Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘When you see an object, learn to clarify it. Being scared of it and ay trying to avoid it is the teaching and practice of shravakas in the lesser Vehicle. If you give up the east and hide in the west, it is not that there is no object in the west. Even if you keep escaping, there are objects afar and objects nearby. This is not the way of emancipation. The farther away you push objects, the deeper you may be attached to them.’ (Shobogenzo Raihai Tokuzui)

Having spent many hours recently watching the Tour de France Femmes and the Women’s World Cup – which is now reaching what we call the business end – I thought to go back to Dogen’s radical fascicle on gender equality for a quote. I found this, which is his response to the monk who vowed not to look at women for lifetime after lifetime, and it highlights the difference between zen practice and Theravada practice (which he calls “the lesser Vehicle” here) around how to deal with challenging aspects of life.