Human Being or Buddha?

‘A Buddha’ is what we call it when enlightenment is manifest by a human being. ‘Enlightenment’ is what we call it when an enlightened being is actualizing enlightened conduct (enlightened thoughts, words, or deeds).

When the supreme state of bodhi is a person, we call it “buddha.” When buddha is in the supreme state of bodhi, we call it “the supreme state of bodhi.”

Yui-butsu-yo-butsu, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Dogen: Existence-Time and Dharma-Transmission

Existence-Time and Dharma-Transmission

To fully appreciate of Dogen’s view of Dharma-transmission it needs to be understood within the context of the nonduality of the temporal and the eternal as presented by the essential doctrine of “existence-time” (uji). “Uji” or “existence-time” is Dogen’s uniquely dynamic vision of the nondual nature of existence (ontology, being, place [space, location]) and time (temporality, chronology, temporology).1

Many, if not most Zen students are familiar with the Dogen’s unique teaching about existence-time due to the fact that the Shobogenzo fascicle of the same name – “Uji” – was one of the earliest, and has proven to be one of the most numerous, translations made available.2 “Knowing of” Dogen’s teaching on existence-time, however, is not the same as accurately understanding it, much less verifying it in experience and incorporating it in practice-enlightenment.3

Briefly then, the significance of “existence-time” (uji) is given a central position in Dogen’s vision of Zen cosmology. This means, for one thing, that all of the implications of Dogen’s view of existence-time are presupposed as intrinsic to all his teachings.

Now, the point we want to get at is this; Dogen’s teaching on “Dharma-transmission” – when seen from within his view of existence-time – presents a remarkably dynamic vision of the universe as an ever-present activity of becoming Buddha. In short “becoming Buddha” is not something limited to the present time, not something that will cease in the future, nor something that will vanish in the past – becoming Buddha now (i.e. in the present) is not independent of becoming Buddha then (i.e. in the past or future). For Dogen then, “Dharma-transmission” describes the coordinating activity of becoming Buddha as the inherent “virtue of ascending and descending” (the up and down, or forward and back flow of “time”) of each and all things, beings, and events (dharmas) exist.

In short, the Dharma is not merely something that Buddhas and ancestors “pass on” from the past, to the present, and into the future; Dharma is also transmitted from the present to the past, and from the future to the present and the past. Thus Dogen is able to express this astonishing vision for instance:

The succession of the Dharma by ancestral patriarchs is forty patriarchs from the Seven Buddhas to Sokei and forty buddhas from Sokei to the Seven Buddhas. Because each of the Seven Buddhas has the virtue of ascending and of descending, they extend to Sokei and extend to the Seven Buddhas. Because Sokei has the virtue of ascending and of descending, he receives the authentic transmission from the Seven Buddhas, he receives the authentic transmission from Sokei, and he passes the authentic transmission to later buddhas. But it is beyond only former and later. At the time of Sakyamuni Buddha, all the buddhas of the ten directions are present; at the time of Seigen, Nangaku is present; at the time of Nangaku, Seigen is present; and so on—at the time of Sekito, Kozei is present. Their not hindering each other may be different from having no connection. We should investigate the presence of such virtue. Each of the forty Buddhist patriarchs mentioned above is an eternal buddha. At the same time, each has a mind, a body, a state of brightness, and a national land. Each has passed away long ago and has never passed away at all. It may be that both never having passed away, and having passed away long ago, are equally the virtue of an eternal buddha. Those who learn in practice the truth of eternal buddhas realize in experience the truth of eternal buddhas; they are the eternal buddhas of each age. Although the “eternal” of “eternal buddhas” is exactly the same as the “old” in “new and old,” [eternal buddhas] have completely transcended past and present; they belong directly in eternity.

Shobogenzo, Kobusshin, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Notes

1.      “Temporology” is the term applied to the “science of time” inspired by Dr Kozyrev and under active investigation at Moscow State Univeristy, which offers this brief definition on their website: “In our understanding, the ‘nature’ of time is the mechanism [that brings about] appearing changes and occurring newness in the world. To understand the ‘nature’ of time is to point to … a process, a phenomenon, a ‘carrier’ in the material world whose properties could be identified or corresponded with those of time.”

2.      The “Uji” fascicle of is probably second in popularity only to “Genjokoan” – the other popular Dogen work, “Bendowa” is not a Shobogenzo fascicle.

3.      Even the first step of incorporating the reality of existence-time (i.e. achieving an accurate understanding) cannot really be accomplished with the “Uji” fascicle alone – for “Uji” is but one chapter (fascicle, part, section) of a single, complex, literary expression consisting of (at least) seventy-four other chapters.

Peace,

Ted

Meeting An Eternal Buddha

Meeting An Eternal Buddha

[Excerpt from the newsletter – Flatbed Sutra Zen News, Dec. 2011

If, as Buddhism contends, self and other are nondual (not two) then regarding the other as self and self as other is normal, and doing otherwise is abnormal (the "other" is not only other people, but everything "other than" the self).

One practical implication of seeing (thus regarding) the other as self would be the great diminishment of greed and fear; there would be nothing to covet as everything would already be "ours" (true self) and there would be nothing to fear but our self. This would liberate us from a great deal of anguish, but the even greater result would be the opening of a vast new dimension of existence wherein our life experience would be enormously expanded and enhanced.

Awakening to a world in harmony with the vision of Shobogenzo would be to awaken to a world populated with an infinite number and diversity of conscious beings, all capable, even desirous, of intimate embrace. Thus, there is no need to go to India or Japan to meet an "eternal Buddha" - look, that pebble! There she is! Here, this tile! Here he is!

If we want to inquire into this mind, it is present in visible fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles; and if we want to experience this mind, it is present in the realization of fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles. Now, though these fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles are produced by human beings, at the same time they are words and deeds of Dharma.

...
In sum, fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles on this side are illuminating us as yonder objects; and we on this side are being illuminated by fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles as yonder objects. The fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles that exist like this as the mind of eternal buddhas are conspicuous in their brightness and in their merits, and so we can enumerate those [merits] that are numerable and we can remember those that are knowable.
Himitsu-shobogenzo, Butsu-kojo-no-ji

Peace,

Ted

Dogen vs. Dogen "interpreters"

 Dogen vs. Dogen "interpreters"

I thought I would spend a little time seeing what kind of online sources concerning Dogen’s teachings were becoming available in recent years – I was disappointed, but not too surprised…

It seems all too common to find “Zen teachers” that claim to be “interpreters” of Dogen’s teachings, who seem rather to be saying things in direct contradiction to Dogen’s own writings. For example:

Michael Eido Luetchford, Soto Zen Teacher at Dogen Sangha Buddhist Group, from the online transcript http://www.dogensangha.org.uk/Talks/cz09_purposeofzazen.pdf

There were Japanese teachers in the Rinzai tradition (not including Rinzai himself), who taught that if you practise Zazen, you can get something very special which they called enlightenment. This creates in the person who is practising Zazen a kind of hope and eagerness to get something better, to become special, to get to some special state. But according to the teachings of Dogen, the thirteenth century monk whose teachings I follow, Zazen is giving up all those kinds of hopes and all those kinds of beliefs, and all hope of becoming a better person.

Michael Eido Luetchford [emphasis added]

What is this? All of the Zen masters taught that awakening the bodhi mind (which “they called enlightenment”) is the foremost task of Zen practitioners. To claim that Dogen did not consider enlightenment as essential is to deny Dogen’s own constant exhortations to the contrary. Here are a few random examples:

Clearly remember: in the Buddhist patriarchs’ learning of the truth, to awaken the bodhi-mind is inevitably seen as foremost. This is the eternal rule of the Buddhist patriarchs.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Hotsu-Bodaishin, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross, [emphasis added]

The training that we undertake to directly experience supreme, fully perfected enlightenment sometimes makes use of our good spiritual friends and sometimes makes use of sutras.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Kankin, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross [emphasis added]

In order to ultimately realize the prediction of Buddhahood, just as ever so many Ancestors of the Buddha have done, one trains in order to manifest one’s genuine enlightenment.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Juki, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross [emphasis added]

Michael Eido Luetchford goes on to assert another typical sound-bit that simply seems to ignore Dogen’s own clear teachings to the contrary. Here is Michael Eido Luetchford on “Dogen”:

 

Then there are many other forms of meditation where people consciously have something in their mind or are consciously meditating on some kind of subject or some kind of image. But that kind of practice is completely different from Zazen.

Michael Eido Luetchford[emphasis added]
 

And here is Dogen on Dogen:

 

At the very time of your sitting, you should examine exhaustively whether the total world is vertical or horizontal. At that very time, what is the sitting itself? Is it wheeling about in perfect freedom? Is it like the spontaneous vigor of a leaping fish? Is it thinking? Or not thinking? Is it doing? Is it non-doing? Is it sitting within sitting? Is it sitting within body and mind? Or is it sitting that has cast off sitting within sitting, sitting within body and mind, and the like?

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Sammai-O-Zammai, Waddell & Abe [emphasis added]

[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.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Gyobutsu Yuigi, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross [emphasis added]

People who arouse a true and genuine aspiration and engross themselves in study to the full extent of their capacity, do not fail to attain. As for the description of the essential point to be mindful of, what thing must be concentrated upon, what practice is to be considered most urgent, that is as follows.

First is only that the aspiration of joyful longing be earnest.

…while travelling, abiding, sitting and reclining, in the midst of affairs as the pass, though various different events come up, he goes along seeking an opening, his mind occupied [with his quest]. With his mind so forcefully earnest, there can be no failure of attainment.

In this way, when the aspiration to seek the Way has become sincere, either during the period of sole concentration on sitting, or when dealing with illustrative example of the people of olden times, or when meeting the teacher, when one acts with true aspiration…

Unless you arouse a mind comparable to this, how will you accomplish the great task of the Buddha-Way, which cuts off the turning round of birth and death in a single instant of thought? If someone has such a mind … he will definitely attain enlightenment.

Dogen, Record of Things Heard (Shobogenzo-zuimonki), II:15, Thomas Cleary [emphasis added]

This Dharma is abundantly present in each human being, but if we do not practice it, it does not manifest itself, and if we do not experience it, it cannot be realized.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Bendowa, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross [emphasis added]

Once you attain this state of suchness and attain the harmoni­ous unity of activity and understanding possessed by the Buddha-patriarchs, you examine exhaustively all the thoughts and views of this attainment.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Sammai-O-Zammai, Waddell & Abe [emphasis added]

Again, here is Michael Eido Luetchford on “Dogen”:

Of course, in our minds we have lots of intentions all the time but in Buddhism our intention is to have no intention; my teacher often said “Our aim is no aim”.

Michael Eido Luetchford [emphasis added]

What kind of dreary Zen is this? Why would anyone pursue such a “practice”? The same thing could probably accomplished by sniffing glue… For those seeking something a bit more authentic, check out Dogen here:

You cannot realize the Buddha’s Way if you do not aim to practice the Way, and It will be ever more distant from you if you do not aim to study It. Meditation Master Nangaku Ejo once said, “It is not that your training and enlightenment are absent, but they must not be tainted with anything.”

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Shinjin Gakudo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross [emphasis added]

Mr. Luetchford is certainly not alone in making assertions suggesting that zazen is some kind of trance or detachment wherein thoughts and images are to be “stopped” somehow. For example, here is an excerpt from an online text claiming to teach Dogen’s method of zazen by Gudo Nishijima Roshi:

We avoid intentionally following a train of thought during Zazen by concentrating on maintaining the posture. Of course spontaneous thoughts and images arise in our consciousness during Zazen, but they are not important. When we notice that we are thinking about something, we should simply stop.

Gudo Nishijima Roshi http://www.dogensangha.org.uk/IBPZ/IBPZ-English.pdf

Here Dogen offers a plausible explanation for such discrepencies:

There are people who, upon hearing the phrase ‘cannot be grasped’, have simply assumed that there is nothing to be attained in either case, for these people lack the living pathway of practice. Further, there are those who say that It cannot be grasped because it is said that we already possess It from the first. How does that hit the mark?

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Shin Fukatoku, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross [emphasis added]

Whatever the case, contrast Nishijima's comment on the “unimportance” of the “thinking” mind in zazen with Dogen’s comments in this passage:

Generally speaking, there are three types of mind. “The first is the mind of chitta, which we call the discriminative mind. The second is the mind of hridaya, which we call the mind of grass and trees. The third is the mind of vriddha, which we call the True Mind.” Among these, we invariably employ the discriminative mind to arouse bodhichitta, the enlightened Mind. Bodhi is an Indian word which we call the Way, or what is True. Chitta is an Indian word which we call the discriminative mind. Without this discriminative mind we could not give rise to the enlightened Mind. I am not saying that this discriminative mind is the enlightened Mind; rather, we give rise to the enlightened Mind by means of the discriminative mind.

Dogen, Shobogenzo, Hotsu Bodai Shin, Hubert Nearman

It is truly a mystery – not really that there are people that ascribe such strange “interpretations” to Dogen’s Zen – but that there are people that find such interpretations acceptable…

Peace,

Ted

Dogen: Who Hears? Getting to the Heart of the Matter

Dogen on Who Hears? Getting to the Heart of the Matter

...

Once you have arrived at the heart of the Matter, the time when you did not understand will not have impeded your arrival. Further, getting to the heart of the Matter has not changed the fact that, previously, you did not understand. Even so, in your getting to the heart of the Matter and in your previous non-understanding, there have been the times of spring and the sounds of autumn. The reason why you have not understood even these is because your ears have been wandering about within their voices, despite the fact that they have been giving expression to It ever so loudly. As a result, their voices have not entered your ears. Your getting to the heart of the Matter will occur when their voices have penetrated your ears and you have entered a meditative state. Do not fancy that your having arrived at the heart of the Matter is of little importance and that your non-understanding was something large. You need to realize that because you will be beyond what you conceived of as being ‘you’, you will not be different from the Lord of Dharma.
Shobogenzo, Yui Butsu Yo Butsu (Trans. Rev. Hubert Nearman)

"Ordinary Beings" and "Buddhas" - Not One, Not Two

"Ordinary Beings" and "Buddhas" - Not One, Not Two
...
Shakyamuni Buddha once said in verse:

If any people give voice to this Discourse
Then they will surely be able to see Me.
But to express It for the sake of even one person
Is indeed something difficult for them to do.

So it follows from this that to be able to express the Dharma is to see Shakyamuni Buddha because, when ‘such a one’ comes to see ‘Me’, he is Shakyamuni Buddha.
Shobogenzo, Gyobutsu Iigi, Hubert Nearman

Here, I would like to consider the question concerning an apparent gap, or inconsistency between Dogen’s teaching that the reality of dharmas is dependent on individual experience, and his teaching that all beings share a common reality (Buddha nature). To frame the question; if real dharmas can only be verified by individual (subjective) experience, on what does Dogen base his affirmation of a common reality shared by all beings? In other words, if there is a reality beyond or outside of the six streams of our immediate sense perception how can we know it?

The fact is that as long as we fail to see the nonduality of reality as it is – nonduality/duality– we cannot know it. While it can be understood intellectually; such has no real liberating effect.

When we do actually verify the nonduality of reality we see it as it is, which means we see through it. According to Dogen, “Buddhas” and “ordinary beings” are distinct insofar as the former are enlightened about delusion while the later are deluded about enlightenment. This distinction recognizes the real differences between awakened and unawakened beings; it does not, however, imply a real separation between Buddhas and ordinary beings. From the common, unawakened perspective, Buddhas and ordinary beings are separate entities, from the awakened perspective of transcendent wisdom (prajna paramita), Buddhas and ordinary beings are nondual (not two).

Thus, the apparent gap between the reality experienced by Buddhas and the reality experienced by humans is itself nothing more than a misperception of reality.

Even if we misunderstand that it might be beyond the triple world, that is completely impossible. Inside, outside, and middle, beginning, middle, and end; all are the triple world. The triple world is as the triple world is seen, and a view of something other than the triple world is a mistaken view of the triple world. While in the triple world, we see views of the triple world as old nests and see views of the triple world as new twigs. The old nests were visions of the triple world, and a new twig is also a vision of the triple world.
Shobogenzo Sangai-yuishin, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Peace,
Ted

The Sole Purpose of Zen Buddhism

The Sole Purpose of Zen Buddhism
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What was given to him was given solely for the purpose that he might master the wise perception of a Buddha. It was solely the wise perception of a Buddha which he was to master—and without being averse to contemplative meditation and diligence in practice.
Shobogenzo, Butsudo, Hubert Nearman
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The fact that Dogen’s teaching is solely concerned with mastering the “wise perception of a Buddha” is a touchstone that keeps us grounded and centered in our study. Dogen’s elucidation of Buddhist doctrines and methods are given solely for the purpose that we might master the wise perception of a Buddha. He is not interested in our acquiring knowledge, learning correct ceremonial or ritualistic forms, or understanding the authentic truths or spiritual practices of Buddhism. Like all authentic Zen masters, Dogen’s task is not at all concerned with teaching people how to be Buddhists, but only with teaching them how to be Buddhas; to that end alone does Dogen make use of Buddhist doctrine and methodology.

-

Peace,

Ted

Demon-hood & Buddha-hood

How demons become Buddha

.

According to Dogen’s portrayal of the Tendai doctrine of “dharma positions,” every “thing” (dharma) abides or dwells in its own dharma position. The measure of liberation experienced by each particular thing is the measure by which that thing is true to its particularity. A dog is liberated by realizing its dog-hood, a human is liberated by realizing its humanity, a demon is liberated by fully realizing its demon-hood.

In learning in practice like this, when demons become buddha, they utilize the demon to defeat the demon and to become buddha. When buddhas become buddha, they utilize buddha to aim at buddha and to become buddha. When human beings become buddha, they utilize the human being to regulate the human being and to become buddha. We should investigate the truth that a way through exists in the utilization itself. It is like the method of washing a robe, for example: water is dirtied by the robe and the robe is permeated by the water.
Shobogenzo, Sanjushichi-bon-bodai-bunpo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

.

Peace,

Ted