Bendowa: Negotiating the Way – Authentic Zen Practice-Enlightenment
From the perspective of Shobogenzo’s, reality itself consists of the expression of Dharma, an
unceasing advance into novelty; Zen practice-enlightenment (shusho) is genjokoan, ‘actualizing
the fundamental point’ – the ceaseless actualization of existence-time, fully inclusive of past, present, and
future. In Dogen’s vision, Zen practice-enlightenment is only and always an ongoing
creative discernment-and-realization of Buddha nature here-now – the presentation
(making present) of one’s true self ‘as it is.’ Thus, practice-enlightenment
consists of clearly seeing (accurately discerning, understanding, etc.) the
true nature of reality, things, beings, and events (i.e. dharmas) as they are here-now, thereby harmonizing
one’s thoughts, words, and deeds to the truth in and as the self/world. To
clarify, consider Hee-Jin Kim’s analysis of the following passage from Bendowa; one of Dogen’s clearest
articulations of his view of practice-enlightenment (Kim, following Abe &
Waddell, translates Bendowa as ‘negotiating the Way’). Dogen writes:
The
endeavor to negotiate the Way (bendo),
as I teach now, consists in discerning all things in view of enlightenment, and
putting such a unitive awareness (ichinyo)
into practice in the midst of the revaluated world (shutsuro).
Bendowa (Translated by Hee-Jin Kim)
Dr. Kim clarifies the salient points to bring the
significant implications into relief thus:
This
statement clearly sets forth practitioners’ soteriological project as
negotiating the Way in terms of (1) discerning the nondual unity of all things
that are envisioned from the perspective of enlightenment and (2) enacting that
unitive vision amid the everyday world of duality now revalorized by
enlightenment. Needless to say, these two aspects refer to practice and
enlightenment that are nondually one (shusho
itto; shusho ichinyo).
Hee-Jin
Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen,
p.21
Authentic Zen practice-enlightenment consists of
‘these two aspects’ – discerning
dharmas as they are, and actualizing
that discernment here-now.
In other words, the practice-enlightenment
advocated by Dogen consists of discerning
the true (nondual) nature of all things, beings, and events (i.e. dharmas) with
the Dharma-Eye (from the enlightened perspective) and conducting oneself
here-now accordingly (enacting that vision amid the world of duality).
[Note: It is worth noting that the
‘practice-enlightenment’ (shusho)
advocated by Dogen (hence Zen) diverges from the ‘practice-enlightenment’ advocated
by the majority of contemporary Zen teachers. Few contemporary Zen teachers
advocate ‘discerning the true nature of all dharmas’ much less ‘enacting’ that
discernment ‘amid the world of duality.’ Therefore, whatever most contemporary teachers
do proclaim as ‘practice-enlightenment,’ it must be different from that
expounded by the classic Zen records.
Judging from the classic Zen records, however, this
situation is not unique to contemporary Zen; authentic practice-enlightenment
has evidently always been something engaged by the few rather than the many. In
harmony with those records, then, I don’t say there are no contemporary teachers that proclaim authentic
practice-enlightenment, I only say there are few.
It is not necessary to detail exactly what the
majority of contemporary Zen teachers do advocate
as practice-enlightenment except to explain my reason for making the point in
negative terms, which may be telling enough. I stated this in terms of what ‘is
not’ advocated as practice-enlightenment rather than ‘what is’ advocated
because there is very little consensus among contemporary Zen teachers in
regard to what authentic practice-enlightenment actually consists in/of.]
To understand the discourse of Shobogenzo we
need to understand Shobogenzo’s view of what a ‘Buddha’s discourse’ or ‘expression
of Buddha’ is. In Shobogenzo, a Buddha’s discourse is essentially a
form of Buddha; an instance of the
Buddha-Dharma. Specifically, an expression of Buddha is a phenomenal
manifestation of true nature – that which is expounded, conveyed, transmitted,
or otherwise actualized by Buddha (which in Shobogenzo is “Total
Existence”, as in “Total is existence is Buddha-nature” [Bussho fascicle], “This Mind is Buddha” [Soku Shin Ze Butsu fascicle], etc). In sum, then,
as an expression of Buddha, Shobogenzo (like every dharma) is what it
is, as it is.
Now, in light of Dogen’s view of Zen
practice-enlightenment (as underscored by Hee-Jin Kim), how can we discern
whether Shobogenzo presents genuine Buddhism and not pseudo-Buddhism or
something else? By discerning its form; Shobogenzo claims to communicate
wisdom for actualizing personal certainty concerning one's own true nature.
Therefore, to assess Shobogenzo, one need only discern and apply what it
communicates. If one thereby realizes certainty concerning true nature, Shobogenzo
is thereby confirmed as being what it proclaims.
The Shoho Jisso fascicle of Shobogenzo
elucidates the nature of the enlightened wisdom of Buddhism by focusing
attention on a passage from a scripture in which Shakyamuni Buddha identifies
the ‘supreme enlightenment (anuttara
samyaksambodhi)
of all bodhisattvas’ as ‘belonging’ to (i.e. having its origin or abode in) ‘this
sutra’ and explains that:
This sutra opens the gate of
expedient methods and reveals true real form.
Shobogenzo,
Shoho Jisso, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross
After clarifying that a ‘bodhisattva’ is synonymous
to or equal with a ‘Buddha or Buddha ancestor’ – Shobogenzo underscores
the fact that this very expression (wherein Shakyamuni identifies enlightenment
with this sutra) is ‘in every case’ no
other than ‘this sutra.’ To further emphasize the radically nondual nature
of a Buddha’s discourse (‘this sutra’) and ‘complete enlightenment,’ Shobogenzo
goes on to assert that the
experience of (i.e. subjective encounter with) ‘this sutra’ and what is
experienced (i.e. objectively encountered) as ‘this sutra’ are
coessential elements of ‘this sutra’ itself – the subject and
object of ‘this sutra’ are, as they are, ‘this sutra’ as it is:
The subject of ‘belonging’ and
the object of ‘belonging’ are both ‘this sutra.’
Shobogenzo,
Shoho Jisso, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross
Notice
that if both the subject and the object of a Buddha’s expression
(‘this sutra’) are equally an
expression of Buddha (‘this sutra’), then the being that ‘experiences’ a
Buddha’s discourse and the Buddha’s discourse that is ‘experienced’ are coextensive and coessential. In
short, Dogen's words explicitly contend that ‘Buddhist expressions’ experience
‘Buddhas.’ In such a case not only are the expresser and the expressed
interdependent, all objects and subjects are interdependent. At this
very moment, are we discoursing on expressions of Buddha – or are Buddha
discourses expressing us?
At this very moment, ‘this sutra’
really experiences ‘all bodhisattvas.’
Shobogenzo,
Shoho Jisso, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross
With
this we can see why an accurate understanding of the nature of the self and the
world (i.e. subject and object, perceiver and perceived) is inherently inaccessible
through the non-mythopoeic, literally descriptive language of the contemporary
world view (or any world view grounded in dualism for that matter). The reason
that the true nature (actual reality) of subjects and objects cannot be
expressed or understood in the language of dualism is because the
reality of subjects and objects is nondual. Attempting to arrive at a true
understanding by beginning from a false view is, in Zen terms, like attempting
to go South by travelling toward the North Star.
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