Results of Awakening

In Genjo Koan, Dogen says, “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.” This is the core of Soto Zen Buddhism in a nutshell.

The main aim of Soto Zen, in my understanding, is to eliminate the sense of personal self in one’s daily life. Dogen’s “to carry yourself forward” is to experience life from the standpoint of personal self. From this standpoint, a person throws a mantle of self over everything, so to speak, and supposes himself or herself to be involved in or in control of everything. This is a fictional world. In reality, Dogen says, things “come forth and experience themselves.” Experience comes at you. You don’t influence or control it.

There are important implications for us if we awaken to the truth that we don’t influence or control experience. Ramana Maharshi, a great spiritual teacher from the Hindu tradition, says,

Since the supreme power of God makes all things move, why
should we, without submitting ourselves to it, constantly worry
ourselves with thoughts as to what should be done and how, and
what should not be done and how not? We know that the train
carries all loads, so after getting on it why should we carry our
small luggage on our head to our discomfort, instead of putting
it down in the train and feeling at ease? [1]

If we realize Dogen’s truth that experience comes at us, that we are not a mover of it, we can travel at ease and just watch things go by.  

Footnotes

1. The Spiritual Teaching of Ramana Mahaarshi, Boston and London, 1988, p. 9.