, chew on it, taste it, and smell it like steaks on the grill.
No striving. No contriving. No goals. No attachments or desires, I am falling. Into a beauty for one, for two. For me, the ocean speaks. Horses speak. A farm, a holler, a drink of pure spring. A trickle across the mouth, the tongue, on a hot, summer’s day.
Snow. Horses in the snow. I bow to them, because they do what they are and nothing else. A horse never strays. It can not stray. It can not go beyond its own path. Like a bird in the air, or a fish in the sea, it can only flow within the world as it is.
That is the such-ness. Investigate. Do not measure with our crude measuring devices. Do not label or categorize. Just know. Just know.
I don’t know a lot about Zen, except some of how it relates to Motorcycle maintenance (!) but I like the way you write about your journey, Doug. Thank you for sharing!