The Backward Step
words Ehei Dogen 1200-1253 Founder of the Japanese Soto Zen School
melody © K Hannan 2015
As you take the backward step
That turns your light to illuminate your self
Body and mind naturally fall away
And your original face remains
And your original face remains
I heard Adyashanti, one of the contemporary spiritual teachers I love, mention "the backward step" as being a phrase from the Zen tradition,
and I wondered where that phrase came from, and looked it up
on the magical internet. I learned that it is from a very famous meditation training text of Ehei Dogen, a 13th Century Japanese Buddhist monk who travelled to China to find the answer to a burning question he had. If all beings are enlightened by nature, then why pursue meditation or other spiritual practice? This is a really good question! While with a Chinese Chan teacher named Rujing, Dogen realized his true nature upon hearing the teacher say, "cast off body and mind". After that awakening, Dogen remarked that he had finally settled his "life's quest of the great matter."
Another person who beautifully describes the backwards step is the Indian sage Papaji (H.W.L. Poonja), who wrote that when we go to bed at night we first leave behind the street outside our house and come into our house, then we go into our bedroom and leave the rest of our house, then if we are sleeping with a partner, we say goodnight to them and leave them, then we leave our own body, then we leave our thoughts and go to sleep. If we do not leave our thoughts, we do not go to sleep! I believe this is what Dogen is describing...when we turn our awareness away from the outer world, and away from our thoughts towards the One who is aware of our thoughts, we discover our own Self, or no-self, or Buddha nature, which has been here all along.
words Ehei Dogen 1200-1253 Founder of the Japanese Soto Zen School
melody © K Hannan 2015
As you take the backward step
That turns your light to illuminate your self
Body and mind naturally fall away
And your original face remains
And your original face remains
I heard Adyashanti, one of the contemporary spiritual teachers I love, mention "the backward step" as being a phrase from the Zen tradition,
and I wondered where that phrase came from, and looked it up
on the magical internet. I learned that it is from a very famous meditation training text of Ehei Dogen, a 13th Century Japanese Buddhist monk who travelled to China to find the answer to a burning question he had. If all beings are enlightened by nature, then why pursue meditation or other spiritual practice? This is a really good question! While with a Chinese Chan teacher named Rujing, Dogen realized his true nature upon hearing the teacher say, "cast off body and mind". After that awakening, Dogen remarked that he had finally settled his "life's quest of the great matter."
Another person who beautifully describes the backwards step is the Indian sage Papaji (H.W.L. Poonja), who wrote that when we go to bed at night we first leave behind the street outside our house and come into our house, then we go into our bedroom and leave the rest of our house, then if we are sleeping with a partner, we say goodnight to them and leave them, then we leave our own body, then we leave our thoughts and go to sleep. If we do not leave our thoughts, we do not go to sleep! I believe this is what Dogen is describing...when we turn our awareness away from the outer world, and away from our thoughts towards the One who is aware of our thoughts, we discover our own Self, or no-self, or Buddha nature, which has been here all along.
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