Zen, morality and fear of cloning

Dogen said," To carry yourself forward and experience
myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come
forth and experience themselves is awakening."

So what is this carrying yourself forward?....is this the same thing
as moving forward with no desire?..or is trying to control desire
still carrying yourself forward?...trying to stop desire, or stop
thoughts is not possible....letting even your thoughts and desires
manifest....without following them or needing to "make them happen" or
"understand them", meeting the world without like or dislike, agree or
disagree is this all things coming forth and experiencing themselves.

Dogen again says ,"If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is
lost in confusion."...So experiencing everything as it comes forth
without this judging or analyzing mind, to experience what arises from
a point before the little voice in our head says it piece on what it
"thinks" about what comes forth...this is what Dogen is pointing to I
think. I see this not as shutting down the train of thought..but
rather more a decoupling from the train...where the train rolls down
the track without the engine pulling or anything trying to push or
stop it...there is just not much attention paid to the train of
thought..what is important is what is happening, not what you think
about it. This is letting the little voice chatter on without being
overly concerned with what it is saying..this requires first, an
experience that allows one to understand that they are not just the
little voice...to get at least one experience of the universe
manifesting itself and experiencing itself without "carrying yourself
forward".....to get to attending to the myriad things coming forth and
experiencing themselves before the little voice editorializes for just
an instant..to begin to understand the little voice is a liar, and it
is not "you"....you are coming forth and manifesting and experiencing
too.

This experience can be from "being in the groove"....where basketball
is just played and you are doing things before you think about them...
I got it first from cross country skiing...where skiing was happening
without the voice...I had gotten so into the skiing that I was not
longer even hearing the little voice..there was no separation between
me and skiing..there was just skiing happening......it can come from
zazen, or a fist, a staff or a shout......it does not really
matter...what matters is once you have the experience, you understand
more about the nature of "you". This is often mistaken for
enlightenment...but Dogen says here that the experience itself is only
enlightenment when it is happening, and carrying even this experience
forward is delusion. One needs the experience of existing beyond the
voice to understand the voice is not them..that they go on existing
even when the voice is silent, and they can "think" or "perceive" on
a nonverbal or pre-verbal level, and even act on this level. They can
"be" on a level that is not limited by the little voice, or even
required to attend to what it is saying...The little voice (verbal
thought). cannot be silenced forever, but it need not be attended
to..unless it is useful, and no matter what it claims..it is not you.
It is this ability to attend to the little voice, or choose not
to..that frees one from the tyranny of the "self" and allows one to
act selflessly.

At the temple the schedule happens (or does not happen) in spite of
whether any sane person would agree or disagree with what is
happening, and no one really cares what you or anyone else thinks
about it...it is one way of forcing one to get beyond like or
dislike...because you either get beyond it or go nuts...usually one
goes nuts first, then gets beyond it.

Right now human cloning is happening. We have no idea of the effects
of this occurrence. It has great potential for good, and could have
some devastating consequences..and like all things, it will probably
not be as bad as we fear or as good as we hope...but once it happens
our only choice is to deal with its reality....whether we like it or
not..or agree with it or not. The idea that we can somehow control it,
or stop it from happening is only delusion.

Be Well

Fudo