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In his “Lancet of Seated Meditation” (“Shobo genzo zazen shin”), Dogen quotes a conversation:<\/p>\nIn his “Lancet of Seated Meditation” (“Shobo genzo zazen shin”), Dogen quotes a conversation:<\/p>\n
Once, when the Great Master Hung-tao of Yueh shan was sitting in meditation , a monk asked him,<\/p>\n
What are you thinking, sitting there so fixedly?<\/p>\n
The master answered, “I’m thinking of not thinking.”<\/p>\n
The monk asked, “How do you think of not thinking?”<\/p>\n
The master answered, “Nonthinking.”<\/p>\n
Here’s a question that came up in an online discussion group:<\/p>\n
What is nonthinking? Is it something we do or is it something that happens when we cease to do? If it is something we do, does it require a touch of effort? Please assist me.<\/p>\n
My reply:<\/p>\n
In “Genjo Koan”, Dogen wrote: “When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.”<\/p>\n
To “find your way at this moment” is to feel all things without exception engage with “your place where you are”.1<\/sup>\u00a0The feeling of each thing without exception engaging in support of “the place where you are” is “nonthinking”.<\/p>\n In his commentary on Hung-tao’s conversation, Dogen wrote:<\/p>\n There is someone in nonthinking, and this someone maintains us.<\/p>\n I wrote previously:<\/p>\n Once I find centrifugal force at the location of my awareness, I can find the appropriate counter from everything that surrounds the place of awareness, even things outside the range of my senses.<\/p>\n Things beyond the range of the senses are present in the length of my inhalation or exhalation, at the place where I am, as I find my way in this moment. If I am open to things outside the range of the senses as I comprehend the long or short of my current inhalation or exhalation, the elements of Gautama’s way of living unfold for me.2<\/sup><\/p>\n Does nonthinking require effort? If so, I think it’s only the extension of the mind of compassion beyond what is sensed in all directions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1<\/sup> “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, Carl Bielefeldt, Document 3 “Lancet of Seated Meditation”, pg 188-189; In his “Lancet of Seated Meditation” (“Shobo genzo zazen shin”), Dogen quotes a conversation: Once, when the Great Master Hung-tao of Yueh shan was sitting in meditation , a monk asked him, What are you thinking, sitting there so fixedly? The master answered, “I’m thinking of not thinking.” The monk asked, “How do you think … <\/p>\n\n
\n2<\/sup> “Your place where you are”, also “Genjo Koan”;
\n3<\/sup> See\u00a0Old Habits<\/a>\u00a0for the sixteen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"