fallen to the ground must arise from the sky

"... fallen to the ground..." is from a Zen essay from Shobogenzo by Dogen*. This saying flashed in Lohbado's mind as he got up, still groggy, from the ground. He spent the night on a thin foam pad under a juniper bush during the time when he crossed the Plains of Radiation after the Apocalyptic War.


Juniper and willow brush thrived as ground cover. Anything that grew horizontal was fine. Due to harsh conditions, not much grew higher than Lohbado's boots. No trees, only rubble, gravel, moss, lichen, tufts of spindly grass, wild flowers, some spruce, willow and juniper. Lohbado stood up. Blood drained from his head. He felt dizzy and ready to faint. He staggered a few steps to a boulder and plopped down on the rock. A cold wind blew away the little bit of heat his body managed to conserve while in a sleeping bag under the juniper. He zipped up his jacket and gazed at the plants which were able to withstand nuclear devastation.

Somebody wanted to teach somebody a lesson. Annihilation was supposed to prove a point. Somebody was trying to use might to prove right, without thought for humanity or the natural world.

Some kind of nettles stung the palm of his left hand. Sometimes fine dust particles burned as they got into skin pores, deep wrinkles or folds. He rinsed his hands in numbing cold water from a stream to ease his burning palms.

About forty years ago, Lohbado spent some time at a Zen centre and studied the writings of Dogen. According to an old saying, there are 108 thousand kinds of delusion to block one's vision of reality.
Zen sayings could be a catalyst to step and contemplate, to slow down the mind and have a look at what may or may not be happening.  Delusions are subjective or personal filters one uses to screen reality. The main categories are like, dislike and indifference. The reaction to these filters is to grasp and fixate on what one wants, to avoid, hate or become aggressive towards that which one does not like and to ignore the rest. The  delusions have many variations, all of which distort "Such" or how it is. Distortion results in confusion and suffering. To clear away veils of self-centred thinking is the path towards unlimited friendliness and sanity.

* Pages 50-51. "Such", Shobogenzo: Zen Essays by Dogen. Translated by Thomas Cleary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1986.