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A person in the mountains should love the mountains

It is often a puzzle for us when we practice how to respond when thoughts, daydreams, emotions or fantasies arise. While we shouldn’t try to push them away, neither should we get caught up in them. But how?

The quandary is based on unquestioned assumptions about the self.

In this video, reference is made to one of Dogen’s poems which helps to illuminate a way out of this predicament by challenging the dualistic assumptions which underlie it.

The Poem:
A person in the mountains should love the mountains,
with going and coming, the moutains are his body.
The mountains are the body, but the body is not the self
So where can one find any senses, or their objects?

Teaching adapted from Kusen given on 26th May 2020