Another take on Completeness and Doubt

We always want to nail it down. We cannot hold on to it. It is us, even in our holding. We are so funny.

From Tom Cleary’s introduction to Timeless Spring: A Soto Anthology

“After Dongshan left Yunyan, he still had some doubt, until one day he happened to see his reflection when he looked into a river as he crossed over and was suddenly greatly enlightened. Then he uttered his famous verse,

‘Just don’t seek from another

Or you’ll be far estranged from self.

I now go on alone

Meeting it everywhere

It now is just what I am

I now am not it.

You must comprehend in this way

To merge with thusness.’

Not seeking anything outside of fundamental completeness, one relizes the self that is self because there is no other, and the self that is no self because there is no other."

Dongshan is the founder of the Caodong School of Zen which is the Soto School in Japan and locally.