How could they be known through mystical powers or practice and experience?
Of the mystical powers discussed, for example, in the Lotus Sutra, one is the power to know others’ minds. But Master Dogen explains in Shobogenzo that, if we want to know the body-mind of a buddha, this kind of mystical power is useless. The body-mind of a buddha is realized in sitting here and now for the sake of sitting here and now; it is not realized by practice now for the sake of experiencing enlightenment in future. They may be dignified behaviour beyond sound and form. Dignified behaviour in the balanced state is something total, greater than the sum of its parts. Even if the most sophisticated audio-visual equipment in the world were used in the attempt to transmit the dignified behaviour of a Zen master, the attempt would fail. But when teacher and student are engaged in Buddhist practice in each other’s presence, something which makes behaviour dignified is transmitted. Gudo Nishijima used the analogy of the sympathetic resonance of tuning forks. How could they be anything
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- How could they be known through mystical powers or practice and experience?
