Dainin Katagari-roshi has an impact on American Zen worth revisiting in terms of three teachings on Each Moment is the Universe Being-Time, Returning to Silence, and You Have to Say Something, which exists in three books of the same name.
1. Being Time (Each Moment is the Universe)
Let’s start with his take on the absence of dualism which begins with the terms subject and object. In a relative sense dualism is useful and has benefits along with its shadow “range,” which is the sliding degrees between the dualities. In health the dualism is ease and disease. This prompts for example…”on a scale of 1-10 how much does it hurt?” Here you are being asked to judge you. This is a subjective assessment and relative to different peoples’ sense of pain Katagari’s teaching here is no longer a self watching pain rather there is the sense of “paining.” Similarly with empathy which is our feeling about ourselves when we sense the pain we think others must feel. Empathy suggests this sharing as coinciding. This is called settling the self on the self. The Experience of Less-Self – Bright Way Zen
From here the way of practice can now unfold. thezensite: Dogen’s Genjokoan
Genjokoan is also “being:” knowing, dropping-away and becoming:
Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it–doing one practice is practicing completely. Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma.
2. Returning to Silence
While Right Speech usually focuses on how we speak (refraining from lying, harshness, or gossip), Katagiri’s teaching focuses on the unavoidable responsibility of manifesting our lives. This is view-thinking-seeing-doing. Silence is absent from commentary or opinion (a teaching from Tesshin James Smith-sensei). In silence there is no expectation of sound being needed. Our being (time) is not anticipating the absence of silence–it is beyond the need for speech— bearing witness. This may be viewed as coinciding with the being-time of the universe being in motion. Returning to Silence | Tommy Tiernan on Zen Buddhism
3. You Have to Say Something
The “Great Question” of Zen: the fundamental mystery of life and death, or as Katagiri often put it, “Why are we here, and what are we doing? You Have To Say Something: Dainin Katagiri on What To Say When There Is Nothing To Say – The Dewdrop
In living we are inmo–thus, or “the hand we have.” We do within our capabilities; in light of conditions and variables of the moment. Our being-time is living and dying. Experience is registrations of our plying inmo. Saying (doing) something is motion to the stillness of the Great Question or our living as the great question. zensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Shobogenzo/028immo.pdf
Being is often thought of as time or stages of time in a life. Master Dogen again says time comes into being when we come into existence. We are time. When we leave being we leave time. Zen Buddhism is how to know, to be thus involved. This way of “Living the Great Matter” is non attachment. .https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/what-is-the-buddhist-idea-of-the-middle-way-3ce95c477ba8
I look forward to our Dharma discussion on Monday night.
Sangaku