The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [104]
If we do any of that, we’ve lost Wonderland again. If we start thinking, “I know what’s happening. I’m a Buddhist,” we’re grasping too tightly. The only way to hold on to the wonder of the moment is to let it go. We all feel we’re in our particular lives without having chosen them. To consciously choose our human existence is a profound and beautiful practice. To be in touch with the wonder, we have to truly be wherever we find ourselves. The place of wonder can never be different from the place we’re in.
The wonder of life is what we experience every day—washing our hands, breathing, taking a walk, working. There is no place to go other than here. Can we throw ourselves into that fully without understanding it? Do we have to know why we put on the seven-paneled robe?
When I was five or six and we were living in Danville, Illinois, my mother took me with her to visit a friend. She sat me down in a garden while she and her friend talked. I sat there for what seemed like an eternity looking around in wonder. I couldn’t believe the colors and shapes; I looked inside the flowers and the colors changed. I was enthralled. That experience is still there when I allow it. It’s there in the red rocks, in the sage, in my wife’s face. The practice of restoring wonder, restoring awe, is the practice of Zen.
The Way of Mountains and Rivers
John Daido Loori, Roshi
The death of John Daido Loori, Roshi, in 2009 was a great loss for American Buddhism. At his Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York, Daido Roshi and his students developed a program of authentic Zen training for the West, while also doing impressive work in prison chaplaincy, environmental advocacy, media, and the arts. This teaching is on the Mountains and Rivers Sutra by Dogen, founder of the Soto school of Zen and widely considered Zen’s most important but difficult philosopher. Yet Daido Roshi in his commentary makes Dogen accessible and relevant to our lives on the planet today. The text beneath the ornament is from the first three sections of the Mountains and Rivers Sutra; the verse that begins each commentary is by Daido Roshi.
1.
These mountains and rivers of the present are the manifestation of the Way of the ancient sages. Each abides in its own dharma state, exhaustively fulfilling its virtues. Because they exist before the eon of emptiness, they are living in the present. Because they are the self before the appearance of any differences, they are free and unhindered in their actualization. Because the virtues of the mountain are high and broad, the spiritual power to ride the clouds is always entered through the mountains, and the capacity to follow the wind is ultimately liberated from the mountains.
Master Dayang Shanggai, addressing the assembly, said, “The blue mountains are constantly walking. The stone woman gives birth to a child in the night.” The mountains lack none of their inherent virtues; therefore, they are constantly still and constantly walking. We should dedicate ourselves to a careful study of this virtue of walking. The walking of the mountains is no different than that of humans: do not doubt that the mountains walk simply because they may not appear to walk like humans.
These words of the ancient sage Dayang reveal the fundamental nature of walking. Therefore, we should thoroughly investigate his teaching on “constant walking.”
COMMENTARY
Where can we put this gigantic body?
When clouds gather on the mountain,
thunder fills the valley.
Throughout the history of civilization, cultures the world over have regarded mountains as sacred places.
Religious pilgrimages and spiritual quests often lead seekers deep into the mountains. The Hindus and Jains travel to Mount Girnar; the saddhus to Mount Kailash. Spanish monks hike up to the summit of Mount Montserrat; Greek Orthodox priests live on Mount Athos. The Buddha ascended Vulture Peak, Jesus gave his Sermon