So, this particular view of zazen allows everything that happens, on every moment, to come forth as enlightenment and practice. We don't think, "I'm in the retreat, and now I'm practicing. The retreat is over, and now practice is over. I had a moment of enlightenment, and now it's over, and I am back to normal again." Every moment is an opportunity for practice. Every moment is a manifestation of enlightenment. That's how the world appears, by virtue of practicing this way of zazen. He says that this is the way of "all-inclusiveness with detachment." All-inclusiveness is the opposite of detachment. Detachment is removed. Inclusiveness is intimacy. So in this samadhi there is an intimacy with the whole universe, and yet there is spaciousness - the kind of spaciousness that we associate with detachment.
So these are the first few paragraphs of Bendowa. They express in detail, with lots of jargon and terminology, what I was saying in the beginning: Dogen's lofty sense of zazen practice. But please don't be intimidated or confused by this expression of Dogen's, because I think that with all these complicated words, he is talking about something that is really very simple. In a way you could say that what all this amounts to is that zazen is just returning to our self, returning to the simplicity of being alive. That's really what it comes down to in the end. Without anything extra, without all our complications, without adding anything extra - just to sit with no effort, and just to appreciate the feeling of being alive, that we share with everything that is. That's all there is to it. And when we do that, when we allow ourselves that, there's a tremendous healing power in it. And that really does transform our lives. There's a kind of faith one has in that. That's really so.
