Shobogenzo Abstracts

5. JU-UNDO-SHIKI. Rules for the Hall of Heavy Cloud T
6. SOKU-SHIN-ZE-BUTSU. Mind Here and Now Is Buddha T
7. SENJO. Washing T
8. RAIHAI-TOKUZUI. Prostrating to Attainment of the Marrow T

5   Religious-like: fit for taming

Live well after choosing very useful outfit and routines. Decent temple routines can be largely useful by the long-term validity of their established "good choices" as to manners and ways.

Go for no botcher living

To spend time, money, and efforts on much botching seldom pays in the long run. (Cf. British proverb). Judge what is of value before you do it.

How to have good mutton is often attuned to a "what is solid first"

DECENT TEMPLE rules can be very useful by showing in a concrete way what is the relevant sincere attitudes involved, when it comes down to action.

We could also investigate the validity of this: "Sutton for good mutton, Cheam for juicy beef, Croydon for a pretty girl", and end up surprised. [See Dp]
      Likewise, in a community it is the concrete, regular activity tends to reveal what is at stake or prioritised, how often and what could be done with it - but there are few fixed rules - much is flexible, yet "the good or ill hap of a good or ill life, is the good or ill choice of a good or ill wife." It's often like that.

In the end you can snarl more for yourself - it seems sect members happen to need that

EAT TO LIVE and not live to eat. And in a community "the best smell is (supposed to be) bread, the best savour (excellent) salt, the best love that of (clean) children." [See Dp]

Gist

1. IT MAY not pay to spend much time on botching outfit.
2. GROUND RULES can be useful if their effects are significant in enhancing good and reducing stress and lack of thriving for nearly everyone.
3. "EAT TO LIVE and not live to eat savoury children" is an overlooked rule. It had better be read quite metaphorically.

6   Mind here and now must be of the Awakened Mind

MIND here and now gets skilled in order to cope and survive. It happens to be the mother-womb of any kind of doctrine and endeavour as we see it. To bring definite help to truthful beginners is great.

Mind here and now is the [matrix of] practice and fears, as the case may be

To be explained what often is right, is good help for a beginner

MIND HERE and now happens to be the mother-womb of any kind of elegant truth. Dogen explains that "mind here and now is the buddha." He also declares that "This time and place must always be absolute and right." Somehow.

If a lesson is relevant, it depends on what you mean by it also

"MIND here and now is Buddha," had better also be understood from the standpoint of "Mind your own business well to let it live." Buddha advocates proficiency in business and other kinds of skills for lay followers.

What eventually helps is to practice truths of morality and parts of the solvent life-style over and over with skill, to arrive at major benefits

A common teaching affirms that "now" and "here" is reality itself, more or less geared down too.

Gist

1. Mind here and now happens to be the mother-womb of any kind of Zen doctrine of old. Do remember we just transpose.
2. "Mind here and now in order to survive around here," is a definite help.
3. Buddhist tenets can now be told in a nutshell and somewhat explained, all aligned to Dogen's teachings.

7   Washing and avoiding Hurrah

GO FOR GREAT COGNTIVE development. An Enlightened One is valued only as he makes himself valuable. Some prefer to smear ashes over their bodies to avoid that plot.

Glittering beliefs in reality are cognitive, and not a few appear to be quite relative also.

Adhere to valuable practices and stauch common sense along the way

"A MAN is valued as he makes himself valuable." (British proverb).

"For every evil under the sun, there is a remedy or there is none" - try and find it. [Cf. Dp]

Naked is being fully human

We are all naked beneath our clothing. Somewhat similarly, you have an inner side (mind) and a body that function in unison as the body-mind unity. ◊

Ramakrishna was intitiated into high knowledge by Totapuri, a naked stroller in the 1800s. Ramakrishna called him Nangta, the naked man. It was quite a happening when the naken man initiated him. [Glo]

Stay firm and go deep if you can

Some mean is often the best. Buddhism offers the Middle Way or Middle Path between extremes. You can have too much of a good thing and much too much of a bad thing too. ◊

It may not help your mind at all if you wash yourself constantly, like a neurotic. "The crow isn't getting white no matter how much she bathes herself." If you feel very dirty inside, the fit remedy reaches the inner sides of you too, and goes deeply enough. TM can be recommended.

Gist

1. A MAN is valued as he makes himself valuable. Washing oneself is great help towards that - it is that sort of remedy or there is perhaps none -
2. GO FOR great cognitive development.
3. FIRM AND CLEAN, at best. Not nullifying the brain and mind with drugs or garbage teachings.

8   You can plunge along to attain the marrow

A good turn and very good story help to the degree they help us truthward, or help us consider truths they tell of, maybe maskedly, as the case may be.

DOGEN TEACHES: Prostrating oneself to attainment of the marrow means revering what "has got the truth", as he calls it. The value of a being must be decided according to that attainment. So he said Zen believers must revere a wild fox whole-heartedly if it has "got the truth".

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye," said the fox. [Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince]

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated in an endearing ▾conversation.

Truthfulness co-determines the value of a life

THE VALUE of a being must be decided according to whether or not it has got the truth or lives it by being sincere and fair to its inborn values or traits.

Find truths worth telling, and truths that may get rewarding in time too

Much artistic endeavour is not rewarding. ◊

Truthful living is no great mistake

Sound animals may be utterly truthful "in their marrow" to their inherent designs og living. The value of a being must be grasped in the heart first and foremost, but some acedmeic categories may be applied loosely in addition, along with fit comparisons.

Gist

1. THE VALUE of a good turn must be decided according to whether or not it has got the truth or lives.
2. Infamous or indecent activity is not talked well of in Buddhism.
3. Take care that you do not prostrate to something and someone when it demeans you.

Literature  

Compare: ▾The complete Zhobogenzo — ▾Chapter surveys.

Dog: Masunaga, Reiho, tr. A Primer of Soto Zen. A Translation of Dogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki. Honolulu: University Press, 1975.

Orh: Blyth, Reginald Horace: Oriental humour. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1963.

Prz: Chang, Garma C. The Practice of Zen. New York: Perennial/Harper, 1970.

Shz: Cleary, Thomas, tr.: Shobogenzo: Zen Essays by Dogen. University of Hawaii Press. Honolulu, 1986

Sth: Nearman, Hubert, tr. Shobogenzo: The Treasure House of the Eye of the True Teaching. Mount Shasta, CA: Shasta Abbey Press, 2007. On-line

Szd: Nishijima, Gudo Wafo and Cross, Chodo, trs.: Master Dogen's Shobogenzo. Book 1. Woking, Surrey (UK): Windbell, 1994.

Szi: Nishijima, Gudo Wafo and Cross, Chodo, trs.: Master Dogen's Shobogenzo. Book 2. London: Windbell Publications, 1996.

Szm: Nishijima, Gudo Wafo and Cross, Chodo, trs.: Master Dogen's Shobogenzo. Book 3. London: Windbell Publications, 1997.

Szp: Nishijima, Gudo Wafo and Cross, Chodo, trs.: Master Dogen's Shobogenzo. Book 4. London: Windbell Publications, 1999.

Tiy: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Zazd: Blyth, Reginald Horace. Zen and Zen Classics, Vol 1. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1960.

Zazi: Blyth, Reginald Horace. Zen and Zen Classics, Vol 2. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1964.

Zazm: Blyth, Reginald Horace. Zen and Zen Classics, Vol 3. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1970.

Zazp: Blyth, Reginald Horace. Zen and Zen Classics, Vol 4. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1966.

Zazr: Blyth, Reginald Horace. Zen and Zen Classics, Vol 5. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1966.

Zeb: Suzuki, Shunryu: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. New York: Weatherhill, 1971.

Zf: Reps, Paul: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, updated 1997

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