(Pre-"Soto") Soto Style Koan Introspection in Dogen's Zen

(Pre-"Soto") Soto Style Koan Introspection in Dogen's Zen

The final exceptional passage in the Goyuigon concerns the content of Zen enlightenment and its relationship to koan training. Gikai prefaces this conversation with Ejo by stating: “During the prior meditation period, I was aided by our former teacher’s great enlightenment situation, the shinjin datsuraku words.” …in this passage… the words “shinjin datsuraku” represent a stock phrase or device (i.e., an “old example,” kosoku or koan) for contemplation during meditation. This use of shinjin datsuraku as a formal meditation device is confirmed by the fact that Ejo then tested Gikai’s understanding by asking him to present an “appended phrase” (jakugo, i.e. a passage… summing up the meaning of a koan.) Their dialogue is as follows:

 

Gikai: I have attained an insight based on our former teacher’s saying, “shinjin datsuraku.”

 

Ejo: Good. Good. What do you understand?

 

Gikai: I understand “datsuraku shinjin.”

 

Ejo: What is the meaning?

 

Gikai: I had thought only (my) barbarian beard was red, but here is another red-bearded barbarian.”

 

Ejo: Among the many permitted [answers to] shinjin [datsuraku], there is this kind of shinjin.

 

This conversation has been quoted in full because it reveals three practices usually thought to be incongruous with the method of Zen practiced in early Soto. It implies that Gikai had been occupied with Dogen’s words during his meditation; that Ejo used koan instruction as part of the dharma succession process; and that formal quotations of stereo-typed expressions were used to test the understanding of the koan. Modern Soto scholars cannot accept the Goyuigon account at face value, because to do so would force them either to revise their usual interpretation of Dogen’s Zen as a religion of unmediated meditation or to attempt to argue that both Ejo and Gikai had failed to understand Dogen’s teachings.
William M. Bodiford, Soto Zen in Medieval Japan, pp.55-56

Three Enlightenment Stories: Dogen, Rujing, Ejo - Denkoroku

Three Enlightenment Stories from the Denkoroku: Dogen, Rujing, Ejo

Rujing (Dogen’s Chinese teacher) studied with Zen master Zhijian. Zhijian asked him, “How can you purify what has never been defiled?” After more than a year Rujing was suddenly awakened and said, “I’ve hit upon that which is undefiled.”

…

One day Rujing was suddenly enlightened. He went to the abbot’s quarters and said, “I can say it.” Zhijian said, “This time say it.” Rujing said, “I’ve hit upon that which is undefiled.”

…

Although he was given a purple vestment of honor and a master’s title by the emperor of China, he formally declined them. Furthermore, he kept his succession a secret, not revealing it all his life; only at the end did he formally acknowledge the teacher from whom he had inherited the teaching. This was not only to put off worldly craving for fame, but also out of deference for the good name of Zen. Truly his virtue was unequaled in his time, his discipline peerless in ancient and modern times.

He used to declare of himself, “The Way of the Zen founders has died out this last century or two. Thus there has not appeared a teacher like me for the last hundred or two hundred years…” He used to say, “Since I made up my mind to go travelling at the age of nineteen, I have found no one imbued with the Way. Many of the monastery abbots just deal with visiting officials and pay no mind to the monks’ hall. They always say, “Each of you should understand on your own,” and so saying they do not develop the people. Even the abbots of great monasteries now are like this. They think having nothing on the mind is the Way, and don’t demand intensive Zen concentration in association with a teacher. Where is there any Buddhism in that? If it is as they say, why would there be old-timers persistently seeking the Way? What a laugh—they haven’t so much as dreamed of the Way of the Zen founders.”

Keizan (4^th generation successor of Dogen), Transmission of Light, Thomas Cleary, p.214-216

…

Once, during meditation sitting late at night Rujing said to the assembly, “Zen study is the shedding of mind and body.” Hearing this, suddenly Dogen was greatly enlightened.

Keizan (4^th generation successor of Dogen), Transmission of Light, Thomas Cleary, p.219

…

Ejo studied with Zen master Dogen. One day in the course of inquiries he heard the saying, “One hair goes through myriad holes,” and all of a sudden realized enlightenment.

Keizan (4^th generation successor of Dogen), Transmission of Light, Thomas Cleary, p.227

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Peace,

Ted