仏法は波紋のように | Dharma is like a wave.

魚も水草も、ミズスマシもミジンコも、水辺の生態系のなかで生きている。仏法もそう考えると…

Fishes, as well as water weeds, striders and fleas, live in the water environments. Now think about the environment of dharma…

魚の体型や泳ぎかた、水草の色かたち、これらはそれぞれ魚や草の DNA で内側から決まっているというよりは、水辺の環境特性によって外側から造形されている。DNA もまた、環境に「選択」される対象の一つだ。

仏法もそう考えると、仏法はそれを伝えてきた数多の諸仏諸祖からなる伝法系のなかにある。それどころか、ブッダ成道の暁、山河大地も同時に成道したという伝承からすれば、仏法は一瞬にして宇宙に拡散し、個々人の「覚り」なるものは個々人のものでは決してなく、宇宙伝法系の全体に波紋のように広がっている。だから道元は言った、

至愚にしておもふことなかれ　みづからに具足する法はみづからかならずしるべしと

：正法眼蔵第二十一「授記」

山河大地が成道する(覚る)とは、いかにも不合理である。これを合理的に理解するために、以前、「物心連続仮説」を導入した（2017.10.21 連続仮説）。この連続性により、「心」のさとりは、心が見る「物」に移行する。私の覚りは私の見る山河の変容として体験される。

Fishes, as well as water weeds, striders and fleas, live in the water environments. Their forms, colors, movements, and other characteristics including the micro structures of their DNAs are designed in such a way that they best fit to the water life. Water is exactly the field of their lives.

Let us think about the field of dharma. By the ‘field’ I mean the totality of monks, buddha ancestors, as well as ordinary people believing in Buddhism, who have transmitted and elaborated the teachings of Buddha. We could imagine the field even larger because buddhists have a tradition that, when Buddha arrived at the enlightenment, all the mountains and rivers on the earth simultaneously got enlightened. So dharma never exist by itself nor be possessed by each single buddhist, but spreads over the entire earth ––– the field of dharma. That is why Dōgen said:

Do not stupidly assume that the dharma you’ve got is always known to you.

:“Confirmation”, Ch. 21 of Shōbōgenzō.

‘Enlightenment of the mountains’ appears to be irrational. In order to understand it rationally, I introduced the ‘continuous theory’ of mind and matter (See the post on October 21, 2017 and related posts). If you just take this theory for granted regardless of what philosophers would argue on the M-M problem, then your enlightenment or your dharma will diffuse into the stones, grasses, mountains and rivers at once. Dharma will be experienced as a change, or an ‘enlightenment’, of the landscape you see. It will be no longer your dharma.