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Can Zen Sectarianism Continue To Be Taken Seriously?
Despite the enormous advances in Zen and Buddhist scholarship of recent decades, many in the actual community of Zen practitioners continue to be largely guided by the vision of Zen fashioned by pre-modern and modern Japanese institutions, rather than the vision presented by the classic masters. Certain stereotypes about Zen are so entrenched in many contemporary Zen communities that even the most incontrovertible revelations of scholarship continue to be largely dismissed or ignored.
There seem to be a number of various reasons for this, but it seems significant that the probability for a discovery to be dismissed increases in proportion to the extent it is sectarian specific.
For instance, the "less sectarian" disclosure that Zen’s claim of being transmitted through “an unbroken succession from master-to-master” was historically untenable met greater acceptance than the "more sectarian" discovery that Dogen regarded koans to be as essential to Zen as sitting meditation.
In fact, propaganda portraying Dogen as someone that regarded “just sitting” as the only essential element of Zen practice was so effective his actual stance continues to be denied by many in the Soto sect to this day.
Let's consider this further in context of the well documented competition for “superiority” between the two major Zen institutions in Japan (Soto and Rinzai), which largely centered on the role of koans. Briefly, the Soto sect advocated “just sitting” and criticized the Rinzai sect for its “preoccupation” with koans.
Now notice that when it was discovered that the “Soto founder” (Dogen) took the Rinzai sect’s side in regarding koans as essential to Zen practice it not only exposed fallacies of Soto dogma, it revealed a necessity to doubt the credibility of everything the Soto sect asserted concerning Zen; if they were ignorant of Dogen’s actual teachings about koans and zazen, how can we seriously attach any authority to their claim of Dogen as being their “founder”?
...
Until next time, try not to drown in all the blood...
Ted
8 comments:
In fact, propaganda portraying Dogen as someone that regarded “just sitting” as the only essential element of Zen practice was so effective his actual stance continues to be denied by many in the Soto sect to this day.
Ted, who is this made up strawman in the Soto school who denies the importance of Koans to Dogen ... and to all of us?
Koan Misunderstandings, Koan Dogma
Thank you for your Practice and enthusiasm, Ted.
Gassho, Jundo
Hello Jundo,
Thank you for your comment.
I am not sure what you mean by “strawman in the Soto school” – I was referring to the propaganda manufactured by the Soto sect itself (as well as the Rinzai sect), not someone “in the school.”
I was specifically speaking about the propaganda produced as part of the sectarian rivalry between the Soto and Rinzai sects, as I stated in the OP “…in context of the well documented competition for “superiority” between the two major Zen institutions in Japan (Soto and Rinzai)…” which is discussed in many reliable works, for instance:
The results of sectarian debates and partisan polemic that took place subsequent to the formative period of koan literature in Tang and Sung China are frequently applied to the epoch retrospectively. Many of the assumptions about the early period in China are actually based on controversies between the Rinzai (C. Lin-chi) and Soto (C. Ts'ao-tung) sects that took place nearly a millennium later in late Tokugawa Japan, when mutual sectarian opposition became stiffened in part as a result of the political pressures of the period. This misleading orientation has led to inappropriate generalizations, such as that one sect throughout its entire history has endorsed koan training while another sect has not, or... koans have a single, uniform function... may have been appropriate in one historical context but not in others...
Steven Heine & Dale Wright, The Koan, p.5
I am surprised you are unaware of this well documented situation which led to such stereotypical portrayals characterizing Soto and Rinzai differences in various versions of the following statement by Reiho:
The Rinzai sect especially emphasizes the Koan, but the Soto sect does not put too much stress on it. The Soto sect lays stress on daily life; it believes that the Koan should be expressed in our daily activities.
Soto Approach to Zen by Prof. Masunaga Reiho, Chapter 9
Can you truly deny that you are unaware of the fact that the “Soto school” as you say, went to great lengths for centuries and spent much time and energy attempting to paint Dogen as “anti-koan”? This propaganda continued up until recently, as evinced by the fact that Dogen's own koan collection, Sanbyakusoku, which was officially rejected by the Soto sect (Soto corp.) as spurious for centuries, continued to be refuted even after a copy was found in Dogen's own hand, as Steven Heine explains:
Yet many Dogen specialists were still unwilling to accept the authenticity of the Sanbyakusoku, largely because its existence tended to contradict the standard image of Dogen's approach Zen practice as being fundamentally anti-koan. The general attitude was that since Dogen did not value koan practice he could not have been involved in compiling a koan collection. Consequently, the main Tokugawa commentaries on the MS were not included in the early twentieth century collections of the Soto sect.
Steven Heine, Dogen and the Koan Tradition
Moreover, the sectarian bitterness continues to be “transmitted” from “master to disciple” as can often be observed in snide, though subtle comments by Soto or Rinzai sectarian attempts to ridicule, denigrate, or smear “inferior schools” of Zen, as for instance in this barely disguised sophomoric attempt to mock the “superficiality” of the Rinzai sect by a “Certified Dharma Heir” of the same Soto teacher, if I am not mistaken, that made you a “Certified Dharma Heir.”
There is a school of Zen in which students are given these questions and required to answer them in a private meeting with their teachers. Dogen was not part of this school.
Brad Warner, Sit Down and Shut Up
PS Jundo
In your koan talk you suggested that the "Book of Equanimity" was treasured by Dogen. It appears that Dogen was actually unfamiliar with it. However, he does make reference to nearly the half of the "main cases" of SR (some in alternate versions) in his writings.
Thanks again--
Be careful of all the blood...
Ted
Hi Ted,
I believe that you are confounding "Koan introspection" Zazen and Koans as approached in Soto Zen. Case in point, the quote you cite from Prof. Masunaga is from the Intro to his Genjo Koan Translation, which Genjo Koan (as with almost all of Dogen's writings) itself includes reference to famous Koan stories including Master Hotetsu (Baoche) fanning himself. So, it seems strange that Prof. Masunaga could be saying that Soto does not use Koans when, on the very next page, he is translating Koans used by Dogen. Prof Masunaga, in his famously abominable English, appears to have merely been making a reference to Koan introspection Zazen vs. "Koan in daily life" (the full paragraph, which you don't quote, says "In the Zen sect Koan means problem to be solved. The Zen master gives it to the trainee, and the trainee thinks about it during zazen. The Rinzai sect especially emphasizes the Koan, but the Soto sect does not put too much stress on it. The Soto sect lays stress on daily life; it believes that the Koan should be expressed in our daily activities.")
And as Steven Heine makes clear in his wonderful "Dogen and the Koan Tradition", Dogen was never "anti-Koan" (since his writings are chock full of Koans from the Blue Cliff and elsewhere), but only Koan Introspection Zazen. I don't think you can open a single page of Dogen's writings without running into a classic Koan, and anyone in the Soto school who has read Dogen would know so.
I would be interested in your reference to Dogen not knowing the Tsung-jung lu, because Heine says otherwise ...
Heine at p 186
Gassho, Jundo
Hello Jundo,
Thank you for your comment.
You wrote: I believe that you are confounding "Koan introspection" Zazen and Koans as approached in Soto Zen.
I cannot help what you "believe", but the OP did not discuss any particular method or approach - as should be clear from the context, I was actually talking about the "stereotype" that Heine describes as:
"...the standard image of Dogen's approach..."
and
"The general attitude... that Dogen did not value koan practice..."
My point was that since this was the "general attitude" or "standard image" of Dogen/Soto in relation to koans - which resulted from, as is well documented, the propaganda war waged by sectarians within the Japanese Rinzai and Soto sects - and since it was a distortion of the truth (as both Dogen and at least some Soto lines did regard and treat koans as essential to authentic Zen) - How could any "sectarian" code or tenet be accepted as a reliable authority?
If this does not clarify the point I was expressing, I don't know what else to say.
In any case, thanks again.
Look out for body parts...
Ted
Hi Ted,
The history of Dogen's Koan Collection (usually called the "Sanbyakusoku" or "Mana Shobogenzo")is a little more complicated than that. It was, in fact, rediscovered in the 18th century by Soto Priest and Scholar Ein Shigetsu after being forgotten for centuries (just as the Shobogenzo itself, and most of Dogen's writings, had become forgotten for centuries). However, it almost immediately became a big hit within Soto circles even though there were doubts about its authenticity (not confirmed until modern times) and even though, as you say, some partisan elements within Soto did just as you say. It was not universal, however, and the failure to include it in Soto collections until authenticity was confirmed was due to other questions about it (see links below). So, not such a clear picture. Heine has more (from p. 9 here) ...
Heine p. 9
Menzan and many others mentioned it and appeared to accept it, with some reservations, right from the start. Here is some later information from Bodiford in Heine's more recent book, noting that much of the question on authenticity was purely because of the writing style being unlike Dogen's other writings (p. 19).
Bodiford p. 19
I am not surprised, as Menzan ... who is often portrayed as one of the instigators in these "sectarian controversies" ... was actually himself a compiler and commentator of Koan collections such as the Book of Serenity (although, as we have been discussing, Menzan was not a supporter of their use for "Koan Introspection" Kanna Zazen). David Riggs on pages 171 and 172 here, and note how Riggs says that the "sectarian divide" may be more a matter of modern folks trying to impose it on the past than what really existed at the time.
Menzan and Koans
As a side issue that you sometimes mention (I believe, pardon me if my memory fails), one thing that Heine in the link above may be too quick to say in there, by the way, is that Dogen took the name "Shobogenzo" from Ta-Hui's collection. In fact, "Shobogenzo" was a common phrase in Chan Buddhism going all the way back to the story of Buddha's holding up the flower. The term Shobogenzo (cheng-fa-yen-tsang, sometimes rendered as "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye") is an oft repeated phrase in Mahayana Buddhism found in such sources as the Nirvana Sutra and the Pao-Lin Record and elsewhere, well before the time of either Dogen or Dahui. (Pages 228 and 230 here) ...
Buddhism in the Sung
Anyway, to get back on track, the question is not at all about "Dogen" and "Soto" and the treasuring of Koans, but on how Dogen and Soto folks handled the Koans.
Anyway, always good to have these discussions with you, Ted.
Gassho, Jundo
Hello Jundo,
Thank you for your comments.
Ted
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