Buddhism: The Single, Creative, Ongoing Effort

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The Single, Creative, Ongoing Effort Mar 19th 2013, 17:30 The book How to Raise an Ox by Francis Dojun Cook was first published, I think, about 35 years ago, but I'm just now getting around to reading it. And as I read I keep thinking, "Where have you been all my life?" The book has translations with commentary of ten fascicles on practice from Eihei Dogen's Shogogenzo, and it's about as good an "intro to Dogen" book as I've seen. So if you are interested in Dogen but find him a bit intimidating, this may be a good book for you. Here's a quote from the book I want to share -- these words are Dojun Cook's, not Dogen's -- "One way to make sense of the bewildering proliferation of Buddhist schools, doctrines, and practices over the last 2,500 years is to see them as a single, creative, ongoing effort to deal with the central problem of samsaric existence, which is the erroneous belief in an enduring, permanent self. Whether it is Zen, Pure Land, Theravada, or Tibetan Buddhist practice, all Buddhist paths teach practices that will effectively destroy the belief in this self." This is perhaps the best "response" to the annoying academic affectation of referring to Buddhism as "Buddhisms," which I've written about before. The proponents of "Buddhisms" argue that the many schools, doctrines and practices should be spoken of in the plural because they are distinctive of each other. But to look at them that way denies the underlying connection, which is that they are all gates to the same dharma. "Single, creative, ongoing effort" is closer to reality.

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