(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