Friday, February 27, 2015

Today's Tao / 30 spokes 11-1


«Today's Tao»




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«My Koan Horoscope»

(available in Taoísmo en Español)

1. Our side dare not advance one inch, but retreat one foot. (Ch.69 / Good luck)

2. Though something is done, he does not rely on it. (Ch.2 / Bad luck)

3. Once up on a time, somebody attained One. (Ch.39 / Little luck)


«Interpretation»

Good luck - Bad luck - Little luck. Do you wonder whether you should advance or retreat? Do you wonder if you will start a new relationship with someone or not? Do you wonder if you will end this relationship with an unfaithful partner and leave him? Do you wonder if an emotional night between a man and a woman is good enough to begin a new life? Do you wonder if a physical intercourse is the beginning of a spiritual intercourse? Do you feel sick and tired of a game of give-and-take between a couple? Lao Tzu don't like advancing. He prefers retreating. Even after a perfect night between a man and a woman is completed, Lao Tzu asks the couple not to rely on the relationship. Once upon a time, Taoism was pure and simple. Now, it is tarnished with adorned expressions that confuse us. They were thought tools at the beginning. They are called Hoben 方便 in Zen Buddhism. Then, they started running wild, insisting their own philosophical independence from Lao Tzu's teachings. It is like a stranded relationship where a man and a woman fool around but never be able to abandon it. Zen Master Dogen shows us a solution in Butsukojoji 仏向上事 chapter of his Shobogenzo 正法眼蔵:

"What we call Hoben is every Buddha, every ancestor."

方便といふは、諸仏なり、諸祖なり。

What does this mean? Your life, including love life, is the holographic manifestation of Buddha's Love. Why does it appear? Because it is a thought tool or a tool to teach Buddhism. What is the teachings of Buddhism? It doesn't matter if it is Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism, or whatever. Life, of course including love life, teaches us how the mechanism between Love and Hologram functions. How does it work? Life (=Hologram) stimulates you. You emit Tao/Love/Buddha. (Plus, please don't forget that true You are Tao itself.) Now you know why you live through love.


Please try Koan Horoscope (although it is in Spanish).


Naoto Matsumoto



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello!

"Why does it appear? Because it is a thought tool or a tool to teach Buddhism."

What does this mean exactly, does it mean that "life" is here to teach us about tao?

Unknown said...

Thank you very much for an excellent question. The word «teachings» in Buddhism is Ho 法, which also means Buddha's manifestation (Plus, laws in Japanese). In other words, teachings and manifestation are synonymic. Life as well as the world appear to teach us, or to stimulate us to emit Love/Tao/Buddha(not as a historical individual). A holographic "life" stimulates us (=Tao) to emit more Love (=Tao). This is the one and only teaching by a Hoben, or a Buddhist thought tool. We have to admit that these days too many Hobens confuse us rather than have us realize that life is Satori, don't we? It is about time we learned simplicity.

Naoto Matsumoto