The Authentic Buddha Dharma - Which Zen is Zen? Part 2

The Authentic Buddha Dharma – Which Zen is Zen? Part 2

(Continued from Part 1 The Authentic Buddha Dharma – Which Zen is Zen? Part 1 )

 

Dogen’s decision to express the ‘right view’ concerning the significance of how and why the ‘one-vehicle’ or authentic Buddha Dharma came to be identified with notion that ‘Zen’ (Chinese; ch’an, Indian; dhyana) was a distinct school or sect of Buddhism was certainly not an arbitrary or spur-of-the-moment event. According to the journal that is supposed to represent the record of Dogen’s time in China studying under Master Ju-ching, this was a question that raised serious concerns for Dogen personally. For example, in one of his evidently early interviews with his teacher (prior to Dogen’s own awakening experience, also recorded in this journal), we read:

 

[Dogen] asked: ‘If the Great Way of all the buddhas and patriarchs cannot be confined to one narrow corner, why do we insist on calling it the Ch’an School?’

 

Ju-ching replied: ‘We must not arbitrarily call the Great Way of the buddhas and patriarchs the Ch’an School. The Ch’an School is a false name that is lamentable indeed. It is the name of bald-headed little beasts have been using. All the ancient virtuous ones of the past knew this. Have you ever read Shih-men lin-chien lu?’

 

Dogen replied: ‘I have not yet read the book.’

 

Ju-ching said: ‘If you read through it once, it will be sufficient. The purport of the book is correct.

Hokyo-ki, Dogen’s Formative Years in China, Takashi James Kodera

 

This citation nicely brings us to the next section of the Shobogenzo, Butsudo fascicle – the fascicle we have been discussing wherein Dogen presents his most comprehensive view of the matter. For the next section begins with a quote from the text that Ju-ching advised Dogen to read on the subject; the Shih-men lin-chien lu (Sekimon’s Rinkanroku).

 

Sekimon’s Rinkanroku says:

 

Bodhidharma first went from the land of the Liang dynasty to the land of the Wei dynasty. He passed along the foot of Suzan Mountain and rested his staff at Shorin [Temple]. He just sat in stillness facing the wall, and only that—he was not learning Zen meditation. He continued his for a long time but no one could understand the reason, and so they saw Bodhidharma as training in Zen meditation. Now, dhyana is only one of many practices: how could it be all there was to the Saint? Yet on the basis of this [misunderstanding] the chroniclers of that time subsequently listed him among those who were learning Zen meditation: they grouped him alongside people like withered trees and dead ash. Nevertheless, the Saint did not stop at dhyana; and at the same time, of course, he did not go against dhyana—just as the art of divination emerges from yin and yang without going against yin and yang.

Shobogenzo, Butsudo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

 

Now, immediately following his quotation of this record, Dogen comments:

 

Calling him the twenty-eighth patriarch is on the basis that [Maha]kasyapa is the first patriarch. Counting from Vipasyin Buddha, he is the thirty-fifth patriarch. The Seven Buddhas’ and twenty-eight patriarchs’ experience of the truth should not necessarily be limited to dhyana. Therefore the master of the past says, “Dhyana is only one of many practices; how could it be all there was to the Saint?” This master of the past has seen a little of people and has entered the inner sanctum of the ancestral patriarchs, and so he has these words. Throughout the great kingdom of Song these days [such a person] might be difficult to find and might hardly exist at all. Even if [the important thing is] dhyana we should never use the name “Zen sect.” Still more, dhyana is never the whole importance of the Buddha-Dharma. Those who, nevertheless, willfully call the great truth that is authentically transmitted from buddha to buddha “the Zen sect” have never seen the Buddha’s truth even in a dream, have never heard it even in a dream, and have never received its transmission even in a dream. Do not concede that the Buddha-Dharma might even exist among people who claim to be “the Zen sect.” Who has invented the name “Zen sect”? None of the buddhas and ancestral masters has ever used the name “Zen sect.” Remember, the name “Zen sect” has been devised by demons and devils. People who have called themselves a name used by demons and devils may themselves be a band of demons; they are not the children and grandchildren of the Buddhist patriarchs.

Shobogenzo, Butsudo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

 

Following Dogen’s presentation of the significance of the fallacious view, he presents a clear view of what he regards to be the accurate expression of Buddhist mythology:

 

The World-honored One, before an assembly of millions on Vulture Peak, picks up an uḍumbara flower and winks. The assembly is totally silent. Only the face of Venerable Mahakasyapa breaks into a smile. The World-honored One says, “I have the right Dharma-eye treasury and the fine mind of nirvana; along with the saṃghaṭi robe, I transmit them to Mahakasyapa. The World-honored One’s transmission to Mahakasyapa is “I have the right Dharma-eye treasury and the fine mind of nirvana.” In addition to this there is no “I have the Zen sect and I transmit it to Mahakasyapa.” He says “along with the saṃghaṭi robe;” he does not say “along with the Zen sect.” Thus, the name “Zen sect” is never heard while the World-honored One is in the world.

Shobogenzo, Butsudo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

 

 

To Be Continued…

The Authentic Buddha Dharma – Which Zen is Zen? Part 1

The Authentic Buddha Dharma – Which Zen is Zen? Part 1

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Within the contemporary Zen community the term ‘Zen,’ when used as a designation for the 1500 year old tradition known as Zen Buddhism, is frequently used in ways that hardly suggest there is much universal agreement about what Zen Buddhism is. That is, while it is usually pretty clear that the term Zen is supposed to designate authentic Buddhism (the Buddha Dharma, Buddha Tao, or Buddha Way), the many various speakers and writers that identify themselves as Zen adherents or representatives often portray widely divergent versions of Zen doctrine and methodology. While it would be an exercise in futility to make any attempt to sort out all the variations of contemporary Zen in order to come to some clear vision as to ‘authentic Zen,’ we can at least get a fairly good vision of what it is that the Zen master Eihei Dogen regarded as the authentic Buddha Dharma.

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In 1243 – at the very peak of his creative powers – Dogen wrote Butsudo (Butsu; Buddha, do [tao]; way, truth, path), a fairly long fascicle of Shobogenzo presenting a clear account of his own view of the matter. The Butsudo fascicle (which Nishijima & Cross translate as “The Buddhist Truth”) begins with a quote by the sixth [Zen] ancestor Huineng (Sokei) followed by comments from Dogen thus:

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The eternal buddha Sokei on one occasion preaches to the assembly, “From Eno to the Seven Buddhas there are forty patriarchs.” When we investigate these words, from the Seven Buddhas to Eno are forty buddhas. When we count the buddhas and the patriarchs, we count them like this. When we count them like this, the Seven Buddhas are seven patriarchs, and the thirty-three patriarchs are thirty-three buddhas. Sokei’s intention is like this. This is the right and traditional instruction of the Buddha. Only the rightful successors of the authentic transmission have received the authentic transmission of this counting method. From Sakyamuni Buddha to Sokei there are thirty-four patriarchs. Each of the transmissions between these Buddhist patriarchs is like Kasyapa meeting the Tathagata and like the Tathagata getting Kasyapa. Just as Sakyamuni Buddha learns in practice under Kasyapa Buddha, each teacher and disciple exists in the present. Therefore, the right Dharma-eye treasury has been personally transmitted from rightful successor to rightful successor, and the true life of the Buddha-Dharma is nothing other than this authentic transmission. The Buddha-Dharma, because it is authentically transmitted like this, is perfectly legitimate in its transmission. This being so, the virtues and the pivotal essence of the Buddha’s truth have been faultlessly provided. They have been transmitted from India in the west to the Eastern Lands, a hundred thousand and eight miles, and they have been transmitted from the time when the Buddha was in the world until today, more than two thousand years. People who do not learn this truth in practice speak randomly and mistakenly. They randomly call the right Dharma-eye treasury and the fine mind of nirvana that have been authentically transmitted by the Buddhist patriarchs “the Zen sect”; they call the ancestral master “the Zen patriarch”; they call practitioners “Zen students” or “students of dhyana”; and some of them call themselves “the Zen schools.” These are all twigs and leaves rooted in a distorted view. Those who randomly call themselves by the name “Zen sect,” which has never existed in India in the west or in the Eastern Lands, from the past to the present, are demons out to destroy the Buddha’s truth. They are the Buddhist patriarchs’ uninvited enemies.

Shobogenzo, Butsudo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

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Dogen’s comments here are probably clear enough – “This is the right and traditional instruction of the Buddha” – that is, the issue at hand here is what he regards as authentic Zen, or the genuine Buddha Dharma. Before going on to the next section however, it is worth emphasizing the importance of carefully considering the point that Dogen brings into relief with his expression that, “Just as Sakyamuni Buddha learns in practice under Kasyapa Buddha, each teacher and disciple exists in the present.” In Kazuaki Tanahashi translation of Butsudo, “This being so, the function, the essence, of the buddha way, is present with nothing lacking.” The point to get at is that whatever authentic Zen is, it (the function, the essence, each teacher and disciple, etc.) exists here-now (“in the present”, “is present with nothing lacking”).

 

The Authentic Buddha Dharma – Which Zen is Zen? Part 2

The True Dharma-Eye Treaurury (Shobogenzo) 65 Gems From Dogen

Nils - Happy 65^th

 

65 Gems From the True Dharma-Eye Treaurury

 

 

1.   When this principle is preached and realized, it is said that “matter is just the immaterial” and the immaterial is just matter. Matter is matter, the immaterial is the immaterial. They are hundreds of things, and myriad phenomena.

Shōbōgenzō Maka-hannya-haramitsu

 

2.   And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.

Shōbōgenzō Genjō-kōan

 

3.   Life is an instantaneous situation, and death is also an instantaneous situation.

Shōbōgenzō Genjō-kōan

 

4.   Realization is the state of ambiguity itself.

Shōbōgenzō Genjō-kōan

 

5.   The sun’s face appears together with the sun’s face, and the moon’s face appears together with the moon’s face.

Shōbōgenzō Ikka-no-myōju

 

6.   When stupid people hear talk of “mind here and now is buddha,” they interpret that ordinary beings’ intellect and sense perception, which have never established the bodhi-mind, are just buddha.

Shōbōgenzō Soku-shin-ze-butsu

 

7.   The Dharma is rarely met.

Shōbōgenzō Raihai-tokuzui

 

8.   This being so, we should hope that even trees and stones might preach to us, and we should request that even fields and villages might preach to us. We should question outdoor pillars, and we should investigate even fences and walls.

Shōbōgenzō Raihai-tokuzui

 

9.   A monk asks Zen Master Chōsha [Kei]shin, “How can we make mountains, rivers, and the earth belong to ourselves?” The master says, “How can we make ourselves belong to mountains, rivers, and the earth?” This says that ourselves are naturally ourselves, and even though ourselves are mountains, rivers, and the earth, we should never be restricted by belonging.

Shōbōgenzō Keisei-sanshiki

 

10.                Right and wrong are time; time is not right or wrong. Right and wrong are the Dharma; the Dharma is not right or wrong.

Shōbōgenzō Shoaku-makusa

 

11.                We put our self in order, and see [the resulting state] as the whole universe.

Shōbōgenzō Uji

 

12.                Let us pause to reflect whether or not any of the whole of existence or any of the whole universe has leaked away from the present moment of time.

Shōbōgenzō Uji

 

13.                The mountains and water of the present are the realization of the words of eternal buddhas.

Shōbōgenzō Sansuigyō

 

14.                At the present time in the great kingdom of Song, there is a group of unreliable fellows who have now formed such a crowd that they cannot be beaten by a few real [people].

Shōbōgenzō Sansuigyō

 

15.                The Buddha says, “All dharmas are ultimately liberated; they are without an abode.” Remember, although they are in the state of liberation, without any bonds, all dharmas are abiding in place.

Shōbōgenzō Sansuigyō

 

16.                The present is the reality85 as it is of the real form, the real nature, the real body, the real energy, the real causes, and the real effects of the Flower of Dharma turning.

Shōbōgenzō Hokke-ten-hokke

 

17.                This being so, the present is the “form as it is” of the state of experience, and even “alarm, doubt, and fear” are nothing other than reality as it is.

Shōbōgenzō Hokke-ten-hokke

 

18.                When we carefully consider this story of the meeting between the old woman and Tokusan, Tokusan’s lack of clarity in the past is audible [even] now.

Shōbōgenzō Shin-fukatoku

 

19.                A foreigner appears, a foreigner is reflected—one hundred and eight thousand of them. A Chinese person appears, a Chinese person is reflected—for a moment and for ten thousand years. The past appears, the past is reflected; the present appears, the present is reflected; a buddha appears, a buddha is reflected; a patriarch appears, a patriarch is reflected.

Shōbōgenzō Kokyō

 

20.                In the house of the Buddhist patriarchs, some experience it directly and some do not experience it directly, but reading sutras and requesting the benefit [of the teaching] are the common tools of everyday life.

Shōbōgenzō Kankin

 

21.                This sitting in zazen is not learning Zen concentration.

Fukanzazengi

 

22.                The whole universe is utterly without objective molecules: here and now there is no second person at all.

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

23.                The buddha-nature is always total existence, for total existence is the buddha-nature.

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

24.                If you want to know this “buddha-nature,” remember, “causes and circumstances as real time” are just it.

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

25.                The Fifth Patriarch says, “The buddha-nature is emptiness [ku; shunyata], so we call it being without”[mu].  This clearly expresses that “emptiness” is not nonexistence.

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

(Note: Dogen’s comment, “This clearly expresses that ‘emptiness’ is not nonexistence”, reads, in the original, “kū wa mu ni ara zu”, thus, “kū is not mu,” or “śūnyatā is not nonexistence.” Nishijima & Cross)

 

26.                This emptiness is beyond the emptiness of “matter is just emptiness.” [At the same time,] “matter is just emptiness” describes neither matter being forcibly made into emptiness nor emptiness being divided up to produce matter. It may describe emptiness in which emptiness is just emptiness. “Emptiness in which emptiness is just emptiness” describes “one stone in space.”

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

27.                To affirm [the buddha-nature] as the miscellaneous circumstances manifest before us is “to command the style of behavior that is free of hindrances.”

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

28.                A monk asks Great Master Shinsai of Jōshū, “Does even a dog have the buddha-nature or not?”

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

29.                We should clarify the meaning of this question.

Shōbōgenzō Busshō

 

30.                At this dharma [reality] has “already arrived.” At that dharma [reality] has “already arrived.”

Shōbōgenzō Gyōbutsu-yuigi

 

31.                [To research] this truth of moment-by-moment utter entrustment, we must research the mind. In the mountain-still state of such research, we discern and understand that ten thousand efforts are [each] the mind being evident, and the triple world is just that which is greatly removed from the mind. This discernment and understanding, while also of the myriad real dharmas, activate the homeland of the self. They make immediate and concrete the vigorous state of the human being in question.

Shōbōgenzō Gyōbutsu-yuigi

 

32.                If I put it in words, “expounding the mind and expounding the nature” is the pivotal essence of the Seven Buddhas and the ancestral masters.

Shōbōgenzō Sesshin-sesshō

 

33.                In conclusion, we should know that in the Buddha’s truth there are inevitably Buddhist sutras; we should learn in practice, as the mountains and the oceans, their universal text and their profound meaning; and we should make them our standard for pursuing the truth.

Shōbōgenzō Bukkyō

 

34.                Because they are too stupid to understand the meaning of the Buddhist sutras for themselves, they randomly insult the Buddhist sutras and neglect to practice and learn them. We should call them flotsam in the stream of non-Buddhism.

Shōbōgenzō Kenbutsu

 

35.                We should realize in experience that every single thing is truly “something.” “Something” is not open to doubt: “it comes like this.”

Shōbōgenzō Inmo

 

36.                When we have the will to venerate the ancients, the ancient sutras come to the present and manifest themselves before us.

Shōbōgenzō Gyōji

 

37.                In the great truth of the Buddha-Dharma, the sutras of the great thousandfold [world] are present in an atom, and countless buddhas are present in an atom. Each weed and each tree are a body-mind. Because the myriad dharmas are beyond appearance, even the undivided mind is beyond appearance. And because all dharmas are real form, every atom is real form. Thus, one undivided mind is all dharmas, and all dharmas are one undivided mind, which is the whole body.

Shōbōgenzō Hotsu-mujōshin

 

38.                Just at this moment, how is it? We might say, “it is completely beyond necessity.”

Shōbōgenzō Bukkyo

 

39.                The mystical power and wondrous function,

Carrying water and lugging firewood.

 

40.                We must investigate this truth thoroughly.

Shōbōgenzō Jinzū

 

41.                The time that is just the moment of this [realization] is now.

Shōbōgenzō Daigo

 

42.                The question “What is it like at the time when a person in the state of great realization returns to delusion?” truly asks a question that deserves to be asked.

Shōbōgenzō Daigo

 

43.                For example, while I see the “I” of yesterday as myself, yesterday I called [the “I” of] today a second person. We do not say that present realization was not there yesterday; neither has it begun now. We should grasp it in experience like this.

Shōbōgenzō Daigo

 

44.                Nangaku says, “When you are [practicing] sitting buddha, that is just killing buddha.” This says further that when we are investigating sitting buddha, the virtue of killing buddha is present. The very moment of sitting buddha is the killing of “buddha.” If we want to explore the good features and the brightness of killing buddha, they are always present in sitting buddha. The word “to kill” is as [used by] the common person, but we should not blindly equate [its usage here] with that of the common person. Further, we should investigate the state in which sitting buddha is killing buddha, [asking:] “What forms and grades does it have?” Taking up [the fact] that, among the virtues of buddha, killing buddha is already present, we should learn in practice whether we ourselves are killing a person or not yet killing a person.

Shōbōgenzō Zazenshin

 

45.                Those who have not illuminated each dharma, dharma by dharma, cannot be called clear eyed, and they are not the attainment of the truth; how could they be Buddhist patriarchs of the eternal past and present?

Shōbōgenzō Zazenshin

 

46.                The present words of master and disciple we should without fail examine in detail.

Shōbōgenzō Butsu-kōjō-no-ji

 

47.                We ourselves are tools that it possesses within this universe in ten directions.

Shōbōgenzō Inmo

 

48.                How do we know that it exists? We know it is so because the body and the mind both appear in the universe, yet neither is ourself.

Shōbōgenzō Inmo

 

49.                The body, already, is not “I.” Its life moves on through days and months, and we cannot stop it even for an instant.

Shōbōgenzō Inmo

 

50.                Do not pass time in vain.

Shōbōgenzō Gyōji

 

51.                The integrated form that is “composed” of “real dharmas,” is “this body.”

Shōbōgenzō Kai-in-zanmai

 

52.                So is there any Buddhist patriarch who is other than the hundred weeds? And how could the hundred weeds be other than “I” and “you”?

Shōbōgenzō Juki

 

53.                Without being objective things, [cedar trees] cannot be cedar trees.

Shōbōgenzō Hakujushi

 

54.                To see and hear the brightness of the self is proof of having directly encountered buddha; it is proof of having met buddha.

Shōbōgenzō Kōmyō

 

55.                The Buddha’s truth is such that if we intend not to practice the truth we cannot attain it, and if we intend not to learn [the truth] it becomes more and more distant.

Shōbōgenzō Shinjin-gakudō

 

56.                This I preach as a dream in a dream.

Shōbōgenzō Muchū-setsumu

 

57.                Because it is the realization of experience in experience, it is “the preaching of the dream-state in the dream-state.”

Shōbōgenzō Muchū-setsumu

 

58.                The buddhas and the patriarchs are the expression of the truth.

Shōbōgenzō Dōtoku

 

59.                Buddhas are the state of experience itself, and so things are the state of experience itself.

Shōbōgenzō Gabyō

 

60.                So life is what I am making it, and I am what life is making me.

Shōbōgenzō Zenki

 

61.                What has been described like this is that life is the self, and the self is life.

Shōbōgenzō Zenki

 

62.                So although the moon was there last night, tonight’s moon is not yesterday’s moon.

Shōbōgenzō Tsuki

 

63.                Remember that space is a thing.

Shōbōgenzō Kūge

 

64.                The moment and causes-and-conditions of the present, and the lands-of-dust and space of the present, are both nothing other than the eternal mind.

Shōbōgenzō Kobusshin

 

65.                How much less could they know that the succession of the complicated continues by means of the complicated? Few have known that the succession of the Dharma is the complicated itself.

Shōbōgenzō Kattō