Report 81 Enlightenment

"To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things." Master Dogen

So difficult to write 'about' enlightenment, except to say that the idea of light=good/dark=bad seems still apparent in this word which must point beyond dualistic thinking and either/or, subject/object. I appreciate the above quote as a picture of a kind of flip... as describing what is shown in the ox-herding pictures and elsewhere as inward search culiminating in release/freeing of outward phenomena as none-other-than.

Mind and phenomena as co-dependently arisen and therefore 'freed' together.

Rest.

When we discussed naturalness a year or so ago there was this sense of dualistic projects/projections multiplying and layering in complexity which cause a sense of obscured vision and seems to force 'work' to overcome... much outward maneuvering and striving for independence from a flow (perhaps of linear time) which seems to work 'against'. Independent self storing up and reifying conditions.

'Seeking' enlightenment actually seems to reify or confirm an illusion of separation and of heaven/hell, self/other.

I love this text and take any excuse to post it:

http://members.optushome.com.au/davidquinn000/Buddhist%20Writings/Song.htm

One part:

When you truly awaken,
You have no formal merit.
In the multiplicity of the relative world,
You cannot find such freedom.

Self-centered merit brings the joy of heaven itself,
But it is like shooting an arrow at the sky;
When the force is exhausted, it falls to the earth,
And then everything goes wrong.

Why should this be better
Than the true way of the absolute,
Directly penetrating the ground of Tathagata?
Just take hold of the source
And never mind the branches.

It is like a treasure-moon
Enclosed in a beautiful emerald.
Now I understand this Mani-jewel
And my gain is the gain of everyone endlessly.