Frank asked, "If we cease using our minds to conceptualize, how will we be able to solve everyday problems?"

Louie Wing said, "Ceasing conceptualization is awakening to the pure and clear luminous nature of your own mind. When you truly awaken, conceptualization is not conceptualization. In the same way, delusion is not delusion, awakening is not awakening, fear is not fear, joy is not joy, and death is not death. In ceasing conceptualization, ceasing is not ceasing, and even not ceasing ceases."

From The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

by Ted Biringer

An Excerpt From The Commentary on Shobogenzo, Genjokoan, in The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing…

The Buddha’s truth includes and transcends the many and the one, and so there is life and death, there is delusion and enlightenment, there are ordinary beings and Buddhas.

The “the Buddha’s truth” (true nature) is not in reality divided into “the many” (the myriad dharmas) and “the one” but includes and transcends both. Since the Buddha-Dharma is all-inclusive, there is “life and death, there is delusion and enlightenment, there are ordinary beings and Buddhas.” There are people, animals, houses, stars, and all the other particular things.

The point Dogen makes in this short line, forms the topic of thousands of pages of Buddhist literature. It is also the subject of the most popular Mahayana Buddhist scripture, The Heart Sutra, which is the subject of the first commentary Dogen wrote for the Shobogenzo; Shobogenzo, Maka-Hannya-Haramitsu, probably his second or third writing after his return from China. Though commentaries on emptiness are myriad, the profound implications of this sublime doctrine are extremely subtle and difficult to penetrate. Dogen’s illumination on the topic of emptiness is extraordinarily clear.

Dogen’s expressions in the first three sections of Genjokoan are a succinct overview of the nature of the universe; first as perceived from the contrasting perspectives of the many and the one, then as transcending those perspectives. Transcending these opposing perspectives is sometimes referred to as the mutual interpenetrating and non-obstruction of the one and the many where each thing and event, and all things and events contain, and are contained by, each other. This is expressed in the Buddhist literature by the doctrines of form and emptiness, the particular and the absolute, the one and the many, and so on. This mutually inclusive aspect of the one and the many is often expressed in Zen in an intimate and direct manner; for instance, in the classic koan, Two Monks roll Up the Blinds:

Master Hogen Raised his hand and pointed to the blinds. Two monks went and rolled them up in the same way. Hogen said, “One gains, one loses.”

Upon resolution of this koan, you will intimately realize that master Hogen’s words, “One gains, one loses,” apply to each of the two monks. Indeed, his words apply to every thing and event in all of time and space.

Throughout his works, Dogen consistently affirms the vital position of verbal expression in the Buddha-Dharma, or the authentic teaching of Zen, and at the same time, clearly defines its limitations...

From The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

by Ted Biringer

From The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

by Ted Biringer