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68/76 Dai-shugyo

大修行

dai-shugyo

Great Practice

Dai means “great,” and shugyo means “practice.” So dai shugyo means “great practice.” There is a famous Chinese story about Master Hyakujo Ekai and a wild fox; the story concerns the relation between Buddhist practice and the law of cause and effect. This relation is explained in two ways, each totally at odds with the other. The first explanation says that someone of great practice “does not fall into cause and effect”; in other words, it denies the influence of cause and effect upon someone of great practice. The other explanation says “do not be unclear about cause and effect”; in other words, it affirms the influence of cause and effect upon someone of great practice. But Master Dogen considered the difference between these two explanations to be only a matter of intellectual thought, not the situation in reality. He explained that someone of great practice transcends both the negation and the affirmation of the law of cause and effect, by acting in the real world.