Last day of April
Rainy from the morning. Rain is also good.
Perhaps because I am still recovering, the words of fiction do not enter my head well, so I interrupt my reading of Haruki Murakami’s new novel to read Dogen’s Shobogenzo (which is also a work of fiction).
I wonder how many times I have read through this long book.
Sometimes he explains how a suffering human being can become enlightened (Shobogenzo), sometimes he explains how to practice Buddhism, and sometimes he uses koans to explain it endlessly.
There is no need to cite Wittgenstein, but there is a limit to what words can do. It is like trying to explain the merits of surfing to someone who does not know how to surf.
But I know what you are saying, surfing and enlightenment, in the end,
In the end, the bottom line for both surfing and enlightenment is “just do it and experience it.
I think he is right, and I meditate for about an hour. For that hour, I felt enlightened. I also felt that I somehow understood the benefits of surfing, which I had never done in real life.
Buddha, Christ, Confucius, and Socrates. The four great saints of the world.
After this kind of experience, for myself, I feel that Dogen, who perfected Zen, can be included here (please forgive me if I am going in the same direction as Shakyamuni).
Perhaps, in the future, those who study and master Zen will, without exaggeration or exaggeration, create a new world. The most recent and obvious example is Rikyu’s tea. In other countries, Steve Jobs. (The connection between Zen and Apple’s products (once) deserves more study.)
As far as this country is concerned, passenger planes and rocket production are fine, but the recent launch failures and the fact that the passenger plane business is now being withdrawn suggests that the culture of imitating and selling ready-made products that Western civilization has had for a long time has reached its limits. (Cars are the only exception so far).
We may as well graduate from this imitation culture and create a new, original __ based on this Zen, not in India, not in China, but in Japan, where Zen is the only remaining and completed art form. What on earth is that? It is hard to say.
I think the reason why Westerners are so eager to visit temples in Kyoto, especially Zen temples, when they come to Japan is because they want to feel the atmosphere, the clarity, and the sense of values, in other words, the essence of Eastern civilization, even if unconsciously.
It may be a bit naïve of me to think that they must feel somewhat stuck in capitalism, which cannot stop inequality, and democracy, which cannot stop war.
Young leaves that I touch along the way
