Real Form, All Dharmas

Real Form, All Dharmas

While it may be contrary to the suggestions of many that claim to represent Zen or Dogen, true nature, according to the classic Zen records (including Shobogenzo) is ever and always immediately present, particular, and precise. Notions or assertions suggesting that Zen is somehow mysterious, ineffable, or inexpressible are simply off the mark. The only place such terms can be accurately applied in Zen is to definite mysteries, particular unknowns, and specific inexpressible experiences. Indeed, in Zen, the terms definite, particular, and specific accurately characterize all dharmas (phenomena; things, beings, and events). Dogen’s refrain, ‘Nothing in the whole universe is concealed’ means exactly what it says; no reality is the least bit obscure or vague. To emphasize this truth, the assertion ‘real form is all dharmas’ is a refrain throughout Shobogenzo, for example:

The realization of the Buddhist patriarchs is perfectly realized real form. Real form is all dharmas. All dharmas are forms as they are, natures as they are, body as it is, the mind as it is, the world as it is, clouds and rain as they are, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, as they are; sorrow and joy, movement and stillness, as they are; a staff and a whisk, as they are; a twirling flower and a smiling face, as they are; succession of the Dharma and affirmation, as they are; learning in practice and pursuing the truth, as they are; the constancy of pines and the integrity of bamboos, as they are.

Shobogenzo, Shoho-Jisso, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Here, then, Dogen and Blake find common ground, ‘Anything capable of being believed is an image of truth’ (Marriage of Heaven and Hell).From the Zen perspective ‘anything’ that is ‘capable of being believed’ is and must already be a reality – a dharma, form of reality, object of consciousness, image of truth. To see a mountain is to experience a mountain and to experience a mountain is to see a mountain. The very ‘substance’ of a mountain is (exists as) its appearance, image, or form in/as the mind, in/as Buddha. A mountain is a self/world phenomenon.

The Transmission of Wisdom 1

The Transmission of Wisdom 1

The truth is the truth, the sages of all times and places express it in accord with circumstances. Thus it is not surprising to find that what Northrop Frye recognized in William Blake, Hee-Jin Kim found also in Eihei Dogen:

The abstract reasoner attempts to give independent reality to the qualities of the things he sees, and in the same way he tries to abstract the quality of his perception. It is to him that we owe the association of the mind and brain. The intellect to him is a special department concerned with reasoning, and other departments should not meddle with it. Emotion is another department, formally ascribed to the heart… Thought, being largely reflection, it is an “inward” activity: those who specialize in “outward” activity are not thinkers, but the practical people who do things. Scientists should be trained to see the sun as a fact; artists to see it emotionally as beautiful.

…

All this pigeonholing of activity is nonsense to Blake. Thought is act, he says… The more a man puts all he has into everything he does the more alive he is.

Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry, pp.20-21

 

The fundamental concept of understanding was activity in Dogen’s thought. Understanding was indispensably associated with our whole being—we understood as we acted and acted as we understood. The activity of the body-mind served not only as the vehicle of understanding, but also as the embodiment of truth. Often in conventional thought, knowledge and truth are ascribed solely to the functions of sensation and reason, while the functions of feeling and intuition are considered merely subjective. Such an artificial compartmentalization of human activity has created some distorted views of the subject. For Dogen, however, the problem of understanding invariably involved the whole being which he called the “body-mind” (shinjin). “Body-mind” was one of Dogen’s favorite phrases, and he often used the phrase “mustering the body-mind” (shinjin o koshite) to show the human attempt to understand the self and the world.

Hee-Jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist, p.100

 

To be continued…

Dogen, William Blake, and Hee-Jin Kim - 9 Full Bows

9 Full Bows to Dogen, William Blake, and Hee-Jin Kim...

Indeed, Dogen seems to embody the qualification of the ideal teacher that Confucious had in mind when he said: “He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher.”
Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen, p.xi

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

I am not hoping to present a system by which to study Dogen—there is none.
Hee-Jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist, p.11

Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
...
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Dogen “reanimated” the archaic tradition of meditation. It was a hermeneutic imperative for him to live on the boundary where ancients and moderns met and engage them in dialogue. He now challenges us to do the same in a task that has no end. Perhaps that is the only way we can move beyond the ancients (including Dogen himself), and ultimately move beyond ourselves the moderns (and postmoderns).

In view of this, throughout the present work, I situate myself methodologically and hermeneutically at the intersection of Dogen’s Zen and our contemporary crisis, in an attempt to facilitate mutual communication and understanding as emphatically and critically as possible.
Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen, p.xi

Thank you William Blake, Eihei Dogen, and Hee-Jin Kim for the wisdom to see the mythical, experiential, ever-advancing reality beyond the literal, speculative, and fixed forms and codes. Thank you even more for your courage to point out that the emperor was indeed a bit underdressed.

9 Full Bows

Ted