August 27

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



Was awake last night after a few hours’ sleep. I finished a painting I am calling “Eden,” wrote a few quick email replies, and took down my copy of “Realizing the Genjo Koan” translation and commentary by Okamura-roshi. This text is very important as it addresses everyday life as an awakening and awakened person. I say both because we are actualizing both in each and every moment. As Okamura points out, “We are both universal and individual, and this universality and individuality are not two separate aspects of our being: each of them is absolute. One hand is 100% hand. Five fingers are 100% five fingers.”



I write about this fundamental aspect of Zen frequently. It is essential that we realize the truth of holding these two apparently contradictory views simultaneously. Because to not do so allows for sleepwalking on the one hand and quietism on the other hand.



If we are stuck in “five fingers” which is to say, individuality, we are in a dualism that allows for all manner of egoistic and narcissistic evil to arise. If we are stuck in “hand” then everything is one and nothing really matters as whatever is, is, and we should not attach to anything.



Living interdependence and deep interconnection means we live with five fingers knowing they are hand and live with hand knowing it is five fingers. Grasping one is at the expense of the other. In our Zen we practice to let go of all grasping.



Just because we do not grasp does not mean we do not engage. We engage without investment of self. My well-being is not dependent on the outcome of my practice or something I am working on. If I am practicing to end war and war continues, I do not stop practicing ending war. This is so because on a very deep level, as I practice to end war, war is ended, regardless of whether or not war continues. Just as our hand is a hand and simultaneously five individual fingers, so practice and realization are one and not one at the same time. Or to use Dogen’s phrase, “The depth is the same as the height.” We make the universe we reside in.



Be well.