As you like Zen Center so much, you will easily be involved in a kind of self-centered idea. To think about only yourself is a self-centered idea, of course; but to think only about Zen Center is a kind of small mind. Zen Center is just a small speck of dust compared with the big buddha land. As Dogen Zenji says in his "Fukanzazenji": If your purpose in zazen misses the point just a little bit, then the separation will be as great as heaven and earth." Then our zazen will not make any sense. We should be able to give up Zen Center when it is not necessary.
Shunryu Suzuki, from Essential Zen, 1994, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider
Beneficial action is skillfully to benefit all classes of sentient beings, that is, to care about their distant and near future, and to help them by using skillful means. In ancient times, someone helped a caged tortoise; another took care of an injured sparrow. They did not expect a reward; they were moved to do so only for the sake of beneficial action.
Foolish people think that if they help others first, their own benefit will be lost; but this is not so. Beneficial action is an act of oneness, benefitting self and others together.
To greet petitioners, a lord of old three times stopped in the middle of his bath and arranged his hair, and three times left his dinner table. He did this solely with the intention of benefiting others. He did not mind instructing even subjects of other lords. Thus you should benefit friend and enemy equally. You should benefit self and others alike. If you have this mind, even beneficial action for the sake of grasses, trees, wind, and water is spontaneous and unremitting. This being so, make a wholehearted effort to help the ignorant.
Dogen, from Essential Zen, 1994, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider
zazen [Japanese]: literally, "sitting Zen": to be distinguished from meditation, which usually involves a visualization or putting into the mind of a concept, idea or other thought form. During true zazen the mind is one-pointed, stabilized and emptied of random, extraneous thoughts. Zazen is not limited to sitting but continues throughout every activity.
Definition of zazen from the glossary of Zen: Dawn in the West, 1979, written by Roshi Philp Kapleau
Submitted February 17, 2018 at 07:27PM by WanderingRonin77 http://ift.tt/2CrthuJ
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