How can we be unconditionally open? What kind of openness are we talking about? Thorough openness itself is the best wisdom. When you are open, you are able to be one with another person. It does not matter if the person is a close friend or a stranger.

Some of you ask, “How do I apply this to the workaday world? I have stress-filled workdays. How can I forget the self in the midst of trying to meet deadlines?” Simply put yourself completely into your work and just do whatever needs to be done. Deadline after deadline? There is no deadline! Each moment is a beginning as well as an end, not a goal or a deadline set up by someone else.

“On this body, put the Buddha seal.”

Dogen Zenji

So when you practice shikantaza, just sit. This is the condition of openness. Then, being totally open, you are nothing other than all space and time. Dogen Zenji says, “On this body, put the Buddha seal.” The Buddha seal is this openness, where there is no conditioning, no division between yourself and the object, no division between yourself and your life. When you close this gap, Dogen Zenji says, you become “the Buddha seal itself; the whole space becomes subtly itself.” If we are open this much, is there anything else that we need?

For the most part, we are not just sitting; we are nursing delusions one after another. There is often this feeling that I am doing shikantaza. When we have this feeling, then shikantaza is not at all shikantaza. Instead, there is some kind of maneuvering, some kind of action of one’s self. Do not be fooled by words and ideas. When you practice with a koan, take the koan as your life. Koans are not something to study or evaluate apart from yourself. Make your life itself genjo koan, the realization of koan. This is what your life already is. Such a life is totally open and full, and one is not conscious of oneself.

So imprint the Buddha seal, not the human seal, upon your body and mind and penetrate this openness. Just do this over and over and over.

From: Appreciate Your Life
The Essence of Zen Life
Taizan Maezumi
Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Image:

Vajrapani stands to the Buddha’s right, holding a bar-shaped vajra (thunderbolt).

In this early period, artists depicted Vajrapani as a muscular hero, drawing on Heracles imagery that came to Gandhara through trade. Significantly, Vajrapani does not appear in the written narrative describing the first sermon; instead, the vajra-holding figure was added in order to protect the Buddha and bring auspiciousness to the narrative scene. The Buddha sets the wheel of law (dharma) in motion, revealing the teachings to the surrounding five monks, who in turn spread this doctrine and establish the monastic order.stands to the Buddha’s right, holding a bar-shaped vajra (thunderbolt). In this early period, artists depicted Vajrapani as a muscular hero, drawing on Heracles imagery that came to Gandhara through trade. Significantly, Vajrapani does not appear in the written narrative describing the first sermon; instead, the vajra-holding figure was added in order to protect the Buddha and bring auspiciousness to the narrative scene. The Buddha sets the wheel of law (dharma) in motion, revealing the teachings to the surrounding five monks, who in turn spread this doctrine and establish the monastic order.Vajrapani stands to the Buddha’s right, holding a bar-shaped vajra (thunderbolt). In this early period, artists depicted Vajrapani as a muscular hero, drawing on Heracles imagery that came to Gandhara through trade. Significantly, Vajrapani does not appear in the written narrative describing the first sermon; instead, the vajra-holding figure was added in order to protect the Buddha and bring auspiciousness to the narrative scene. The Buddha sets the wheel of law (dharma) in motion, revealing the teachings to the surrounding five monks, who in turn spread this doctrine and establish the monastic order.

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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