The purpose of our Practice
“Students! Do not practice buddha-dharma for your own sake. Do not practice buddha-dharma for name and gain. Do not practice buddha-dharma to attain blissful reward. Do not practice buddha-dharma to attain miraculous effects.
Practice buddha-dharma solely for the sake of buddha-dharma.
This is the way.”
-Dogen
I often wonder what would Christianity look like if the practice didn’t promise some end benefit or gain. Would our treatment of the other be different if we our treatment derived from a simple desire to act justly, not for some perceived benefit, but simply for a love of justice? Or perhaps if we followed in the way of Christ not for some heavenly reward, but simply for the beauty of the way of Christ itself?
I’m reminded of my favorite of Rollin’s parables in “The Orthodox Heretic“, in which you arrive to the pearly gates to discover that Satan has cast out God from heaven, and you are left with the choice, do you stay in Heaven with Satan and enjoy it’s beauty and loveliness, or do you join God in hell?
In this parable we are left no choice but to accept that we either do things for their reward, or for the love of the thing itself.
Just as Socrates would have spent his entire life searching for the answer to the question of “What is Piety” simply for the love of asking questions itself, we should then pursue that which we love for the sake of the thing itself, not for some later benefit.
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