Dogen The Zen Master ~ 02

event type	discourse & meditation
date & time	26 Jul 1988 pm
location	Gautam the Buddha Auditorium, Pune
language	English
audio	Available, duration 1h 52min. Quality: good. Osho leading meditation from 1:35:57. Live music after the discourse.
online audio	free download from OshoWorld purchase from Osho.com
video	Available, duration 1h 51min. Quality: good.
online video	Edited excerpt: This Universe Is a Great University (8min 44sec, a part of comments on sutra) **
see also	timeline : Osho Timeline 1988 first edition : Dogen: The Zen Master (1989) other editions, translations and links
online text	find the PDF of this discourse
shorttitle	DOGEN02

notes

synopsis: Reader of the sutra: Ma Prem Maneesha. Questions are being read by Osho himself.
After discourse Osho leads No-Mind Meditation.

The sutra

Edited excerpt: 8min 44sec, a part of comments on sutra **

Dogen continues:

When we look back at the shore from our boat, we mistakenly feel as if the shore were moving. But when we look at our boat with care, we find that it is our boat that is actually moving. Similarly, when we see all things with the deluded idea that our body and mind are separate from each other, we mistakenly think innate mind and nature are eternal. But when we realize that our body and mind are inseparable, we see clearly that all things are not substantial.

Firewood, when burned, becomes ash; the ash never again reverts to being firewood. Still, we should not regard firewood as a before, and ash as an after. We must realize that firewood is in the position of firewood with or without before and after. Ash is in the position of ash with or without before and after.

We can no more come back to life after our death than firewood can become firewood again after having become ash. In Buddhism, therefore, it is said that life never becomes death; life is beyond the conception of life. It says that death does not become life; death is beyond that of death. Life and death are both only one stage of time, just like winter and spring.

Likewise, we must not think that winter becomes spring, or say that spring becomes summer.

Question 1

Our Beloved Master, what is our investment in repressing our memory of previous deaths?

Is it not true to say that if we could recall our deaths we might lose our fear of death and thus be able to live a fearless life?

(source:CD-ROM)