Friday, January 7, 2011

The Counting Game

This week Robert very kindly gave me the gift of a book called 'The Undying Lamp of Zen - The Testament of Zen Master Torei'. I was excited about this, as I had not heard of the book, and couldn't really place Torei in zen history. Now of course it is invidious to read anyone alongside Dogen, but Torei, being a successor of Hakuin, has a Rinzai vigour that serves him well enough in this respect. I read a footnote near the beginning which explained: "The 'seven branches (or limbs) of enlightenment' are discernment, energy, joy, relief, relinquishment, stability, and mindfulness". My mind immediately went to about what I written on 'Thusness' earlier today, and I thought, well I got two out of seven.

Then you throw away the numbers and start again.
As I believe I said in the zendo on New Year's Day, showing up and being present is dropping away body and mind.

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