Zen Master Dogen

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre in 2000

 

Dogen is known as the founder of Soto-Zen, one of the two main schools of Zen Buddhism in Japan, the other school being Rinzai Zen. He was born in the year 1200, i.e. over 800 years ago. His father was an aristocrat and one of the most influential ministers in the Japanese Imperial court at that time. His mother was also from the aristocracy. So Dogen would have been entitled to high position, status and wealth. He is said to have been a child prodigy – able to read Chinese poetry at age four.

However when he was just three years old, his father died and when he was eight his mother died. So Dogen was confronted with the stark reality of death – which is of course a stark reality of life – when he was still a young child and this had a huge impact on him. He became interested only in seeking the truth. When he was thirteen he went to Mt Hiei, a great centre of Buddhist studies, and the following year he was ordained a monk. He continued his Buddhist studies for nine years under Zen Master Myozen.

He spent five years in China visiting all the major monasteries in Zheyang province in Southern China. After two years there he still hadn't found a suitable teacher, those he had met disappointed him by their tendency to emphasise illogical sayings and behaviour as the only expression of Zen. Then he remembered that he had been told that Ju-Ching was the only authentic practitioner of the Way – Ju Ching was the abbot of Tiantong Mountain monastery. When Dogen met him in 1225 he was sixty two. He became Dogen's teacher for the next three years. Ju Ching, like Sangharakshita, was not concerned with the external differences between schools of Buddhism. He was concerned with the essential message of Buddhism. He referred to his teaching as “the great way of all the Buddhas.”. He didn't even wish to be identified with Zen. Ju Ching's teaching was essentially meditation, especially the practice of just sitting or zazen. Dogen's Japanese teacher, Myozen died at this time.

Dogen is said to have gained Enlightenment after one year with Ju-Ching. This may be taken to mean Insight or Stream Entry or the arising of the Bodhicitta; it is called Satori in Japanese and probably corresponds to the point of no return, Stream Entry rather than full enlightenment.

Dogen continued is practice at Tiantong monastery for a further two years. Then at the age of twenty eight he returned to Japan to teach his fellow countrymen. Buddhism was in a degenerate state in Japan at that time. It was very much associated with the Imperial power and there were even soldier monks.

Dogen was seen as a threat to the privileges of the existing monastic order. As a result he was criticised, denounced and harassed. Eventually after fifteen years, in 1243, he moved away from Kyoto to a remote mountainous region and his followers built another monastery. During his time in Kyoto, Dogen began his major writing – a work called the Shobo-genzo or Treasury of the True Dharma. He died in 1254 at the age of fifty three.

His chief disciple, Ejo, took over from him as abbot of the monastery and edited his writings for publication. After about one hundred years, Dogen's writings were largely forgotten and interest didn't really revive for about five hundred years, until his Shobo-genzo was published in Japan in 1816. even then it wasn't until about 1920 that his significance began to be understood. The first English translation was in 1958. So that is something of Dogen's history. The Soto Zen sect which Dogen is regarded as the founder of – is now one of the biggest Buddhist schools in Japan with about five million followers.

I'd like to go on to look at Dogen's teaching now and relate it to our lives and practice.

I'm going to follow the method outlined in this book, - Zen Master Dogen by Yuko Yokoi. He looks at the essentials of Dogen's thinking and teaching in terms of eleven unions of opposites or 11 identities ie identical things. These are

• identity of self and others
• identity of Practice and Enlightenment
• identity of Precepts and Buddhism
• identity of life and death
• identity of Koan and Enlightenment
• identity of Time and being
• identity of Being and non-being
• identity of Zen Buddhism and the state
• identity of men and women
• identity of monks and laypeople
• identity of Sutras and Zen Buddhism

I want to go into each one of these eleven identities or unions of opposites in a little more detail and see if we can find any relevance to us and our practice.

First we have identity of self and other.

This underpins the whole practice of Dharma. In terms of the Noble Eight-fold Path this is Perfect Vision. It is a glimpse of the truth of interconnectedness, interdependence. The truth of the interpenetration of consciousness. On an ordinary level it means that we affect others and are affected by others. We affect all life that we come into contact with and are affected by all life that we encounter. Since we affect and are affected by all life that we come into contact with then by extension we also indirectly affect all life that we do not encounter and are affected by it, because the influence of our lives has a rippling out effect and we cannot tell where the ripples end. Life according to Buddhism is interdependent and this is why whatever we do bears consequences for us and for others. This is what is meant by the identity of self and other. If we do good to others we do good to ourself. If we harm others we harm ourself. If we benefit ourselves spiritually that benefits others. If we harm ourselves spiritually we harm others too. Our actions, our words, our thoughts, reverberate around the universe and the actions, words and thoughts of others impinge upon us.

This then points to the importance of living our lives well so that we can have a beneficial influence that ripples out into the world further and further. In the words of the Threefold Puja – “the fragrance of the perfect life, spreads in all directions throughout the world.”

This is one of the most difficult things for us to believe. Our tendency more often than not is to feel that we are being affected by others, by circumstance etc. but we are less able to see, to believe, to take fully on board the fact that we are having an affect on others. Especially those around us, but even further afield than that. We all have an influence and we are influenced and our task is to make both those influences as benign as possible. The main way to do this is through the practice of generosity. A spirit of generosity is what the doctrine of interdependence calls for. This reflection on the non-separation between self and other is a starting point for Dogen, just as it is in the Noble Eightfold Path.

Secondly we have identification of Practice and Enlightenment.

This seems quite an extreme viewpoint at first sight. Practice is identical to Enlightenment. The first point I want to make here is that when you read books on Buddhism the word Enlightenment does not always mean the same thing in every book. It can mean anything from initial insight or arising of faith to full and perfect Enlightenment.

What Dogen is getting at here (and this is a central emphasis in his teaching) is that when you practice you must do so fully now in this moment and not have a view that you're aiming at something in the future. Enlightenment is a state of consciousness that transcends time and is no more to be associated with the future than the past. The future is just a concept that is present in our minds now. Every moment is when we need to practice fully, not some imaginary point in some imaginary future. And practice is continuous for Dogen. Practice is not just sitting meditation – zazen – but every activity, our work, our leisure, should all be permeated by awareness – mindfulness of body, mindfulness of thoughts and emotions, mindfulness of purpose. We need to practice these all the time.

Another way in which enlightenment is identical with practice is that there must be something in our present state of consciousness that resonates with and responds to higher states of consciousness in order for us to practice at all. One way of seeing the spiritual life is to see it as a Path or journey and we are setting out on that path and our goal or destination is a long way off. Another way to see it is that we are living in the midst of Reality. Reality permeates our whole being and surroundings and it is only necessary for us to see it – to wake up, open our eyes and see things as they really are. This second way of talking about spiritual practice is more favoured by Dogen. His aim is to encourage us to practice wholeheartedly and fully in every moment. Enlightenment is just obscured - the thin veil of our delusion. Insight is immanent. This can be an encouraging view.

The third identity is the identity of Precepts and Zen Buddhism.

For Zen Buddhists at the time of Dogen there was not much emphasis on ethics. They tended to dwell in the realms of paradox, koan and meditation. Dogen introduced sixteen precepts for his Order. These are very similar to the ten precepts observed by members of Triratna Buddhist Order.

The first three of these sixteen precepts are taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. In other words committing ones life to the Ideal of Human Enlightenment, the Path by which the Ideal is attained, and the fellowship of all those on that path. So the first three precepts are the three refuges with which we are familiar.

The next three precepts are very broad principles. Firstly to do no evil. Secondly to do good, and thirdly to confer abundant benefits on all sentient beings.

After the three refuges and these three broad principles, there follow ten precepts which we are quite familiar with – they are the five precepts that are common to most Buddhists and two more speech precepts and three mind precepts. The two extra speech precepts are “Do not speak the faults of Bodhisattvas, whether they be laymen or monks”. I believe this precept is referring to slander and gossip rather than constructive criticism. The other speech precept is “Do not be too proud to praise others”, which is another way of of talking about Harmonising speech. The three mind precepts are the same as those observed by Triratna Order members – dealing with covetousness, anger/hatred and wrong views.

So Dogen says these 16 precepts are identical with Zen Buddhism. And in this he is saying exactly the same as Sangharakshita who speaks of Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as the central commitment of a Buddhist, what makes one a Buddhist and the observance of the precepts being the expression of that commitment.

Bhante Sangharakshita puts it like this:

Going for Refuge,or commitment to the Three Jewels, is one's lifeblood as a Buddhist. Observance of the Precepts represents the circulation of that blood through every fibre of one's being. By it's very nature blood must circulate. If it does not circulate this means that the organism to which it belongs is dead,and that the blood itself, stagnating, will soon cease to be blood. Similarly, by its very nature the Going for Refuge must find expression in the observance of the Precepts. If it does not such expression this means that as a Buddhist one is virtually dead and that the Going for Refuge itself, becoming more and more mechanical,will soon cease to be effectively such.(The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, p.18)

So the Precepts and Buddhism are identical. To be a Buddhist without making an effort to observe the precepts is a contradiction. If you don't make an effort to observe the precepts, you cannot express the commitment to Go for Refuge and an unexpressed commitment is not a commitment, it's a pretence. This is what Dogen is saying too. So if you want to be a Buddhist, you need to to be familiar with the ethical principles and trying to put them into practice

The fourth identity in Dogen's teaching is the identity of life and death.

There are no beginnings and endings, there is just impermanence – the wheel of life rolls on and death is just another indication of the process of change. The process of change which is a universal truth. All things are impermanent. All things change. The change happens all the time – not at some specific point – but all the time – change, change, change. There is nothing else but change. There is no non-change.

We are changing physically, mentally, emotionally all the time – now and now. There are beginnings and endings every moment or to be more accurate there are no beginnings and endings – there is just unending process. And Death is part of this unending process. The process is life, and death is part of life. There is no life without death. Without death there would simply be stagnation, because an absence of death would mean an absence of change. If nothing changed then life would not be. But there is life – Life is King as Bhante Sangharakshita expresses it in his poem of that name.

Life is King

Hour after hour, day

After day we try

To grasp the Ungraspable, pinpoint

The Unpredictable. Flowers

Wither when touched, ice

Suddenly cracks beneath our feet. Vainly

We try to track birdflight through the sky, trace

Dumb fish through deep water, try

To anticipate the earned smile the soft

Reward, even

Try to grasp our own lives. But Life

slips through our fingers

Like snow. Life

Cannot belong to us. We

Belong to Life. Life

Is King.

(Sangharakshita, Complete Works, vol 25, p.324)

Then we come to identity of Koan and Enlightenment.

A koan is a problem, traditionally presented as a sort of riddle. Sangharakshita makes a distinction between a problem and a difficulty. A difficulty can be solved on its own level. A problem can only be solved by going to a higher level of consciousness. A koan is a problem in this sense. When Dogen says that Koan and Enlightenment are identical he is not simply saying that you have to gain Enlightenment to solve the Koan. He is saying that it is because of Enlightenment that there is a Koan. In other words because there is a Reality other than the reality we ordinarily perceive, there is a problem which we cannot solve on an ordinary level. The problem, the Koan, is an expression of the Reality which we do not yet perceive or experience and is therefore identical with that Reality – identical with Enlightenment.

The sixth topic is the identity of Time and being.

This means that time is a function of consciousness. The past exists because we can encompass it with our minds now in this present moment. The future exists to the extent that we can encompass it with our minds, now in this present moment. There is no time for a consciousness that cannot encompass past and future in the present moment. It is said that animal consciousness does not encompass past and future. If this is so then there is no time for animals. Past and future exist in the present moment where consciousness abides. There is only now and therefore now is when we must practice the Dharma. There is no other time in which to practice, just as there is no other mind with which to practice. This consciousness we experience is the consciousness we need to raise and expand to higher levels and this time now is the only time available to us. The next moment is not here. The next moment is never here. Only this moment. No other state of being is here – only this state of being. This being at this time is who we are. To be enlightened is to see directly that no being can be grasped and there is no time in which to grasp it. Being flows. There is only becoming. Because being or consciousness flows, time flows. There is no now. There's flowing consciousness and flowing time. There is only impermanence. Only flowing. Our practice is to flow unhindered by fear of change, to flow unhindered by grasping for security, to flow unhindered by concepts of decay and death, to flow unhindered by the phantom ego, to flow unhindered.

When consciousness flows unfettered by fear, hatred and craving, then time becomes meaningless. To give a flavour of this, here is how Subhuti, describes Sangharakshita:

If one chooses to look, one senses within him or behind him something very subtle and refined, yet very powerful indeed, the almost tangible presence of a consciousness greater than one normally knows. It is as if the larger part of him sits in some other dimension, far more real and ample than this one. He has said that he has had a continuous experience recently of the complete meaninglessness of time, and it is indeed as if he looks at the world from a timeless realm...........His own attention is more and more focussed on the great and fundamental issues of existence. Whatever the frontiers of consciousness he is now exploring, there is little doubt that he will continue to do so as long as he is alive – and no doubt beyond death, if we are to accept the traditional Buddhist perspective. (Bringing Buddhism to the West, p.187)

Dogen may have had a similar experience of the meaninglessness of time and therefore he spoke about the identity of time and being or time and consciousness.

The next identity is identity of Being and non-being.

There is no being in the sense of a fixed unchanging ego identity. That is an emotional and intellectual fiction. There is also no state of non-being. There is only becoming. There is only process. As Vessantara put it – we are verbs not nouns. There were apparently some languages amongst Native Americans which had no nouns. Those languages have disappeared because as Margaret Atwood says in her poem Marsh Languages:

Translation was never possible

Instead there was always only

conquest, the influx

of the language of hard nouns,

the language of metal,

the language of either/or,

the one language that has eaten all the others.

Buddhists could do with a language of verbs because it would be more in tune with the reality of life. Nouns are useful, so long as we understand that language is metaphor.

Next we come to identity of Zen Buddhism and the state.

Dogen was keen for the principles and values of Buddhism to influence the state and permeate the institutions of government. He recognised that it was not enough for the individual to change himself – the conditions around needed to change too, so that spiritual practice would be supported by a benign state. Sangharakshita has recognised this too and therefore has given his teaching on the New Society – which is basically a society permeated by the values of Buddhism and therefore a society which promotes conditions conducive to spiritual practice. We need to transform ourselves and also transform the world. Trying to influence the value system of politics and politicians is one possible way to do this. This is the practice of citizenship. In Triratna we have taken a very long term approach and are trying to establish institutions which provide conditions for Buddhist practice and which in time may also be an example of a better way to live. This is what our communities and businesses are about. They are a recognition of the identity of transformation of self and transformation of society, a recognition that these are two sides of the same coin. Our businesses and communities and our social work in India are all a recognition of what Dogen's teaching is referred to as the identity of Zen Buddhism and the State. Some of our friends are also active in promoting ecological awareness and in trying to tackle prejudice against minorities.

The next identity is the identity of men and women.

This is the traditional Buddhist view as stated by the Buddha and recorded in the Pali Canon. Ananda asked the Buddha

“Are women capable after going forth form the home into the homeless life under the norm-discipline (the Dharma) set forth by the Tathagatha – are they capable of realizing the fruit of Stream Entry, of Once returning, of never returning, of Arahantship?

And the Buddha answers

“Women are capable of doing so, Ananda”

Men are capable of realising the highest spiritual Ideal – Buddhahood, and women are also capable of reaching the highest spiritual Ideal – Buddhahood. This is what Dogen means by the identity of men and women.

Next we come to the identity of monks and laypeople.

In Triratna we say, as Bhante Sangharakshita has put it, commitment is primary, observing the precepts is secondary and lifestyle tertiary. (The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, p.50) By this is meant that one follows on from the other. Commitment to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, commitment to transforming our lives based on the values and principles inherent in the Three Jewels is primary. It is what makes us Buddhists. Following from that, giving expression to that commitment, means the precepts. A commitment that does not affect our lives is only a theory or even a pretence. Following on from observing the precepts is lifestyle in the sense that the values inherent in the precepts will affect how we live our lives. We will want our lives to be such that it is possible for us to practice the precepts. Therefore we will take a close look at how we earn our livelihood – is it ethical? We will take a close look at our home life – does it help or hinder our observance of the precepts?. We will take a close look at what we do with our leisure time – does it help or hinder our practice of the precepts? And so on. The lifestyle we have will be a reflection of our commitment to the principles and practices of Buddhism. This does not necessarily mean becoming a monk. One can be a full time, wholehearted, committed Buddhist without being a monk in the formal sense, and on the other hand one could be a monk in the formal sense without practising very fully.

The important thing is the depth of commitment and the intensity of practice. Whether one is a monk or not does not matter so long as one practices wholeheartedly and consistently. That is what will enable us to grow spiritual and that is what constitutes the identity of monks and laymen as mentioned by Dogen.

Finally we come to the identity of Sutras and Zen Buddhism.

This is important in the context Zen Buddhism at the time of Dogen and also popular Zen nowadays. Zen was said to be a special transmission outside the scriptures and this led people in practice into the error of disregarding the scriptures and sutras. What Dogen was keen to to get across was that the sutras were important, it was only attachment to the letter of the sutras that was a hindrance. So he was steering a path between two extremes. One extreme is to dismiss the sutras altogether and claim that all that matters is direct experience. The other extreme is to slavishly follow the letter of the scriptures in a literal minded, unthinking way. We need to study the sutras, study Buddhist concepts and imbibe the spirit of them and the spirit of the sutras can feed into our meditation practice and lead us to spiritual insight. I think it is very important that we become steeped in Dharmic concepts such as “all things are impermanent” or “everything arises in dependence on conditions” because these concepts will be the tools for reflection when our minds become calm and concentrated. Dogen was warning against a foolish and literal minded interpretation of the notion of a transmission outside the scriptures.

That is a quick run through of some of the main teachings of Dogen. Dogen's true greatness lies in the fact that he penetrated so deeply into the Dharma and embodied and expressed it so fully that his influence is still being felt over 700 years after his death.

I'll leave you with some lines written by Ryokan – the Japanese hermit poet who lived at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century. He wrote a poem called Reading the Record of Eihei Dogen. Here is some of it:

On a sombre spring evening around midnight,

rain mixed with snow sprinkled on the bamboos in the garden.

I wanted to ease my loneliness but it was quite impossible.

My hand reached behind me for the Record of Eihei Dogen.

Beneath the open window at my desk,

I offered incense, lit a lamp, and quietly read.

Body and mind dropping away is simply the upright truth.

In one thousand postures, ten thousand appearances, a dragon toys with the jewel.

His understanding beyond conditioned patterns cleans up the current corruptions;

the ancient great master;style reflects the image of India.

…...

Now when I take the Record of Eihei Dogen and examine it,

the tone does not harmonize well with usual beliefs.

Nobody has asked whether it is a jewel or a pebble.

For five hundred years it's been covered with dust

just because no one has had an eye for recognizing dharma.

For whom was all his eloquence expounded?

I'll leave you with Ryokan's question about Dogen..... for whom was all his eloquence expounded?