Teachings of the Earth by John Daido Loori

Author:John Daido Loori
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Photo by National Buddhist Archive

At this point in the novel Hesse writes of Siddhartha:

With a distorted countenance he stared into the water. He saw his face reflected and spat at it. He took his arm away from the tree trunk and turned a little, so that he could fall head-long and finally go under, bent, with closed eyes towards death. Then, from a remote part of the soul, from the past of his tired life he heard the sound. It was one word, one syllable, which without thinking he spoke instinctively. The ancient beginning and ending of all Brahmin prayers, the holy ‘Om,’ which had the meaning of the Perfect One, or perfection. At that moment, when the sound of Om reached Siddhartha’s ears, his thundering soul suddenly awakened, and he recognized the folly of his action.

Hesse goes on for several pages describing the further teachings of the river, and then writes:

I will remain by this river, thought Siddhartha. It is the same river which I crossed on my way to town. A friendly ferryman took me across. I will go to him. My path once led from his hut to a new life which is now old and dead. He looked lovingly into the flowing water, into the transparent green, into the crystal lines of its wonderful design. He saw bright pearls rise from the depths, bubbles swimming on mirror, sky blue reflected in them. The river looked at him with a thousand eyes, green, white, crystal, sky blue. How he loved this river! How it enchanted him! How grateful he was to it! In his heart, he heard the newly awoken voice speak. And it said to him, ‘Love this river, stay by it, learn from it.’ Yes, he wanted to learn from it. He wanted to listen to it. It seemed to him that whomever understood this river and its secrets, would understand much more, many secrets, old secrets.

Master Dogen addresses the secrets of the river and of all water: “The river is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor hot, neither being nor non-being, neither delusion nor enlightenment” It is none of the dualities. Water is H2O, composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, two odorless and tasteless gases. You bring them together and you get water. But water is not oxygen, and it is not hydrogen. It is not a gas. It is what D. H. Lawrence calls in one of his poems “the third thing.” It is the same way with absolute and relative, with all the dualities. It is not either one or the other; it is always the third thing. The third thing is not strong or weak, not wet or dry, not moving or still, not cold or hot, not being or not being, not delusion or enlightenment. What is the third thing that Dogen speaks of, that the sutra speaks of, that the river speaks of?

Master Tung-shan is one of the founders of the Soto school of Zen that is part of the tradition of Zen Mountain Monastery.

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