Eihei Dogen, the 13th-century Zen master whose essay I’ve been writing about in this column, says that mountains are both sentient and insentient. They are insentient in the sense that they are physical presences without consciousness. But of course, mountains are expressive. When we study a mountain we feel something special. We feel what the mountain expresses. An Earth without mountains is a different Earth, and when you live in mountain country, as we do, we have a special feeling about the mountains. They affect us. Similarly, if you live in another kind of country, such as the Prairies, the big sky is very different from mountains and expresses something different about life and about human consciousness. So mountains are insentient. They are just stuff, but they are also sentient in that they express something.
We humans are the same as mountains. We are insentient in that we are just stuff. There is not much difference between this body and a mountain. If we analyze the materials in both, we see that they are more or less the same stuff. But our stuff is so smart. It regulates the heart, makes sure we breathe, maintains homeostasis. Our bodies are enormously complex and intelligent. In that sense, our bodies, like the mountains, are so wise and powerful that without saying a word we express something meaningful. Language has words that combine together to make meaning. People are like words in that they combine together to make meaning. This is how meaning appears; it is created among us.
In Zen meditation and practice, we emphasize the body. We use our capacity for awareness to feel the body, to connect to the breath. We allow the body to be as it is, in the moment. In so doing, we unite our consciousness with the universal experience of being a body. This is one of the most important parts of Zen meditation because we so often think of the body as a container for something else that is the “real” us. Our culture and our conditioning have not taught us to appreciate the wisdom of the body or, for that matter, the wisdom of the mountain and the Prairies.
Our human body is like the sea that has the profound wisdom to be in tune with the moon, to be in tune with the spinning of the Earth, to be a perfect habitat for all the ocean creatures. How did this happen? How did the ocean become so perfect for ocean creatures? How did the mountains become so perfect for mountain creatures? It’s amazing!
We human beings are the same. Our bodies are perfectly adapted to this planet, to the food that’s available, to air and water, to the consciousness that we possess. Our bodies, exactly as we are, are as perfect and as wise as the insentience of the mountains, the Prairies and the ocean.
Suggested practice: Intentionally rest your awareness on the experience of being a body.
Kuya Minogue is the resident teacher at Sakura-ji, Creston’s zendo. This column is part of a long essay on an essay by 13th century Zen master Eihei Dogen and is inspired by the teaching of Norman Fishcher. For more information, Minogue can be reached at 250-428-6500, and previous columns are available at www.zenwords.net.
