Sexuality and Celibacy in Dôgen’s Zen
It is commonplace to assume, as E. O. Wilson does in his book On Human Nature, that sexual activity is an inherent aspect of humanity, rendering options for a celibate lifestyle as mere denial or repression (Wilson 121). In fact, Wilson dedicates a whole chapter on sex in his book, but never ties in celibacy to his socio-biological theory. The writings of the 13th century Japanese monk Dôgen Kigen reveal a dichotomy that grows chronologically as he gradually establishes his celibate monastic tradition within Japan (Bielefeldt 34), which is a societal phenomenon whose possible biological origins go uninvestigated by Wilson. Taking a closer look at this transition and the justification for celibacy itself within the writings of Dôgen, a more significant understanding of this tradition can hopefully be gained.
When Dôgen returned to Japan from his pilgrimage in China, one of the first things he wrote was a public treatise announcing his “authentic Buddhism,” entitled Bendôwa, or “On the Endeavor of the Way” (Tanahashi 155). His initial message to the Japanese people, householders and monks alike, was to simply encourage his practice of zazen, or seated “no-thought” meditation, and its tone was quite optimistic: “In understanding Buddha-dharma, men and women, noble and common people, are not distinguished. This just depends on whether you have the willingness or not. It does not matter whether you are a layperson or a home-leaver” (ibid.). The reference to “home-leaver” implies a Buddhist monk or nun who has to, by definition in the tradition, “give up the world, give up the family, and give up the body and mind” (Ejō 66). Celibacy is part of the bargain in being ordained as a monk or nun in the Buddhist tradition. So, if the Buddha-dharma is open to both, then why have monks in the first place? The answer to this was very cut-and-dry for the earlier Theravadan school in India, because for them, laypeople had no chance of attaining enlightenment (Kalupahana 66). However, the Chinese tradition that so inspired Dôgen had well-established records of basketweavers, farmers, and even government officials who attained full enlightenment, without ever becoming celibate monastics (Bielefeldt 59).
Considering this, Dôgen had to validate the dichotomy between the sexually active life of the layperson and the celibate life of the monastic, with the celibate life stressed as a better alternative. This must have been tricky in his time, because unlike the self-sufficient monastic farms and orchards of China, in Japan the monasteries were almost totally sustained by the laypeople (Ejô 24). Japanese monastics and laity alike sustained Buddhist traditions in a way that attempted harmony for both sides: the laity provided the monks with food and material goods, while the monks performed funerals, encouraged and hosted meditation practice sessions, and even had many lay disciples (Jaffe 18). Still, the more entrenched Dôgen became in the monastic life, especially with his establishment of a large and distant monastery in a mountain province, the more he began to place emphasis on the “ideal” lifestyle of monkhood (Faure 30).
This can be seen directly through his own writing. In his first essay (Juundô-Shiki, or “Regulations for the Auxiliary Cloud Hall”) written after the establishment of his own monastery, Eiheiji, a direct preference and even insistence on a celibate life is glaringly apparent: “People of the past lived in the remote mountains and practiced far away in the forests. Not only were they free of nearly all worldly affairs, but they also abandoned all relationships. Is it not sad if you waste this time, concerning yourself with secular affairs? The impermanent is unreliable” (Tanahashi 50). His writings, as time passed, grew more and more extreme in the ideological insistence of not relying on any aspect of the world outside of monastic practice itself, as in the following quote written seven years after the preceding one, in his Gakudô Yôjin-Shu, or “Guidelines for Studying the Way”: “If you see the beautiful face of Maoqiang or Xishi [notoriously beautiful and legendary Chinese women], let it be like the morning dewdrops coming into your sight. Freedom from the ties of sound and form naturally accords with the essence of the way-seeking mind” (Tanahashi 31). His distrust of secular life seemed to grow exponentially, as can be seen in a work written just two years later, entitled Eihei Kôroku, or “Universal Book of Eternal Peace”: “Ordinary people [laypeople] of sharp faculties also practice these meditations, yet they do not realize noncontamination” (Cleary 45).
Many of Dôgen’s lectures to his fellow monks were later recorded by his first dharma heir, Koun Ejô (Ejô 7). In these talks as well, an emphasis on the impossibility of those engaged in lay life to receive or understand the Buddha Way is stressed and outlined: “Much more, does the buddha-dharma go entirely against worldly ways. Lay people adorn their hair; monks shave their heads. Lay people eat in abundance; monks eat once a day. Everything is contrary. And, finally, monks become people of great peace and joy. For this reason, the way of monks is totally opposed to the way of the secular world” (Ejô 104). This, a sadly Sino-Japanese tendency in Buddhism, was not only just addressed against laypeople, but apparently against all women as well: there was not a single nun in his lineage until 14 years after his death (Faure 65). So why was the emphasis stressed on strict monasticism to such a degree?
It is important to remember that Dôgen’s spiritual aspirations in Japan were a matter of reactionary reform against what he viewed as corrupted and morally inept forms of Buddhism ((Bielefeldt 37). To a certain extent, it can be said that he discovered in China exactly what he intended to discover: a monastic tradition steeped in ancient rules, inherited directly from their original roots in India. The Caodong lineage in Sung China was of this sort, steeped in the teachings of the Vinaya, the oldest rules of discipline in all of Buddhism (Kalupahana 111). The Vinaya rules practiced by Dôgen’s Chinese teachers advocated total celibacy, and a close rendition of the Buddha’s actual life (Kalupahana 117).
Therefore, although initially bringing his good news to the whole of Japan, by the end of his life Dôgen had refocused his message of “silent illumination” Zen to only be applied to the monks who practiced with him (Bielefeldt 34). The only socio-biological proposal that may be presented is one that Wilson had confined to his attempt to justify homosexuality: “Freed from the special obligations of parental duties…they may have taken the roles of seers, shamans, artists, and keepers of tribal knowledge” (Wilson 144-145). If Dôgen’s monks could be seen somehow as fulfilling the roles of seers or keepers of knowledge, one can see their celibacy as a way to bolster the lay community, improving their human environment for the greater good. In the context of Dôgen’s teachings, however, his deference towards the importance of a lay following diminished greatly over the later years of his life. Although in a simplistic, biological sense, his school of Buddhism did not help Japanese people breed more successfully, it may have offered a significant alternative to a life of confusion, impermanence, and constant loss. These factors of lay life are timeless, as the message of Buddhism applies today more than ever.
Works Cited
Bielefeldt, Carl. Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.
Cleary, Thomas, trans. and ed. Rational Zen: The Mind of Dōgen Zenji. Boston: Shambhala, 1992.
Ejō, Koun. Shōbōgenzo-zuimonki: Sayings of Eihei Dōgen Zenji. Trans. Shohaku Okumura. Kyoto: Toko Insatsu KK, 1987.
Faure, Bernard. Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Phyllis Brooks, trans. Princeton: Princeton U P,1996.
Jaffe, Richard. “Meiji Religious Policy, Sōtō Zen, and the Clerical Marriage Problem.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 25.1 (1998): 1-41.
Kalupahana, David J. A History of Buddhist Philosophy: Continuities and Discontinuities. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1992.
Tanahashi, Kazuaki, ed. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen. New York: North Point P, 1985.
Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1978.
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