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Main Index
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being gives you dignity; it makes you not only a man, but makes you capable of touching the highest peak of being a buddha.
FIREWOOD, WHEN BURNED, BECOMES ASH; THE ASH NEVER 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.
What Dogen is trying to say is that when firewood disappears into a heap of ash you should not think that something in existence has changed -- only the form has changed. The ash was present in the firewood, unmanifest. The fire has helped the ash to become manifest and visible.
These are ways of saying some things which are more difficult to say directly. But I can say them directly to you; this is not an assembly of kindergarten seekers. What you are, you have been the same before, whatever the form, and if you can discover yourself then it does not matter in what form you will move. And if you can penetrate your self to its very center -- because your self has a circumference and a center .... If you remain at the circumference then you will move into another form -- but if your arrow reaches to the very center you have graduated from forms. Now you are capable of being one with the universe; now you can sing with the birds, dance with the flowers, shine with the stars. From a small dewdrop, you have become the very ocean.
In America, which has produced very few men who are worth quoting, one man is certainly significant, but seems to be almost forgotten. He is William James. He introduced this beautiful word `oceanic'. People have forgotten him and his word because very few people reach to that experience. But here everybody has to reach to the experience ... from the dewdrop to the ocean. Unless you experience `oceanic' yourself, spreading in all ten directions, in absolute freedom, you have not used the great opportunity of life.
Dogen is saying, 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
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