Chapter 91 of Shobogenzo is called “Yui-Butsu-Yo-Butsu” or “Buddhas Alone, Together With Buddhas.” In this chapter Dogen explores what it means to fully realise the Buddha-Dharma. As the first line is “The Buddha-Dharma cannot be known by people,” (p.213) you can rest assured that any explanation is going to take a bit of unpacking…. One of the interesting themes in the chapter is “realization itself is nothing like we imagined” – you think you know but you don’t know. Dogen says that our thoughts about realization are not the same as realization itself – our thoughts are not reliable (or to quote a well-worn mantra I use many times a day at work; “thoughts are not facts, they’re just thoughts.”)
My dogs never look up. They seem to have no idea of there being an “up.” They chase birds and when the birds take off beyond a certain point, the dogs act as if the birds have simply disappeared. They look surprised and bewildered. What similar things go on within my own field of vision I wonder? What don’t I notice going on around me? I am easily surprised and bewildered.
Dogen argues that “realization is assisted solely by the force of realization itself.” (p.214) In other words it’s an autonomous “event”: kind of reminding me of Badiou in a way: “An Event happens when the excluded part appears on the social scene, suddenly and drastically. It ruptures the appearance of normality, and opens a space to rethink reality from the standpoint of its real basis in inconsistent multiplicity…An Event is something akin to a rip in the fabric of being, and/or of the social order. It is traumatic for the mainstream, and exhilaratingly transformative for participants.” However, Dogen also says “Delusion, remember is something that does not exist. Realization remember is something that does not exist.” (p.214) Delusion is. Realization is.
“I dream, I smile, I walk, I cry”– sings Benjamin Clementine. Dogen asks “what should we express to let the Dharma-body live and so as not sink into the sea of suffering?” Benjamin Clementine sings “It’s a wonderful life, it’s a wonderful life/Traversed in tears from the heavens/My heart is a mellow drum, a mellow drum in fact/Set alight by echoes of pain 24-7,24-7″ Dogen replies “The whole earth is our own Dharma-body…” Starhawk shares her earth based thealogy by getting answers about creating social change from the forest – the forest speaks directly and “the blue mountains are constantly walking“: “because everything is interdependent, there are no simple, single causes and effects. Every action creates not just an equal and opposite reaction, but a web of reverberating consequences. Everything we do affects the whole.” (The Earth Path p.33) Dogen quotes an eternal buddha: We manifest the body to save the living:
The whole earth is the real human (and non human) body
The whole earth is the gate of liberation
The whole earth is the one Eye of Vairocana
The whole earth is our own Dharma-body.
Mumia Abu-Jamal plunges into diabetic shock and nobody wants to diagnose what’s going on. No-one can get in to see him in prison, he can’t get out. He turns to the forest in his mind and asks “When a hundred thousand myriad circumstances converge all at once, what should I do?” The forest replies “Do not try to manage them.” Let what is coming come! In any event do not stir…even if we consider how to manage [circumstances], they are beyond being managed.” (p.217) The pressure is on, outside the prison walls Mumia’s supporters are enraged: “It is the body which is real.”
““Can you tell me why I’m being arrested?” Hamza Jeylani asks an officer in a video captured on his cell phone.
“Because I feel like arresting you,” the officer, who the American Civil Liberties Union identifies as Officer Rod Webber, replies in the short video.
This exchange happens after Webber calmly threatens Jeylani, who does not appear to be offering any resistance whatsoever. “Plain and simple,” Webber tells Jeylani, “if you fuck with me I’m going to break your legs before you even get a chance to run.”
According to the ACLU, Jeylani and four of his friends — all of whom are black teenagers — were pulled over after making a U-turn in a parking lot in South Minneapolis. The four young men had been playing basketball at a YMCA. Despite Officer Webber’s statement that Jeylani was arrested because the cop felt like arresting him, the police claim that they suspected the four youth of stealing the car they were driving.”
Zenju Earthlyn Manuel sits and faces the wall and Audre Lorde speaks:
In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid?
The wall replies: “If race, sexuality and gender are illusions or social constructs, then what is the tension and ultimate hatred that arises with regard to them?” (The Way of Tenderness – front sheet.) Embodied differences in the multiplicities of silence. “In unison with the whole earth and with all living beings. If it does not include all, it is never the action of buddha” (p.217) What brings you to the cushion? What brings you here? What brings you to this place. What are you carrying with you? What are we carrying together?
“Race, sexuality and gender are not merely labels or categories, but involve tangible lived experiences for each of us. We cannot experience life without a body, and we live our lives with the categorical names given to our bodies.” – The Way of Tenderness p.41
In the space between Zenju Earthlyn Manuel and the wall is all of the violence, rage, and pain and suffering (as well as the joy and love and beauty) her body has experienced and similar bodies are experiencing.
What is between you and the wall when you are alone, together with buddhas?
