EMBRACING NONDUALITY WITHOUT LOSING YOUR GRIP ON REALITY, The Original Frontier, Chapter 5: Thoughts

I have approached Elliston-roshi's new book as not just his student, but a disciple of Buddha. This is non-dualistic. Because this is so, I can tell a story of watching my teacher's sharing of the Dharma, in a way looking at our near twenty years together, in the form of a book.

This book-form is a jumping off place for those who are willing (The Original Frontier p.187) but keep in mind you don't jump just once. Now Hojo has us jumping seventeen-times in Chapter 5 alone! Here are the seventeen:

1. Form and Emptiness

2. Stillness and Motion

3. ALWAYS AND ONLY COEXISTING

4. Zen and Reality

5. Inner and Outer

6. Perception and Conception

7. Free Will and Karma

8. Karma and Action

9. Doing and Nondoing

10. Observer and Observed

11. Relative and Absolute

12. Mind and Environment

13. Urban and Rural

14. Sameness and Difference

15. Difference and Sameness

16. Beginning and Ending

17. Zazen and Meditation

In some way, having crossed the desert of sensory awareness in the previous chapter we now climbed a mountain of dependent origination and the vista is Right View. Barbara O Brien has explored this view and as we explore the couplets of duality while maintaining a grip on reality in this chapter, here are some further probing of Thich Nhat Hanh's "Interbeing." https://www.learnreligions.com/interbeing-3866931https://www.learnreligions.com/interbeing-3866931

All phenomena are interdependent. This is a basic Buddhist teaching called pratitya-samutpada, or Dependent Origination, and this teaching is found in all schools of Buddhism. As recorded in the Sutta-pitaka, the historical Buddha taught this doctrine on many different occasions.

Very basically, this doctrine teaches us that no phenomenon has independent existence. Whatever is, comes into existence because of factors and conditions created by other phenomena. When factors and conditions no longer support that existence, then that thing ceases to exist. The Buddha said,

When this is, that is. From the arising of this comes the arising of that. When this isn't, that isn't. From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

(From the Assutava Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 12.2, Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation.)

Tonight we will explore a pivotal chapter in The Original Frontier. It is the middle way arising from how we handle the inter/are of absolute and real. Please join us!

108 bows,

Sangaku