Dogen, a Zen Master

Beyond Thinking: A Guide to Zen Meditation By Dogen:

Question: Why do you regard zazen alone as the front gate?

Answer: The great master Shakyamuni correctly transmitted this splendid method of attaining the way and all buddha tathagatas of the past, future, and present attain the way by practicing zazen. For this reason it has been transmitted as the front gate. Furthermore, all ancestors in India and China attained the way by practicing zazen. Thus, I now teach this front gate to human beings and devas.

Question: We understand that you have studied the path of the buddha ancestors and correctly transmit the tathagatas' excellent method. This is beyond the reach of ordinary thought. However, reading sutras* or chanting buddha's name must be a cause of enlightenment. How can zazen, just sitting uselessly doing nothing, be depended upon for attaining enlightenment?

Answer: If you think that the samadhi of all buddhas, their unsurpassable great method, is just sitting uselessly doing nothing, you malign the Great Vehicle. Such misunderstanding is like saying there is no water when you are in the middle of the ocean. Just now, all buddhas sit serenely at ease in receptive samadhi. Is this not the actualization of vast merit? What a pity that your eye is not yet open, that your mind is still intoxicated!

The realm of all buddhas is inconceivable. It cannot be reached by intellect--much less can those who have no trust or lack wisdom know it. Only those who have the great capacity of genuine trust can enter this realm. Those who have no trust are unable to accept it, however much they hear it. Even at the assembly on Vulture Peak, there were those who were told by Shakyamuni Buddha, "You may leave if you wish."

When genuine trust arises, practice and study with a teacher. If it does not, wait for a while. It is regrettable if you have not received the beneficience of the buddha-dharma.

Also, what do you understand of the merit attained by reading sutras, chanting buddha's name, and so on? It is futile to think that just moving the tongue and making a sound is meritorious Buddhist activity. If you regard these as the buddha-dharma, it will be further and further away.

Actually, the meaning of studying sutras is that if you understand and follow the rules of practice for sudden or gradual realization taught by the buddha, you will unmistakably attain enlightenment. In studying sutras you should not expend thoughts in the vain hope that they will be helpful for attaining realization.

To attempt to reach the buddha way by chanting buddha's name thousands of times is like foolishly trying to go south while heading north or to fit a square peg into a round hole. To be consumed with words and letters while ignorant of the way of practice is like a physician forgetting how to prescribe medicine - what use can it be? People who chant all the time are just like frogs croaking day and night in spring fields; their effort will be of no use whatsoever. Even worse off are those deluded by fame and gain who cannot give up such practices, because their acquisitiveness is so deep. Such people existed in the past; are there not even more today? What a pity, indeed!

Just understand that when a master who has attained the way with a clear mind correctly transmits to a student who has merged with realization, then the inconceivable dharma of the Seven Original Buddhas,* in its essence, is actualized and maintained. This cannot be known by those who study words. Therefore, set aside your doubt, practice zazen under a correct teacher, and actualize buddha's receptive samadhi.

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Now, I came from Zen master nutbunker Aleister Crowley's teachings, so Samadhi is Saturn which means Death, (Saturn is assigned to Binah in Qabalah, Binah is Understanding, and also assigned to Binah is the goddess Nuit which is a heavenly body of infinite space and the stars thereof; where every man and every woman is a star, like stars in the buddha field (which is a buddhist idea of the bliss body existing amongst bodhisattvas who move on earth as buddha), and of course is the Space Element), and so on and so forth.

Crowley says practice samadhi daily, writing "die daily", as Bankei writes "Die -- then live, day and night within the world".

Dogen:

Just understand that when a master who has attained the way with a clear mind correctly transmits to a student who has merged with realization, then the inconceivable dharma of the Seven Original Buddhas,* in its essence, is actualized and maintained. This cannot be known by those who study words.

Crowley:

Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury :

Which is master of the three ?

Salt is Lady of the Sea ;

Lord of Air is Mercury.

Now by God’s grace here is salt

Fixed beneath the violet vault.

Now by God’s love purge it through

With our right Hermetic dew.

Now by God wherein we trust

Be our sophic salt combust.

Then at last the Eye shall see

Three in One and One in Three,

Sulphur, Salt and Mercury,

Crowned by Heavenly Alchemy !

To the One who sent the Seven

Glory in the Highest Heaven !

To the Seven who are the Ten

Glory on the Earth, Amen!

(The 10 is all 10 sephiroths, heaven and earth brought to birth, balanced in the Sun. The Moon is the "foundation" in Qabalah (and is 9) and is the imagination. The Sun is understanding beauty and sorrow, and realizing it is to speak truth and take rightful actions for the mind has "the sword", and in Thelema women too have the sword, as in Zen, non-duality is non-duality, understanding is understanding.

In Qabalah Da'ath (Knowledge) resides on the abyss, which is the division between duality and non-duality, and to attain non-duality one must realize that all words are false.

Crowley:

One is the Magus: twain His forces: four His weapons. These are the Seven Spirits of Unrighteousness; seven vultures of evil. Thus is the art and craft of the Magus but glamour. How shall He destroy Himself?

Yet the Magus hath power upon the Mother both directly and through Love. And the Magus is Love, and bindeth together That and This in His Conjuration.

(The mother is Binah - in Qabalah there are Four; Mother, Father, Son, Daughter. The mother Binah is represented symbolically by the blue arched woman, the heavenly body filled with stars represented by the goddess Nuit represents Binah, and the daughter is Malkuth, which is the physical world of the four elements. Nuit represents the ocean of cosmic space, and in the lesser-form of the waters of space is the waters of the blood. The division is the abyss.

In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption.

By His Wisdom made He the Worlds; the Word that is God is none other than He.

How then shall He end His speech with Silence? For He is Speech.

He is the First and the Last. How shall He cease to number Himself?

By a Magus is this writing made known through the mind of a Magister. The one uttereth clearly, and the other understandeth; yet the Word is falsehood, and the Understanding darkness. And this saying is Of All Truth.

Nevertheless it is written; for there be times of darkness, and this as a lamp therein.

The magus is mercury (which is the spirit which is non-dual).

Initiation means to "journey inwards".

Now the grade of a Magister teacheth the Mystery of Sorrow, and the grade of a Magus the Mystery of Change, and the grade of Ipsissimus the Mystery of Selflessness, which is called also the Mystery of Pan.

(Pan means "all". Crowley wrote "He rejoices in the rugged and the barren no less than in the smooth and the fertile. All things equally exalt him. He represents the finding of ecstasy in every phenomenon, however naturally repugnant; he transcends all limitations; he is Pan; he is All.”)

Let the Magus then contemplate each in turn, raising it to the ultimate power of Infinity. Wherein Sorrow is Joy, and Change is Stability, and Selflessness is Self. For the interplay of the parts hath no action upon the whole. And this contemplation shall be performed not by simple meditation —how much less then by reason!— but by the method which shall have been given unto Him in His initiation to the Grade.

“Initiation means the Journey Inwards: nothing is changed or can be changed; but all is trulier understood with every step.” - Aleister Crowley

Following which method, it shall be easy for Him to combine that trinity from its elements, and further to combine Sat-Chit-Ananda, and Light, Love, Life, three by three into nine that are one, in which meditation success shall be That which was first adumbrated to Him in the grade of Practicus (which reflecteth Mercury into the lowest world) in Liber XXVII, “Here is Nothing under its three Forms.”

The Trinity are the Three Vajras, True Speech, True Thought, True Action.

And this is the Opening of the Grade of Ipsissimus, and by the Buddhists it is called the trance Nerodha-Samapatti.

And then one moves towards the "grade" of Ipsissimus who is always in receptive samadhi. This is being in "knowledge and conversation" with the unborn, which is the genius, and is called an angel as the concept was taken from the Fravashi of Zoroastrianism.

Fravashi (fravaši, /frəˈvɑːʃi/) is the Avestan language term for the Zoroastrian concept of a personal spirit of an individual, whether dead, living, and yet-unborn. The fravashi of an individual sends out the urvan (often translated as 'soul') into the material world to fight the battle of good versus evil. On the morning of the fourth day after death, the urvan is imagined to return to its fravashi, where its experiences in the material world are collected to assist the next generation in their fight between good and evil.

The soul are the 6 in the Universal Hexagram as often mentioned in Zen, the 7th is Saturn which is Samadhi. (In Qabalah this is represented as a Wheel which in the center is Tipharet, the Sun). The wheel is known as the Ruach, which is a Hebrew word meaning spirit and breath, but represents the "quality of spirit" (based on "how the wheel is turning", if there's equalibrium or not; strength (Mars) balanced by mercy (Jupiter), etc. etc.)

The moon has to reflect the light from the sun, the moon is the "foundation" (9) and is the imagination.

"Knowledge and conversation" is connecting the heart Tipharet to Binah Understanding, and the path that does this is "the lovers" which is also called "the brothers", and the path connecting Tipharet to Hod (Mercury the physical planet, not the spirit meaning which is the Magus, the path connecting Binah (Understanding) to the Godhead Kether (The Crown)) is The Devil.

Da'ath (Knowledge) resides on the abyss, and is a false crown. We need to develop the connection to the unborn mind and nurture the connection to "intuitive heart-mind".

In Magick Without Tears, Crowley tells of the danger of those who will cut themselves off from the Supernal Triangle (non-dual emptiness; the three bodies), and crown themselves in Daath (Knowledge), the False Crown (which is a reinforcement of their ego). He writes that one should not restrict themselves from experience, in otherwords stay within receptive samadhi, the sin is restriction, and love is the law. He writes, “Every accretion must modify me. I want it to do so. I want to assimilate it absolutely. I want to make it a permanent feature of my Temple. I am not afraid of losing myself to it, if only because it also is modified by myself in the act of union. I am not afraid of its being the “wrong” thing, because every experience is a “play of Nuit,” and the worst that can happen is a temporary loss of balance, which is instantly adjusted, as soon as it is noticed, by recalling and putting into action the formula of contradiction.”

The Book of the Law (Dharma) says "Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor anything. Money fear not, nor laughter of the folk folly, nor any other power in heaven or upon the earth or under the earth. Nu is your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the strength, force, vigour, of your arms."

Nu means Nuit which is Space and physical matter, Hadit is the Solar Consciousness.

Etc. Etc.

Nutbunkers huh! Can't beat em', might as well join em'!

Submitted July 27, 2017 at 11:47PM by Dillon123 http://ift.tt/2vbusPG