Description
Dongshan’s crossed swords offer a timely image for protesting and unrest. Everything is expressing itself, demonstrators are streams moving in flow to a river. Not a thing out of place.
Summary
Two swords are crossed.
There’s no way to retreat.
You’re a lotus in the fire
You can’t help it
You’re determined to go higher.
—from the Record of Dongshan, Fourth of the Five Ranks
Dongshan’s crossed swords offer a timely image for protesting and unrest. Yet the dance of the vast and undifferentiated natural order of the universe is always calling us even in distress. Everything is expressing itself, demonstrators are streams moving in flow to a river. Not a thing out of place.
Jon Joseph gives a dharma talk in San Mateo Monday Zen on June 8th, 2020.
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