Rohatsu Sesshin

Ah well. Here we go again with the Buddhist retreat thing. Yah. This time a "silent retreat" -- right -- meant as a celebration/commemoration of the Buddha's Enlightenment. A week of meditation and consideration focused on Dogen's text of Mountains and Waters Sutra translated by Kaz Tanahashi.

Mountains and Rivers... Meditating yesterday with a rotten old text, wonders of the world as it is or was back in the '30s when the text was written ostensibly for young people, explaining the world and history while admitting vast ignorance about just about everything. Mountains and Rivers were brought into the picture with the acknowledgement that the mountains which seem so rooted and permanent -- because our lives are so short -- are worn away by the waters until in time they disappear as if they never were, and then are reborn by forces deep within the Earth that force and twist and uplift the very living rock into new mountains that are then worn away by the waters. Over and over in an endless repeating cycle.

And that is the theme of this Rohatsu sesshin.

Dogen says mountains walk, and they do.

The realization is a step toward Enlightenment. This realization is Enlightenment. But in Dogen-speak there is neither Enlightenment nor non-Enlightenment. The Koan of the Ox Through the Latticed Window, no?

And yet our ancestors knew for a fact that mountains walk and you could say they run, given the right perspective and time scale. Our perception is too limited to witness it in its entirety, but it happens just the same.

Now I could go on and on about the limits of perception compared to the vastness of reality, but now is not the time for that. Been down this road before, however. Trodding it one more time.