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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
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
