Mountains Walking

 

Mountains Walking

By Untangle your Mind

Mountains do not lack the qualities of mountains.  Therefore they always abide in ease and always walk.  You should examine in detail this quality of the mountains walking. 
These are the words of the Master Dogen Zenji from the Mountains and Waters Sutra.  They seem very odd and incomprehensible at first but they are designed in such a way that if they made sense they will set your mind at ease.  You see in Zen there is this concept of transmission of mind, The Zen Masters have understood something that is very indescribable and is beyond words but to communicate it they have to use words or actions or behaviour and they do these things and say these things which are so odd they will make no sense from a normal persons point of view yet they will pull you in to the understanding the Zen Master has.  So if you can penetrate the words you will be looking at the world through the eyes of the Zen Master.  This is the transmission of mind.  So I will share the original transmission, I will read the actual words that Dogen spoke and then share my own understanding how the transmission was received here. 

Dogen lived about 800 years ago in Japan and he is a very influential figure in Japanese culture.  In this case he was speaking to an assembly of monks on Mount Furong and this is what he said.  'The green mountains are always walking.  A stone woman gives birth to a child at night.  Mountains do not lack the qualities of mountains therefore they always abide in ease and always walk.  You should examine in detail this quality of the mountains walking.  Mountains walking are just like humans walking even though it does not look the same as human walking.  The Buddha's ancestors words point to walking this is fundamental understanding and you should penetrate these words.  If you doubt mountains walking you do not know your own walking.  It is not that you do not walk but that you do not know or understand your own walking.  Since you do not know your own walking you should fully know the green mountains walking.'

He is very clear the mountains are walking and you are quite clear that the mountains don't walk so how do we bridge this contradiction?  Now I personally have not had any Zen teachers or studied Zen formally but Zen has had a huge impact on my life in helping me rid myself of anxiety and granting me a general ease and peace of mind.  And so the way I worked with these kinds of Zen passages and koans is I would ponder over them, contemplate them.  I would go on a run and the whole time I would focus on one particular statement from a Zen master or some other sage that I was looking at.

I would sit and meditate and focus on them and these meditations could last hours across many days.  And even during the day I would be obsessed about unlocking what is trying to be communicated.  This is just to show you how I got to an understanding an intimate understanding and you might want to do this for yourself.  This is the true intention, it is not to be handed the explanation it is to consider it for yourself.  You are most welcome to consider these words for yourself.

 

But if you would like some pointers on how to comprehend or even get started I will present my understanding.  So let us begin with the part that made some sense.  Mountains do not lack the qualities of mountains.  This one is easier to understand.  Clouds don't lack the qualities of clouds.  Electrons don't lack the qualities of electrons.  What is your quality?  There must be some very fundamental quality of youness that is your quality. 
So when Dogen says mountains do not lack the qualities of mountains therefore they  always abide in ease and always walk - what  he is pointing to is that is very important to know your own quality.  What is truly yours and as you know it there is an ease to life, to walking through life, to watching life walk by and this quality of humanness is on full display when you are walking and since you do not know your own walking compare or consider how mountains walk to how you walk because it is exactly the same.  See it is quite clear that mountains are very still and they don't seem to be moving but consider the view from the mountains perspective. 
If the mountain is walking what would it see?  If you were the mountain and you were walking you would not see yourself move but you would see everything else around you change and move.  The leaves falling, snow coming and then melting, new seeds taking root, new trees emerging.  You are just observing all these changes ...as the mountain you don't move; everything else moves.  This is how mountains walk and while its walking this mountain is not really doing anything it is just being a mountain and because it is a mountain it allows for other walking, for the plants to grow, for the animals to live and burrow in it.

Now this is really where it started to hit was when I was out running or walking you can actually experience this for yourself.  Focus your eyes straight ahead, but put your attention to the periphery.   Your right eye is paying more attention to the right side , the left eye to the left side, be more observant of things passing you by on the sides and you are very easily with a bit of experimentation be able to experience that you are not moving, it is the things around you which are passing by something like a treadmill but out in the world.  And from this space of stillness you may consider what are you really doing to walk?  Are you putting in any effort or is it just happening?  Are you just observing it happening?  The body moving, the trees passing by and so on and in the same way as you are walking a thought or idea might take route, might grow into a mighty tree and then wither away.  All of it is just passing by.  This is a Zen masters demonstration of what their life is like and you are all in it.  Because mountains do not lack the qualities of mountains and you never lack the quality of y
ouness and that these all phenomena passing by, you are you, the presence that makes it all possible, makes it perceivable.  You are not moving or changing, even as you walk and this is the way to abide in ease and keep walking.  To know your true role here, your true function, your true quality.  Slowly this fact of being aware, it requires no effort you cannot do it better or worse as it is in your nature.  It Is just happening.  And if you focus on this as you keep walking, walking through life, just focus on your true function, your true quality.  You never find yourself lacking or wanting, you will be at ease.  Your mind will be at ease.  Anxieties and so they start to drop off, they come and they go and  you will see them as the mountains watching the seasons pass by.  There might be only one question left, how did I get this quality of being aware?  And the zen master Dogen answered that at the beginning of the talk when he mentioned a stone woman gives birth to a child at night. But let us leave that to another talk.

 

.https://youtu.be/VD4TlrzA1Tk