Tao Te Ching Chapter 64-9 A thousand league travel

Today's Tao

A travel of a thousand leagues starts from beneath the feet. (Ch.64)


Don't be fooled by size or distance.

Space doesn't exist in Tao.

There is a famous story used as a Zen koan concerning space.


When Seppo Gison 雪峰義存 [Hsueh-feng I-tsun] asked Gensha Shibi 玄沙師備 [Hsuan-sha Shih-pei] why he would not go on a pilgrimage, the latter answered:

"Daruma / Bodhidharma 達磨 did not come to East Land (=China).

The Second Ancestor did not go to West Heaven (=India)."

達磨不来東土。

二祖不往西天。

（Keitoku dento roku / Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, No. 18 景徳伝燈録第十八）


Dogen explains:

"Gensha's answer 'Daruma / Bodhidharma 達磨 did not come to East Land' was not a ridiculous remark of whether he came or not.

It is the principle that lands have no earth at all".

玄沙道の達磨不来東土は来而不来の乱道にあらず。

大地無寸土の道理なり。

(Hensan 遍参, «Shobogenzo»)


Lands are a hologram.

So are East and West.

Therefore, there is "no earth", that is to say, no space.

All of them exist as catalysts.

Just remember.

The earth beneath your feet and the land thousands of miles away are asking you the same thing:

"Send Love (=Tao)."


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-Don't dare 64-21
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 64
-Bodhidharma from the West 54-21


Tao answers your question!



☞«No Longer Human» is not a bad English title, but the title of Osamu Dazai's masterpiece is called «Ningen Shikkaku» in Japanese. A Japanese-English dictionary will tell you that the word "shikkaku" signifies failure or disqualification. Its antonym in Japanese is "gokaku". It is undoubtedly the happiest Japanese word in February and March, when most entrance examinations are held. "Ningen" means a human being. Dazai is declaring: "I flunked the examination as a human being!". What will happen if you fail it? Shusaku Endo, the author of «The Sea and Poison», «Silence», and «The Samurai», may answer: "Whether we succeed or fail, all of us go to «Deep River» eventually".

Tao Te Ching Chapter 61-10 Work on people

Today's Tao

A small country simply wants to enter and work on people. (Ch.61)


Do you think some authority or power is dictating to your life?

What Lao Tzu is saying here is rather the other way round.

The outside world, which is your hologram, seems to be influencing you and your life, but it doesn't in fact.

In Zen Buddhism, they use various expressions to illustrate a hologram:

山河大地

[sen ga daichi]

"mountains, rivers, and lands"

and

尽十方界

[jin juppo (jippo) kai]

"ten nooks and crannies of the whole world"

among others.

Its sole objective is to stimulate the circulation of the fundamental energy Tao.

Then, how can we get along with it?


Master Dogen answers the question with a metaphor of a man and a boat.

「われふねにのりて、このふねをもふねならしむ」

[ware fune ni nori te, kono fune wo mo fune narashimu]

"I go on board the boat and make it be a boat." (boat = hologram)

(Zenki 全機, «Shobogenzo»)


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-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 61


Tao answers your question!



☞When you visit an island in the southern Pacific Ocean, you may come across a tree tied with many strips of colorful cloth. This is a sacred tree. The tree protects the local people. The reminiscence of this worship still remains in the collective memory of the Japanese. We have not forgotten at all our distant past before the days some of our ancestors traveled across the sea from the islands and settled in this archipelago. No wonder Jizo Bodhisattva wear a fancy Pikachu cap in Japan. (See the photo of Jizo Bodhisattva with a Pikachu cap) He is a reincarnation of the sacred tree in the islands of Nintendo. Now Jizo with colorful strips has come back to Hawaii.  («Guardian of the Sea / Jizo in Hawaii»@Amazon) Looking down the ocean, he is doing his business as usual, protecting the locals and travelers.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 53-8 Hologram is Not Tao

Today's Tao

A thief's luxury is not Tao. (Ch.53)


"A thief's luxury" represents your hologram.

So, the hologram is not Tao.

Be careful.

Your hologram is a manifestation of Tao, but not Tao itself.

What is a hologram, really?


Master Dogen explains it very well in his Shobogenzo:

"The entire world is a mind and land. The entire world is flowers and feelings. Since the entire world is flowers and feelings, the entire world is an ume flower. Since the entire world is an ume flower, the entire world is Buddha's hologram."

尽界は心地なり、尽界は華情なり、尽界華情なるゆゑに、尽界は梅華なり。尽界梅華なるがゆゑに、尽界は瞿曇の眼睛なり。

(Baika 梅華, «Shobogenzo»)


Did you get it?


The world = mind + material beings = visual images + feelings = an ume flower = a hologram


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-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 53


Tao answers your question!



☞Go Nagai, the author of «Devilman», was born in 1945, in Wajima (in Ishikawa prefecture as were Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and Kitaro Nishida). Nagai intentionally mixed the elements of carnal desire with his Manga creation. With or without knowing it, he was following the same steps as Lady Murasaki Shikibu («The Tale of Genji / Genji monogatari») and Ihara Saikaku («The life of an Amorous Woman / Koshoku Ichidai Onna», «The life of an Amorous man / Koshoku Ichidai Otoko»). Please don't blame Japanese Manga for being too explicit. It hurts the feelings of those who love Japan's traditional literature. Thank you for your open-mindedness in advance.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 53-4 Wild field

Today's Tao

The field is very wild. (Ch.53)


"Who destroyed the beautiful rice field!"

"Globalization and multi-nationals are responsible for the desertification of the world!"


All right, all right.

You need someone to blame.

But, if you follow Tao or Zen, you have got no one to blame.

Don't judge anyone even if nature is being destroyed.

Ask yourself what the world and its nature are.


Buddha said:

"It is like a man with bleary-eyed vision seeing the flowers in the middle of emptiness."

亦如翳人見空中華

(Shuryogonkyo / Suramgama Sutra 首楞厳経 10-4; also Kuge 空華, «Shobogenzo». ☞See 64-5 Before existence for Dogen's Caution.)


They are your hologram.


Master Dogen says:

"The flowers of emptiness have everything on the lands blossom."

従華開の尽地あり。（空華は地空ともに開発せしむる）

(Kuge 空華, «Shobogenzo»)


The flowers of emptiness stimulate you to project other flowers.


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-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 53


Tao answers your question!



☞They were not seven samurai at the beginning of the story. They were six samurai and one peasant. The young peasant who Toshiro Mifune embodied wanted to be a samurai. A few centuries later, now, modern-day Japanese samurai are corporate workers. They are spiritually and financially as tired and hungry as those defeated samurai in «Seven Samurai» after the two decades of sluggish economy there. The difference is that these days samurai want to be peasants.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 28-10 Under the sky

Today's Tao

Be the valley under the sky. (Ch.28)


Valley = Void

Under the sky = Hologram


So, "Be the valley under the sky" means "Be one with Tao the nothingness while living in your hologram".

Don't look down on your hologram you are living with.

It is the manifestation of Tao.

Zen Master Dogen says:

"The true prayers are «ten nooks and crannies of the whole world», «mountains, rivers and lands», «grasses, trees, you, and non-you»". (Jishozanmai 自証三昧, «Shobogenzo»)


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-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 28


Tao answers your question!



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-There are always people who say something and the others who don't. There are always some whose ideas and stories are heard and the others whose cries and way of living are completely ignored. Some people have the power to write a history and the others don't. When we talk about this island nation called Japan, we really have to know who we are talking about. Some say that the society is homogenous. Is it right? Does a homogenous nation truly exist? I really want to hear stories ignored by the establishment. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to leave stories that might make the upper class feel ashamed.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 14-16 Tao's rear

Today's Tao

When you follow it, you don't see its rear. (Ch.14)


Can you see your rear?

No, we can't.

"Tao's rear" symbolises our feelings.

It is not important to know how your feelings are composed.

Do you know why the clouds in the sky move this way and that?

It is a useful tool in life to think that feelings are like the clouds.

You are not responsible for them.


Dogen says:

You own self is like mountains, rivers, and lands. (Keiseisanshoku 谿声山色, «Shobogenzo»)


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-Tao's rear 14-16
-Distant past 14-17
-Big Bang 14-18
-Tao's quintessence 14-19
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 14


Tao answers your question!



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Tao Te Ching Chapter 14-12 Back to nothingness

Today's Tao

It goes back to nothingness. (Ch.14)


The word "nothing" confuses new comers of Zen and Taoism.

It is because it's difficult to eliminate the concept of time and space from our head.

If there is no time or space, everything is taking place simultaneously in one place, which is Tao.

Everything is generated in Tao and goes back to Tao the nothingness.

Check Zen master Dogen's essay on existence-time.


Master Dogen says:

Time and space exist in mountains, rivers, and lands.


Naoto Matsumoto says:

It would have been much easier for Master Dogen if had had the word "holography". He could have said: "Time and space exist only in your hologram".

Zen Master Dogen helps us a lot about how to deal with time and space.

He wrote a masterpiece essay called «U-ji», which can be roughly translated as existence-time.


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-Tao's rear 14-16
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-Big Bang 14-18
-Tao's quintessence 14-19
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 14


Tao answers your question!



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Tao Te Ching Chapter 13-10 Trouble and body

Today's Tao

I have big trouble because I have my body. (Ch.13)


Love your trouble because it is part of you.

You project your trouble, and your trouble projects you.

Zen Master Dogen uses the expression "You are mountains, rivers, and lands".

We can say, "we are mountains, rivers, lands, clouds, flowers, our happiness, our contentment, and, of course, our trouble".

Without them, we do not exist.


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-Love the world 13-13
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 13


Lao Tzu answers your question!



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Tao Te Ching Chapter 25-17 Earth's model

Today's Tao

Earth models itself upon heaven. (Ch.25)


Earth and heaven represent the natural world.

In Zen Buddhism, they say your mind is mountains, rivers, and lands.

Earth and heaven, mountains, rivers, and lands are part of your hologram.

So is your mind.


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-Nickname 25-8
-Big 25-9
-Go away 25-10
-Far away 25-11
-Return 25-12
-All are Big 25-13
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-Man's model 25-16
-Earth's model 25-17
-Heaven's model 25-18
-Tao's model 25-19
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 25
-Work on people 61-10. "Mountains, rivers, and lands" are called "Sen ga daichi" in Japanese. 山河大地


Everyday a new entry!



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