Affirmating to uphold the Dharma

[Taurean]

Greetings.

Our world is burning with agony and we are unable to stop it. But are we really unable, or have we been convinced to stand against the truth?

As was quoted by the talented Zazen elsewhere on this forum:

" The truth is that the benefits of one's own sustained exertion are shared by all beings in the ten quarters of the world. Others may not be aware of this, and we may not realize it, but it is so. It is through sustained exertions of the Buddhas and Patriarchs that our own exertions are made possible, that we are able to reach the high road of Truth. In exactly the same way it is through our own exertions that the exertions of the Buddhas are made possible, that the Buddhas attain the high road of Truth. Thus it is through our exertions that these benefits circulate in circles to others, and it is due only to this that the Buddhas and Patriarchs come and go, affirming Buddhas and negating Buddhas, attaining the Buddhamind and achieving Buddhahood, ceaselessly and without end. This exertion too sustains the sun, the moon, and the stars; it sustains the earth and sky, body and mind, object and subject, the four elements, and five compounds. " [Dogen, Shobogenzo]


Let us affirm each moment when mind leaves mind and enters heart, the effort of this heart and to purge with it the mind of its dualistic thinking.


"As I would now explain it, diligently practicing the Way means letting all things be what they are in their Self-nature, as you put your essential oneness into operation by following the road away from discriminatory and dualistic thinking. When you have abandoned that type of thinking and have thus passed beyond its barriers, you will cease to be affected by its explanations, which, like the nodes in bamboo, block free passage, or by its theories, which are as convoluted as the knots in a piece of pine wood." [ibid]

In order that we can accept difference as the fabric of our existence.


I value myself, therefore I am.
I recognize other beings by their self-valuing
I encourage their attempts to do so to my benefit
I will fight their attempts to do so at my cost

This is how I set my values.


[Fixed Cross, "Self-Valuing Ethics"]

This is how we set up our values and how we allow others to set up theirs. This is how we uphold the dharma.

 

[Taurean]

A good explanation of the illness of reason, to which Dogen wishes to lead us with his path away from dualism, is given by the emerging thinker Ascolo Parodites here:

"Reason, fundamentally, disqualifies the affects, it disrupts the structure of the affects which qualifies them as drives, as passions, which gives them quality, be this quality pleasant or unpleasant. Spinoza accomplished the most systematic disqualification, reducing the affects to one basic quality, passion, and emotional state, namely joy, and considering all the “bad passions” merely corrupted qualifications of joy. He is an example of what I called the active consciousness. An imperfect example, but an example. Not to disqualify the affects through the hypothesis of a fundamental quality, (for Spinoza, joy, for Nietzsche, power) but by their complete reduction to quantities of consciousness…. (consciousness is only the metonymic structure which qualifies them, which endows them with quality by configuring them as single passions and drives, more consciousness equals more sharply defined affects.) Who has done that? I’ve elected it as one of my tasks. A truly active consciousness could arise only after this total reduction was accomplished.”