Winter: The Past of Spring

I really enjoyed the reading by Dōgen. I suppose that is why people choose their passage to write on though-because they enjoyed it. One day I’ll choose one that I absolutely didn’t like at all. If I can find one!
First of all, Dōgen defines an ordinary person as one who is deluded in the midst of enlightenment. He says that to be enlightened about delusion is to be a Buddha.
Pretty enlightening, huh?
I like citing the examples that are used, and Dōgen uses a really good one. He says that “if we watch the shore from a boat, it seems that the shore is moving. But when we watch the boat directly, we know it is the boat that is moving.” This is our lives. We are not permanent, though we may think that we are.
He shares with us about how there is the past and there is the future, but the present is independent of them. In the present state what I am typing on is a keyboard, in the past it was pieces of plastic and metal, and in the future it will be recycled? Or buried and decaying? I’m not too sure…but I am pretty sure that it won’t be a keyboard forever.
One of my favorite books is Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It’s been such a long time since I’ve read it, but I still remember how the “aliens” were describing their view on time and eternity to the main character. Time to them was like a mountain range, extending forever in both directions. You can point at a spot and call it the present, but just as soon as you say that, then it’s not the present anymore, it is the past. Time was just a concept to them.

But it seems that Dōgen taught mainly about focusing on finding truth within yourself, and not being led to it through any other means.