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Kusen

1. The Feeling-State is the Path

Master Dogen said:

The path of all Buddhas and ancestors arises before the first forms emerge.

So, the Buddhist state arises prior to the creation of the world. It is an active, dynamic state which is there before we create a world of light and dark, good and bad, me and you. It is a state prior to language and prior to concepts.

Much of our life is us putting layers onto our natural, momentary feeling state; layers of thought, layers of emotions. And these layers attempt to answer the question we always put to this feeling state: what is this and why now?

Because when we meditate, we try and put this tendency to one side. Meditation is an affirmation of the feeling state, and this simple feeling-state is the path.

Categories
Kusen

About Kusen

We collect kusen from our teacher John Fraser. Kusen 口宣 means a teaching spoken from the mouth, some kusen are Koan commentary, or about Poetry or Sitting Instructions, the rest are numbered as general Kusen. This page is for all of these types of kusen. These are spoken towards the end of a zazen sitting. Several kusen have references and further information, as well as related videos, on the Latest page.