Dori: Reason and Rationality in Zen Part 3

Dori: Reason and Rationality in Zen Part 3

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Clarity of perception and thought evidently requires that we be generally aware of how our experience is shaped by the insight (clear or confused) provided by the theories that are implicit or explicit in our general ways of thinking. To this end, it is useful to emphasize that experience and knowledge are one process, rather than to think that our knowledge is about some sort of separate experience. We can refer to this one process as experience-knowledge (the hyphen indicating that these are two inseparable aspects of one whole movement).

Physicist David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, (1980, p.6)

From the perspective of Shobogenzo (hence Zen), accurately expressing truth has less to do with seeing the limitations of language and more to do with seeing through false presuppositions about language.

The common view that Zen is antithetical to language is, from Shobogenzo’s perspective, a distorted view based on a false assumption; the dualistic assumption that the reality of verbal expressions (written or spoken) exists independently of the reality the expressions concern. Of the many fallacies about Zen based on dualism, the delusion that the reality of Zen exists independently of the expressions of Zen is the most pernicious. To this distortion we owe the vulgar claims about Zen’s ‘ineffable’ reality, condition, or experience that is transcendent to, thus independent of, normal human capacities for communication. Notice that, since claims asserting that the truth of Zen cannot be communicated through language, are constituted of language, such claims refute their own validity!

In spite of the irrationality of such a view, this distorted notion has plagued Zen throughout the greater course of its history. Fortunately, this false view was widespread in Dogen’s own day; undoubtedly a chief reason for his comprehensive refutation of it in his writings. One of his clearest repudiations of this delusional view appears in the Sansuikyo fascicle of Shobogenzo:

 

In the nation of Great Sung China today, there is a certain type of unreliable person that has now grown to be quite a crowd. They have gotten to the point where they cannot be bested by the few true people. This bunch says such things as the following:

Just like the comments about Eno’s walking on water or the one about Nansen’s buying a scythe, what is being said is beyond anything that reason can grasp. In other words, any remark that involves the use of intellect is not the Zen talk of an Ancestor of the Buddha, whereas a remark that goes beyond anything that reason can handle is what comprises a ‘remark’ by an Ancestor of the Buddha. As a consequence, we would say that Meditation Master Obaku’s applying a stick to his disciples or Meditation Master Rinzai’s giving forth with a loud yell go far beyond rational understanding and do not involve the use of intellect. We consider this to be what is meant by the great awakening to That which precedes the arising of any discrimination. The reason why the ancient virtuous Masters so often made skillful use of verbal phrases to cut through the spiritual entanglements of their disciples was precisely because these phrases were beyond rational understanding.

 

Fellows who talk like this have never met a genuine teacher, nor do they have an eye for learning through training. They are foolish puppies who are not even worth discussing. For the past two or three centuries in the land of Sung China, such devilish imps and ‘little shavers’ like the Gang of Six have been many. Alas, the Great Way of the Buddha’s Ancestors has become diseased! This explanation of those people cannot compare even with that of the shravakas who follow the Lesser Course; it is even more confused than that of non-Buddhists. These fellows are not laity nor are they monks; they are not gods or humans. And when it comes to exploring the Buddha’s Way, they are more befuddled than beasts. The stories which the ‘little shavers’ refer to as going beyond anything that reason can grasp only go beyond anything their reason can grasp: it was not that way for any Ancestor of the Buddha. Just because they said that such stories are not subject to rational understanding, you should not fail to learn through your training what the intellectually comprehendible pathways of the Ancestors of the Buddha are. Even if these stories were ultimately beyond rational understanding, the understanding that this bunch has cannot hit the mark. Such people are in great number everywhere in Sung China, as I have personally witnessed. Sad to say, they did not recognize that the phrase ‘the use of intellect’ is itself a use of words, nor realize that a use of words may liberate us from the use of our intellect. When I was in Sung China, even though I laughed at them for their foolish views, they had nothing to say for themselves; they were simply speechless. Their present negation of rational understanding is nothing but an erroneous view. Who taught them this? Even though you may say that they have not had someone to teach them of the true nature of things, nevertheless, the fact remains that, for all intents and purposes, they still end up being offspring of the non-Buddhist notion that things arise spontaneously, independent of any form of causality.

Shobogenzo, Sansuikyo, Hubert Nearman

In his effort to rectify the issue Dogen succeeded in presenting a vision of the nature and dynamics of language unsurpassed by the world’s literary achievements. Indeed, Dogen’s treatment of language not only advanced the accumulated achievements of Buddhist thought in his day, it provided unique insight with great potential for resolving crucial challenges presently confronting the civilized world.

 

End Part 3

 

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Dori: Reason and Rationality in Zen Part 2

Dori: Reason and Rationality in Zen Part 2

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Living a human life is a philosophical endeavor. Every thought we have, every decision we make, and every act we perform is based on philosophical assumptions so numerous we couldn’t possibly list them all. We go around armed with a host of presuppositions about what is real, what counts as knowledge, how the mind works, who we are, and how we should act. Such questions, which arise out of our daily concerns, form the basic subject matter of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, and so on.

…
Though we are only occasionally aware of it, we are all metaphysicians—not in some ivory tower sense but as part of our everyday capacity to make sense of our experience. It is through our conceptual systems that we are able to make sense of everyday life, and our everyday metaphysics is embodied in those conceptual systems.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, pp.9-10

Certainly, an accurate appreciation of Dogen (or Zen) cannot be arrived at effortlessly; it may not even be possible to grasp it fully. Apart from the usual challenges concerning ancient texts (e.g. omissions, embellishments, sources, etc.), its context is vast, its style unique, and its subject profound; there will always be uncertain points. At the same time, Dogen’s writings are not cryptic, mysterious, or complicated. Most of his writings are perfectly accessible and intelligible; including his magnum opus, Shobogenzo (True Dharma-Eye Treasury).

Additionally, according to Dogen’s own writings, making a deliberate, sustained effort ‘in and through’ the study and expression of language for ‘clarifying and penetrating one’s muddled discriminative thought’ is one of the essential elements of authentic Zen practice-enlightenment itself. In the words of Hee-Jin Kim:

Enlightenment, from Dogen’s perspective, consists of clarifying and penetrating one’s muddled discriminative thought in and through our language to attain clarity, depth, and precision in the discriminative thought itself. This is enlightenment or vision.

Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, p.63

In short, coming to an accurate understanding of Shobogenzo does not require esoteric training or divination. It does however call for sustained, determined effort. Fortunately, like other comprehensive literary expressions, the work itself provides its own key, or rather, eye – the True Dharma-Eye – through which ‘clarity, depth, and precision’ are attainable. Two significant points clearly seen through the True Dharma-eye are

·         Everything that is accurate or meaningful can be expressed.

·         Anything that cannot be expressed is neither accurate nor meaningful.

 

To be continued…

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Dori: Reason and Rationality in Zen

Dori: Reason and Rationality in Zen Part 1

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[I] shall pursue the problem of reason… specifically with respect to dori (or kotowari), one of Dogen’s most favorite concepts, that connotes “truth,” “reason,” “reasonableness,” “justice,” “naturalness,” and so on. Broadly speaking, our concern has to do with reason and rationality in Dogen’s soteriology, which has been grossly neglected in Dogen studies. We may ask why we should bother with the subject in the first place when the issue is in such disrepute in this day and age of postmodernism? Hasn’t the hitherto undisputed hegemony of the Enlightenment and scientific rationalism been relentlessly challenged? In such a contemporary milieu, aren’t we already too familiar with Zen’s unconventional, irrevererent, iconographic temperament that “goes against the grain” of practically every possible cultural habit and trait? And, not surprisingly, has not comparability between Zen and postmodernism been widely exploited by a number of philosophers? All these questions are well taken. Yet, whatever the merits and demerits of postmodernism may be, I am deeply convinced more than ever that no age in human history calls for the genuine understanding and re-vision of reason more urgently than ours.

Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, pp.100-101

 

Contemporary works on Dogen, in both the scholarly and traditional community, commonly begin with apologies concerning complications inherent to his writings. Disclaimers citing the profundity of Dogen’s works appear frequently enough that such provisos nearly amount to the total knowledge of Dogen by some. Apparently dissuaded by the ‘enormous effort’ of mastering Dogen’s ‘labyrinthine symbolism,’ many decline the task of personally delving into his writings, settling instead for a summary grasp of ‘Dogen’s Zen’ as presented by the ‘enlightened’ or ‘erudite.’

Unfortunately, this trend not only makes the true vision of Dogen’s writings less well-known, but aids in perpetuating fallacies about Zen; particularly fallacies about Zen’s non-verbal, non-doctrinal, anti-intellectual bent.

Dogen’s writings – and Zen works generally, for that matter – are no less accessible than that of comparable works among the world’s great literature.

 

To be continued…

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Five Common Fallacies Concerning Dogen (and Zen):

Five common fallacies concerning Dogen (and Zen):

 

1.       The notion that duality, form, or delusion are of lesser status, significance, or actuality than nonduality, emptiness, or enlightenment.

2.       The notion that the emphasis, style, or methodology of seated meditation (zazen, shikantaza) in Dogen’s Zen is its most distinctive characteristic, or is profoundly original or exceptionally unique.

3.       The notion that Dogen (or Zen generally) regarded language or textual study as detrimental, superfluous, negligible, secondary, or inessential to authentic Zen practice-enlightenment.

4.       The notion that Zen regards intellectual pursuits or capacities as detrimental, superfluous, negligible, secondary, or inessential to authentic Zen practice-enlightenment.

5.       The notion that in Dogen’s Zen koan training and study is considered detrimental, superfluous, negligible, secondary, or inessential to authentic Zen practice-enlightenment.

 

In contrast to these fallacies, the views presented by Dogen’s vision of Zen are actually that:

 

1.       Nonduality and duality are coessential (i.e. each presupposes and is dependent on the other), emptiness and form are coessential, delusion and enlightenment are coessential.

2.       Dogen’s vision of “nonthinking” demonstrates the most essential, most original, and most characteristic aspect of Dogen’s methodology concerning the nature of Zen practice-enlightenment. Sitting meditation is given relatively little detailed attention in Dogen’s writings; what guidance it does offer is generally consistent in style and methodology with other sources of his era and earlier.

3.       Language and textual study are regarded as essential to authentic Zen practice-enlightenment.

4.       Endeavors in intellectual pursuit and the cultivation of discriminative and critical capacities are regarded as essential to authentic Zen practice-enlightenment.

5.       Extensive and intensive koan training and study are regarded as essential to authentic Zen practice-enlightenment.

 

 

 

All Buddhas and Buddhas teachings arise from this sutra. What is this sutra?

 

 

Ted

Zen Language, Thinking, and Reason

Zen Language, Thinking, and Reason

Contrary to certain popular anti-intellectual notions espoused by some within the contemporary Zen community, language, thinking, and reason – being dharmas as they are – are as essential to practice-enlightenment as every other actual element of Zen, including the practice of meditation (however that may be defined). Thinking people that have dismissed Zen because of popularized images of Zen's irrationality and antithetical attitude toward conceptual and intellectual endeavors are encouraged to reconsider Zen teachings - as expressed in its classic literature, rather than as “interpreted” by contemporary representatives. For genuine Zen masters are no different than the sages of any tradition sincerely interested in truth; thus, the classic records of Zen insist that authentic wisdom is only discovered (or evoked) by those with the true aspiration (bodhicitta) necessary for the sustained, wholehearted – and whole-minded – effort to grasp “the whole universe” (a dharma) as “a concept” (a dharma) once, twice, and a “third and fourth time” causing it to open here and now.

When, at this very moment, we glimpse the whole universe in ten directions, the situation is one that we have never experienced before: by grasping the whole universe in ten directions once and twice as a concept and a third and fourth time as a concrete thing, we cause it to open the gate of expedient methods.

~Shobogenzo, Shoho Jisso, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

In this sense, the classic Zen masters are in full agreement with Blake:

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.

And being restrain'd it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.

~William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Only a sincere desire to settle one’s own doubts, a genuine aspiration for personal certainty can furnish us with the energy and skill to “investigate it three times over” – and once this is truly actualized, there is no doubt that cannot be resolved.

Now, without directing a question to anyone else, imagine your own doubt to be a statement. Treat it as the assertion of another person and investigate it three times over, and you may find that you are rid of it already. The aforementioned thought is not an evil thought; it is just a thought at a time before clarification. And at the time of clarification, there is no effort to get rid of this thought. Opening flowers and falling leaves are naturally opening flowers and falling leaves. Thinking in which it is thought that in the Dharma-nature there can be no “opening flowers and falling leaves, is the Dharma-nature itself.

~Shobogenzo, Hossho, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Obviously, one cannot find something that one does not look for, and it is equally obvious that one cannot look for something one does not know exists. Attempting to apply Zen methods without understanding the reason (dori) one is doing so (not as infrequent as one might imagine) is not likely to result in anything more injurious than a strained knee. However, as the history of Zen in the “West” demonstrates, the outcome of attempting to apply Zen methods with deluded, simplistic, or distorted understandings of the reason for doing so (as is often encouraged by pseudo-Zen teachers) is not always so benign. While the mental, psychological, and financial torments suffered at the hands of exploitive teachers and sectarian cults have been extensively publicized and remarked upon to be familiar to even the casual reader, a number of subtler occurrences even more destructive and pernicious has gone largely unchallenged.

The “subtler occurrences” I speak of are the promotion of doctrines and methods that foster views and practices that lead to antinomian behavior at one extreme and quietist escapism at the other.  As the very nature of these destructive elements make them insensitive to language, thinking, and reason, they are inherently resistant to detection and, more significantly, extremely unresponsive to curative treatment.

The nearly universal ignorance of the nature of mythical language inherent to the common world view in combination with the prevalence of nominalism is particularly revealing in this case. A number of metaphorical (mythical) Zen expressions have proven to be extremely effective “sound-bites” when ripped out of their living, mythological context, melted down, and cast into golden calves.

For example, consider the Buddhist teaching of “practical wisdom.” The Buddhist notion of practical wisdom involves the cultivation of “responsibility” (the ability to respond) wherein practitioners develop and refine the knowledge and skill to respond appropriately and naturally (rather than according to fixed codes or formulas) in the ceaseless unfolding of reality here and now. Some (metaphorical) Zen expressions designating practical wisdom (or aspects of it) are, “as it is” and “just this” (seeing things as they are, rather than assigning them to a category), “not knowing” and “don’t know” (avoiding the preconceptions and prejudices of fixed codes, dogmas, narrow-views, and biases). Stripped of their mythical significance such expressions (or variations of them) have become literal platitudes mouthed by whole communities of “Zennists.”

Other examples include “nothing special” and “everyday mind” (metaphors indicative of the sacred or divine nature of even the most prosaic dharmas), “just sitting” (a mythic image depicting the self non-dually seated in/as the world; self/world), “no goal” and “letting be” (metaphors presenting the entangling potential of preconceived notions and unmerited expectations). We stated that the combination of factors involved in these destructive elements were “particularly revealing” because the actual result achieved by those practitioners that literalize these mythic expressions is literally “as it is” (i.e. literal) – thus, “not knowing” is literally not knowing (sheer ignorance), “just sitting” is literally just sitting (a mere physical posture), and “nothing special” is literally nothing special (average, typical, mundane, and mediocre).

Peace,
Ted

Thusness, Normality, and the Reason (dori) of Dharmas

Thusness, Normality, and the Reason (dori) of Dharmas

The notion of thusness is the Buddhist recognition and acknowledgement of the normality of all dharmas. The normality of things is the Buddha-nature of things; to see the normality of a thing is to see its thusness, that is, to see Buddha.

“I shall pursue the problem of reason… specifically with respect to dori (or kotowari), one of Dogen’s most favorite concepts, that connotes “truth,” “reason,” “reasonableness,” “justice,” “naturalness,” and so on. Broadly speaking, our concern has to do with reason and rationality in Dogen’s soteriology, which has been grossly neglected in Dogen studies. We may ask why we should bother with the subject in the first place when the issue is in such disrepute in this day and age of postmodernism?  …whatever the merits and demerits of postmodernism may be, I am deeply convinced more than ever that no age in human history calls for the genuine understanding and re-vision of reason more urgently than ours.”

Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, pp.100-101

Because in reality all dharmas are Buddha, all dharmas possess intrinsic value, even ultimate value. The ultimate value intrinsic to dharmas (their thusness, or normality) is found in and treated by Dogen according to his notion of the reason, reasonableness, or rightness of dharmas – that is the intrinsic “dori” of dharmas. The term “dori” combines “do” (tao, way, path; also, to speak, to express) and “ri” (Chinese, li; principle, pattern, order; also, to arrange, to regulate).

As the works of David L. Hall, Helmut Wilhelm, Roger T. Ames, and others demonstrate, the significance of “dori” (reason) has a profoundly subtle and wide ranging capacity. In all his works, the preeminent scholar of Dogen studies, Hee-Jin Kim, has eloquently emphasized and illumined the profound significance of dori in Dogen’s Zen. Thus, to convey the primary significance of dori as it relates to Dogen’s Zen we can do no better than offer some quotes by the grand-master himself.

It is noteworthy that the notion of do in the East Asian traditions has a single common thread, namely, the meaning of walking, journeying, or movement along a path. The Way is never extricated from the processes of phenomena themselves.

Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, p.101

All things considered, the li constitutes those patterns, rhythms, and regularities which humans discern as meaningful in carrying out their day-to-day activities, by participating in the dynamics of the natural, and according to their personal, historical, and cultural conditions and forces. Rationality is never regarded as an immutable, self-contained truth or essence transcendentally existent in a hierarchical, teleological world order, but is grasped in an ever-shifting process of human affairs in relation to nature, history, and culture.

Considered in the Buddhist context, li, like tao, attains enormous complexity in its significance: The word is employed to denote siddhanta (fundamental principle/law) and, hence such Buddhist notions as thusness, emptiness, equality…”

Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, p.102

“…li is also used to signify, for example, pramaha (to arrange, to regulate, to rectify). It is particularly noteworthy that in Hua-yen thought li (“principle”) is paired with shih (“phenomena”), and their relationship is conceived in such a way that the non-obstruction of li and shih (li-shih wu ai; rigi muge) is further refined as “the nonobstruction of shih and shih” (shih-shih wu ai; jiji muge)—in other words, the interpenetration and harmony of all phenomena.  

…Dori is broad and fexible enough in its capacity to embrace logos, mythos, ethos, and pathos; cognition, affection, and conation; nature and culture; fact and value; theoria and praxis; the self and the universe. …dori is practically oriented, enabling humans to participate in its countless configurations, rhythms, and regularities in life and the world as they discern meaningful …dori regulates, arranges, and manages, as much as it challenges, surmounts, and subverts.

Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, p.103

Peace,

Ted

Dogen, Shakyamuni, & Dualistic Views of Language, Thinking, & Reason

Our Highest Ancestor in India, Shakyamuni Buddha, once said, “The snowcapped Himalayas are a metaphor for the great nirvana.” You need to know that He is speaking metaphorically about something that can be metaphoric. ‘Something that can be metaphoric’ implies that the mountains and nirvana are somehow intimately connected and that they are connected in a straightforward manner. When He uses the term ‘snow-capped Himalayas’, He is using the actual snowcapped Himalayas as a metaphor, just as when He uses the term ‘great nirvana’, He is using the actual great nirvana as a metaphor.
Shobogenzo, Hotsu Mujo Shin, Hubert Nearman

Without seeing through the dualism of instrumentalist views of language, an accurate understanding of Zen remains impossibly out of reach. Any presuppositions (conscious or not) about words being mere signifiers, pointers, surrogates, or substitutes for “real things” (non-words) apart from themselves is inherently dualistic, thus prohibitive of the nondual experience of Zen practice-enlightenment.

The “blue sky” does not exist apart from the human mind. Even if we admit, for argument sake, that “waves” of certain lengths and frequencies exist independently of human beings, the actual experience (thus existence) of a “blue sky” could only arise if such waves interact with a human mind through a human eye. Thus, the reality of the blue sky and the words blue sky, are both produced by the exact same process with the exact same material: human experience. All “dharmas” (things, beings, events, etc.) are real particular things insofar as they are distinguished as particular things through human perception; the more distinctly they are perceived, the more real they are. We only perceive a blue sky insofar as we distinguish “blue sky” from “not-blue sky” (or “other than” blue sky). The words “blue sky” (and all their verbal and symbolic equivalents) are actualized simultaneously with the human perception of the “blue sky.”

Dogen says that Shakyamuni is speaking “about something that can be metaphoric” to emphasize that words are only significant insofar as they both contain, and are contained by (intimately connected) the real dharmas they describe (depict, portray, present). When Shakyamuni “uses the term” he is using “the actual snowcapped Himalayas” and “the actual great nirvana.” In the same way, we can only say “blue sky” meaningfully if we use the actual blue sky – the actual blue sky only becomes “actual” by being distinguished (thus, marked, or “named”) with the words “blue sky” (and their equivalents). Thus, the words (“blue sky,” “Himalayas,” and “nirvana”) are the actual dharmas (“blue sky,” “Himalayas,” and “nirvana”). For Dogen, any word that signifies or points to “something else” or “other than” is not an actual word (a real dharma); it is only a conceptual construct, an abstract notion. “A finger pointing to the moon” is not the same as “a finger pointing to something else,” nor is “the moon being pointed to by a finger” the same as “the moon not being pointed to by a finger.” The “actual moon” of “a finger pointing to the moon” is real insofar as it is “the moon” that is “pointed to by a finger.”

The term, or name of a dharma is its nature, its life; a dharma becomes a dharma (is actualized) by its being distinctly perceived, distinguished (described, discerned, marked, named, etc.). This is one of the reasons that Shakyamuni is the expression of Buddha nature in Dogen’s works; Dharma (truth) is expression (e.g. understandable explanations). That Dharma is “expression” means that Dharma is, only and always, “intelligible” (knowable, or comprehendible to the mind); the Buddha or ancestor is the being that “enlightens delusion,” “forms, emptiness,” or “fashions intelligibility” from the chaotic stream of ceaseless experience. The Buddha ancestor utilizes enlightened vision to transform general randomness, to actualize this particular thing from “thusness,” that particular meaning from “suchness.”

The view that the significance or meaning of a word exists somewhere outside of the word itself is based on the same kind of dualism that divides emptiness from form, mind from body, existence form time, and appearance from reality. Like all the myriad dharmas, the true “form” and the true “essence” of a word are never construed as two different things in Dogen’s Zen. True words, like all expressions of truth, are only and always fashioned by the creative force of the true human being (Buddha nature). The significance of a word, then, does not, and cannot exist in some “external world” apart from itself. For Dogen, a word (form) and its meaning (essence) constitute one and the same dharma (thing, being, event, etc.) as nondualistically as body-mind, existence-time, and practice-enlightenment.

Advocates of “correspondence” theories conceive of words as mere artificial (or provisional) “representatives” or “surrogates” of “real dharmas” that exist in the outside world (e.g. things, beings, events, etc.) or in the mind (e.g. ideas, concepts, thoughts, etc.). For such theorists, a word can have only one definite meaning, the one meaning that “corresponds” to a reality that exists “objectively” apart from the word. Dogen (and Buddhism) denies the nondual basis of such theories; for him the meaning or significance of a word is totally unique to its dharma-position. That is to say, the meaning of a word is unique to each actual instance of its appearance, depending on its particular context as well as the particular hearer or reader.

The speculative theorist that fails to see that the “dictionary meaning” of a word is an abstraction, and therefore general, and approximate, will fail to perceive the significance of Dogen’s (hence, Zen’s) expressions. For Dogen, a real word is a real dharma, and like all dharmas, its reality (in existence-time), and thus its meaning, is unique to each and every actual instance of its occurrence. Also like all dharmas, each word is a particular manifestation of the totality of existence-time – when one word is illumined, the rest of existence-time is darkened (thus present, potent). Herein lies the reason for the centrality of language in Dogen’s Zen; to Buddha ancestors a word, as a dharma-position, is a focal point of existence-time to which all sounds, forms, voices, expressions, and meanings radiate out from and return to – in short, a true word encompasses and is encompassed by the infinite potential of Buddha nature, and is therefore charged with an infinite potential of meanings.

Words, then, like all real forms (dharmas), display the attributes of real existents (a temporal form, or body) insofar as they are actually perceived (experienced) by human beings. True “perception” being synonymous, in Dogen’s Zen, with true activity, expression, and understanding, to perceive a word is to actualize the koan (genjokoan) here and now – “I” make the word what it is, the word makes me what “I” am. Thus, we can sense the wonder and urgency of Hee-Jin Kim’s words in, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, as he forcefully reiterates one of the central principles resonating throughout his works; listen again to Kim’s refrain that so often goes unheeded:

Language, thinking, and reason constitute the key to both zazen and koan study within Dogen’s praxis-oriented Zen. The koan’s and zazen’s function is not excoriate and abandon the intellect and its words and letters, but rather to liberate and restore them in the Zen enterprise. In short, enlightenment is not brought about by direct intuition (or transcendent wisdom) supplanting the intellect and its tools, but in and through their collaboration and corroboration in search of the expressible in deeds, words, and thoughts for a given situation (religious and secular). Zazen and koan in this respect strive for the same salvific aspiration of Zen. The language of the old-paradigm koan (kosoku koan) becomes a living force in the workings of the koan realized in life (genjo koan). With their reclaimed legitimacy in Zen, language, thinking, and reason now enable practitioners to probe duality and nonduality, weigh emptiness, and negotiate the Way. Method and realization, rationality and spirituality, thinking and praxis, go hand-in-hand in Dogen’s Zen. Such is “the reason of words and letters” (monji no dori).
Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking, p.78

Please note that Kim does not deny the significance of satori or kensho (direct intuition) or suggest it be replaced by the “intellect and its tools” (i.e. language, thinking, and reason), but that the two need to collaborate and corroborate. Indeed, one obvious inconsistency of views asserting the nonessential or provisional role of “words and letters” is that the very “reason” of such assertions, which implicitly posit the irrationality of Zen (hence Buddhism), deny the possibility of their own validity.

Now, it is the infinite potential of meaning inherent to words that necessitates, and makes possible, the “search” and “striving”, in Kim’s terms, for the expressible and salvific expressions (deeds, words, and thoughts) of Dogen’s “praxis-oriented Zen.” As long as words are confined to the general meanings of dictionaries, they remain abstract potentials, possibilities so broad (infinite) that any significance they may have could only be considered vague at best. This is exactly similar to the state of sense experience in the absence of any organization or arrangement. And, just as the Buddha ancestor “fashions a universe” and “fashions a self” with the selection and arrangement of “bits and pieces” of existence-time, so she fashions expressions of truth with the selection and arrangement of words. Just as “bits and pieces” of existence-time only become real, particular things (dharmas) when they are actually fashioned, formed, or pictured, so the infinite potential of words only achieve real, specific meaning when they are actually fashioned, formed, or expressed.

Dogen’s profound insight into the infinite potential of words and letters would also helps to account for his apparent disfavor of systematic or formulaic classifications and devices. As mentioned previously, Dogen’s lack of any explicit use of Zen devices (e.g. Five Ranks, Positions of Host and Guest, etc.) in his own works probably has less to do with his rejection of their validity as expressions of truth and more to do with his view of the infinite potential language, and the absolute uniqueness of every true expression of Buddha nature.

Peace,
Ted