Appreciating Gensho for his dedication and the opportunity of joining his monthly Zen sesshin retreat here at home. (Plus a good temple breakfast.... ) Starting in the early morning darkness, watching the world rise into existence for a while and return into darkness. Occasional deep moments during sits but mostly what felt like spadework! And yet today a sense of seeing through to the heart of things, attuned to the dark light supporting the day light in this time of transition. Seeing dark light (dark energy?!) emanating from the colours. this is thin light — the sun pouring what in this part of the world at this time seems to be its limited resources into the world.
."In daylight, the world of phenomena is visible, and you can distinguish everything very clearly. In darkness, you cannot make any distinctions. So in Zen Buddhism, darkness often represents truth, or the ultimate principle of existence. Sometimes we say "equality" because when you cannot distinguish things, everything becomes equal. Daylight and darkness seem to be completely separate, but we cannot separate them as they are dynamically interconnected." Dainin Katagiri, "The Light that Shines through Infinity"
In Chinese cosmology, the Tao (The Way) is represented by the Yin-yang diagram.
“Yang, in the form of light and heat from the sun, increases during the morning to reach its maximum at midday, the same moment that yin, which represents darkness, begins to emerge. Through the afternoon yin augments while yang recedes until midnight, the apex of yin, at which point yang begins to increase again, perpetuating the cycle. Every moment and every phenomena is an ever-fluctuating mix of yin and yang, in which the prevalence of one or the other is relative and subject to change.” “the Hidden Secrets of Water”, Paolo Consigli.
I love the idea that there is a balance……..as one recedes, the other augments, and that the seed of one is present in its opposite at the time of its zenith.
