Genjokoan

I read the first fascicle of Dogen's Genjokoan last night and vascillated between moments of clarity and confusion. The clarity came in the images: moonlight on water, weeds and flowers, those palpable things. The confusion comes in the abstract language of buddhism, or is it the language of translated buddhism?

I like the first stanza's insight into gardens, how the weeds come when we don't want them, and the flowers don't always grow where we desire. Out in the Manzano Wilderness, near our home, the Dao plays out kind of on its own. That's where this flower in the picture comes from. I got to thinking, we should just "garden" the wilderness area, much like the aborigines did before my ancestors arrived on the scene with concepts of farming that included definite boundary lines. A softer interplay between the human hand and that which we call Nature.

Then again, I just came in to write this from pulling weeds in my little backyard garden. So, there you go again.