We Zen practitioners use the words “wake up” as if we
actually understand what waking up is. One can even buy coffee cups and tee
shirts with the words, “Wake Up!”
The historical Buddha said, “When one person [italics added] opens up reality and returns to the source,
all space in the ten directions disappears.” Pre-Mahayana literature describes
this as an act of awakening that happens to a practitioner after rigorous
practice over many lifetimes. [I won’t discuss here the confusing paradox that
there is no-self to wake up!]
With the Lotus Sutra,
and its emphasis by Dogen, awakening is a liberative function of all time and
space. Thousands of bodhisattvas emerge
from the earth, and the Buddha has an inconceivably long life span. Quoting from Dan Leighton’s wonderful book, Visions of Awakening Space and Time, “But
Dogen’s own version of this utterance [the words of the Buddha] expresses a
deeper appreciation for the vitality of the spatial environment and for the
actual spiritual potency and capacity of the world to manifest awakening.” [I
like to visualize Kogen in the fields of Green Gulch Farm!]
Important to note, I think, is that Mr. Leighton does not
say here the capacity for one person to wake up. And this gets to my question:
can one person wake up? According to the
Soto Zen view, as I understand it, there is no final state of enlightenment, as
in one moment you are deluded, and then you wake up and are enlightened. “Practice
enlightenment,” as described by Dogen, is ongoing, continuous practice. In fact, great teacher Norman Fischer said in
a talk recently that for Dogen,
Awakening was a kind of
metaphysical reality, not a mere psychological achievement. Awakening existed
in its fullness, always, and everywhere. It was not something produced by a
little person’s little activity. ~ from Introduction
to the Precepts
Ouch! “A little person’s little activity.” I do love this idea of a metaphysical
reality. But I don’t want to limit myself, to say that I, personally, cannot
wake up or experience waking up. I don’t
know what to call them exactly, but I have had glimpses of a kind of non-dual
reality, and always in the context of
nature. At risk of sounding like some hippie-dippie person, I recently had
an experience of the unity of all things.
I was walking kinhin outdoors and came across a radiant, golden poppy.
For a moment, I did feel that I was actually that flower…until my mind kicked
in and obscured and negated the whole experience.
Again quoting Leighton, “According to Dogen, there is clear
and beneficial mutuality in the inter-relationship between the practitioner and
the environment.” So that seems to validate my experience. But do I need Dogen – or any teacher – to validate
real experiences of spaciousness and love and the unity with all things? No, I hope not!
The best language might be to change the verb tenses. Instead of the past tense of “she woke up,”
you could use the present participle, “she is awaking.” Instead of “enlightenment,”
use the sense of “enlightening.”
However it is talked about, I have faith in the mystery that
is always available to all of us and to have faith in my own experience.
