Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Dojo of Nature




"My Dojo is nature; it is the universe. This is truly a dwelling, a practice hall and a temple built by the spirit. If you look with the eyes of your heart, you will see that nature is the teacher that possesses all the scientific and spiritual truth that will lead you to enlightenment. It is imperative that those on the path practice with this knowledge held deeply within their hearts."

 Ueshiba Morihei Sensei


To only practice Zen in the confines of the Zendo is to be deceived by forms. The Zendo walls are not the walls spoken of by Bodhidharma, nor are the walls of any cave. The walls you must see and stare down are the obscurations that you have created in your own mind.

 Facing the wall means to face your own barriers, your fears, your stories. Facing the wall means to focus your mind on that which keeps you from seeing clearly. To awaken means to penetrate the wall of your self-imposed ignorance and see the entire world exactly as it is!
 
 

Break free from your narrow views and enter the Dojo of Nature. See that there are no boundaries and that every limitation is something you have created or inherited from those of limited understanding. Never pass an opportunity to sit and pierce the walls of ignorance. Get outside, open your eyes and breathe!

Sit in the forest, in the open prairie, on the mountain top; go where no walls stand before you and stare deeply through any walls you yourself have created. You don’t have to go far; the walls you must penetrate are right before your eyes. On the porch, in the park, at the beach, look out! Look out beyond your cave and look out into the limitless Dojo of Nature, beyond the trees, beyond the clouds, beyond the stars. 

Stare intently into the infinity of the Boundless Mind; there you will realize the Dojo of Nature, the temple of the spirit, your only true abode. You will see that Nature is the root of your being, you are no stranger in the world, your consciousness abounds!

When you truly open your eyes, you will see right through everything, your awakened mind will penetrate all obstructions and your mind will be free!
 
 

4 comments:

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  2. I've just found this wonderful blog by chance. I've been practicing zazen for three years and this post rang a bell inside. Thanks for sharing

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  4. I am a wayfarer upon the path, at home on the earth and among the stars. Thoreau, says, "In wildness is the preservation of the world." Blake says, "“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” May we open our hearts, mind, senses and perceptions. May we know and see what is wild and essential in the world around us, and in the world within us. May we be illuminated and at home in the
    dojo of nature, or wherever we are.

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