Plum Blossoms Don’t Know Spring: Practicing with Don’t Know Mind

In Dharma Hall Discourse #147 of the Eihei Koroku, Dogen Zenji says:

Suppose someone asks, “The ten thousand things return to the one, to where does the one return?” I would simply say to him: A single staff is seven feet long. Great assembly, do you want to understand this clearly?

After a pause Dogen said: I want to ask the meaning of spring’s coming, but even the plum blossoms do not know. 

When we are lost in the swirl of life, we only know "the ten thousand things." We do not know "the one." We do not know peace. A lot of the time our life is like this.

Then, if we keep practicing and we are lucky, we have an experience of opening, or enlightenment. We have a glimpse, or maybe more than a glimpse of vastness, interconnectedness. We may have an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things, kaku, in Japanese. Or we could have an experience of satori where that awareness penetrates our skin, flesh, bones and marrow. Or there could be shō, usually translated as “realization.” This "shō", Katagiri roshi says, "is the highest spiritual level, in which you can be free from awareness and satori…You are already one with the original nature of existence even if you don’t realize it." I think "shō" is what's on the monk's mind when he asks, “The ten thousand things return to the one, to where does the one return?”

I would describe "the ten thousand things returning to the one" as the world of this-and-that dropping away. I would say, our minds become open and spacious, however, it’s not really “our” mind. Our mind has also dropped away in the sense that it is not operating as a separate self-entity anymore. 

And what happens after that? Then you return to the mundane tasks of your daily life. Dogen says, "Suppose someone asks, 'The ten thousand things return to the one, to where does the one return?' I would simply say to him: "A single staff is seven feet long."

The 7-foot long staff would have been something at hand in Dogen’s life. In our life, it might be a bar used for weight lifting, a fishing rod, a curtain rod, or a traffic light pole. 

However, this 7-foot-long staff is what's known as a shujo, and it's given to the new teacher in a dharma transmission ceremony. So, yes, we return to the mundane tasks of our lives after so-called enlightenment, but Dogen also seems to add that "the one" returns to teaching. When you experience any kind of peace or opening, then you share it. Maybe not by formally teaching or preaching, but by how you live your life.

And, Dogen doesn’t stop there. After giving the answer, "A single staff is seven feet long," he then clarifies this further by saying: 

I want to ask the meaning of spring’s coming, but even the plum blossoms do not know. 

It’s true that "the one" returns to the world of this-and-that…. But that doesn’t quite do it. My understanding is that Dogen is asking us to let go of the linear. Plum blossoms are in the world of this-and-that. But when they bloom, do they know spring? Actually, do we know spring? It comes year after year, and yet somehow each year, I’m surprised. I don’t know what it is. Is it warm weather, birdsong, fragrant blossoms? Is it the earth tilting towards the sun? All of those things are marks of spring, but what is spring really?

I love that Dogen says, “I WANT to ask the meaning of spring’s coming….”  This is what we want also isn’t it? We want to know what things mean. We want to have meaningful conversations. We don’t just want to have a wedding ceremony or memorial service, we want a meaningful one. That is our human longing and the beauty of our humanness… we are meaning-makers.

Also, when things go wrong, we want to know what it means. Maybe we get a diagnosis and wonder: What does it mean that I have cancer? I remember my late brother-in-law wondering if his colorectal cancer was because his first wife was a pain in the a**.  Sometimes it helps to create meaning when bad things happen and sometimes it’s not so helpful. And even though we want there to be meaning and we create meaning, ultimately, we cannot know.

But, it’s really OK to try to know. That is also our practice. But the hint is, we can’t know it in a linear, ego-based way.

Here’s another fascicle from Dogen’s Extensive Record that may help us to understand how to practice with this don’t know mind (#268, Sparrows and Crows in the Vast Universe):

When you climb a mountain, you should reach the peak. When you enter the ocean, you should reach the bottom. If you climb a mountain and don’t reach the peak, you will not know the unlimited vastness of the universe. If you enter the ocean and don’t reach the bottom, you will not know the shallows or depths of the blue-green sea. If you already know the unlimited vastness and the shallows and depths, you can overturn the four ocean with one kick, and topple Mount Sumeru with one push. As for a person who opens their hands like this and reaches home, how could [they] not be aware of the sparrows singing and the crows cawing among the cypress trees? Do you want to understand this clearly?

After a pause, Dogen said something like:After doing our sitting and walking meditation, practicing without expectation, without fail we wake up. Who could fathom this deep and wondrous practice?

So, here we are. By simply reading this post, you have already started climbing the mountain or entering the ocean. You have touched your toe on the path of practice. I invite you to keep going.

And even when you reach the peak of the mountain or the bottom of the ocean, you will just be like a person opening their hands. The person who does this, who returns home, is just a person who hears the singing of sparrows and the cawing of crows. This person is not closed off to the details of life.

I feel so grateful that we have this deep and wondrous practice. We do this practice through daily zazen, weekly communal practice, and the longer sesshin or retreat practice. Of course, our practice is not separate from anything that we do… including our everyday life away from formal Zen practice, and any social action we may do. But, many of us need to sit silently as well, in order to build up the muscle of the practice of presence. And we need the support of each other, as we practice together in community. I am so glad we can do this together.

by Guiding Teacher Sosan Theresa Flynn (she/her)