Polishing the Moon and Plowing Clouds:
Eihei Dôgen’s Philosophical Reinterpretation of Chinese Chan Buddhism
One of the most useful ways to gain a deeper understanding of Buddhist philosophy in the context of Dôgen Kigen’s writings is through a juxtaposition and comparison with the motivations and principles set forth in European Enlightenment thought. As American inheritors of ingrained concepts such as the Cartesian ego or the Platonic soul, we must be aware of such presuppositions before we can approach a tradition of both philosophy and religion that is influenced by quite a different perspective. To enrich the comparison, however, a brief background may be necessary, of both the context and the roots of Dôgen’s prolific works. This background may not only explore and help explain the differing ontologisms and epistemologies represented by Dôgen and E. O. Wilson, a socio-biologist who worships both modern science and the inspirations of Enlightenment thought as the best “glue” possible to unify human knowledge, but also may shed light on our own uniquely American paradigms of self and reality.
Initially, as Dôgen was very much a Buddhist, a look at the types and aspects of Buddhist thought that influenced him is necessary. The primary foundation of Buddhist philosophy is, of course, Buddha. This takes us away from Dôgen’s 13th century Japan to the subcontinent of India, at roughly the sixth century BC (Stryk 31). On his deathbed, the Buddha’s disciples gathered around him and asked him who would be their true master after he left, to which he replied: “The Doctrine and Discipline, Ananda, which I have taught and enjoined upon you is to be your teacher when I am gone” (Stryk 44). It is precisely these two aspects of Buddhism, the writings which formed the doctrine and the practices which formed the discipline, that later served as the focus of two separate extremes in the various sects that eventually grew outward into China (Kalupahana 236).
There was controversy on the Indian subcontinent between analytical and metaphysical schools early on, which later become manifested in China as the Caodong and Lin-chi schools of Chan, the former being the lineage that Dôgen would later bring to Japan (Kalupahana 228-229). The former relied on silent meditation as its focus, while the latter relied on gongans (kôans, Jpn.) or “public records”, which do not differ doctrinally from the earlier expositions of Buddhist doctrine translated from Indian originals (Kalupahana 231). Although much of Dôgen’s writings are analytical in nature, their overall insistence on the practice of silent meditation remains at the root of the practice he advocated.
By the end of the eighth century, Chan had established itself as a distinct Buddhist school, complete with its own history, literature, and dogma. All of these were influenced by the sinification of Buddhism, which involved a fusion both with Confucian ethics and Taoist non-interference. This trend emerged eventually as the sole surviving form of Chinese monastic Buddhism by the time of Dôgen’s pilgrimage (Bielefeldt 1). His motive for leaving Japan and searching in China for “authentic dharma” will help explain the motive of his writings later in life. It is impossible to ascertain this motive without first looking at the contributive patterns of his early life.
He was born in 1200, the son of a prominent noble in Kyoto, the capital of Kamukura-era Japan (Heine 11). Although much of what is known of his life is at least partially shrouded in mythology and exaggeration, like many of the masters in the Chan and Zen traditions, the basic feel of the significance of these teachers is gained through a place where historical fact and ideological motives intersect, a place in which neither factor supercedes the other. He was orphaned at age seven, lending many legends to his early and deep realization of impermanence, including a turning point where he watched the rising incense smoke at the funeral of his mother, and realized that human life is just as ephemeral as the smoke itself (ibid.). At age thirteen, he joined the monkhood of Tendai, the most dominant Buddhist sect of the time (ibid.). At twenty-four, he left the country to seek the authentic Dharma (Buddhist teaching and/or tradition) in Sung China, primarily because he considered the Japanese Buddhist institutions to be corrupt and secularized, subscribing to a nihilistic view that there was no need for diligent practice because all things were already of the Buddha-nature (ibid.).
It is said that Dôgen did not invent his Zen, but discovered it in China (Bielefeldt, “Recarving the Dragon” 25). He studied in Sung China for two years, spending most of that time studying under a Caodong Chan Master called Ju-Ching (1163-1228) (Abe 17). Caodong at that point was a sect that advocated abandoning all forms of conceptualization, including the kōan riddles pervasive in other sects (Kalupahana 231). Ju-Ching was a strict adherent to the discipline based on the original Vinaya teachings from India, and prioritized gradual practice as the attainment, or the way, to truly live a Buddhist life (Bielefeldt 34). This stay in China heavily influenced Dôgen’s concept of authentic dharma, and also established for him what he would later call he doctrine of shushō-ittô, or “the oneness of practice and attainment”, the solution of his doubt which became the foundation on which he developed his philosophy and religion after returning to Japan (Abe 12).
Once he did return to Japan, he attempted to introduce and establish what he believed to be authentic Buddhism, based on his own realization (Abe 17). He refused, however, to present his discovery as a new sect, referring to himself as simply bukkyô, “Buddhist,” with no added descriptions or titles (ibid.). The first text that he wrote after returning to China was the Bendôwa, or “On the Endeavor of the Way,” in which he seemed to be addressing the Japanese Buddhist community at large and focusing on the basic, practical question of how a Buddhist can go about cultivating the faith (Bielefeldt 34): “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” (Tanahashi 155). This universal pronouncement, however, already contained negative references to the “inauthentic” Buddhism that was well established in Japan, and set forth a sectarian tension and identity that would eventually dominate Japan as the Sôtôshu, or “Sôtô Zen school” (Leighton and Okumura 21).
Contained in the Bendôwa was a primary focus of the Caodong Chan school, that of a recommendation for daily silent meditation in the full-lotus posture, a practice Dôgen called zazen, literally “sitting Zen” (Kim 103). This served as the consilience of many of Dôgen’s doctrines, the place at which theory and practice, body and mind, and effort and enlightenment, all intersected into a manifestation of the present moment (Maraldo 115):
“You should also know that we do not originally lack unsurpassed enlightenment, and we are enriched with it always. But because we cannot accept it, and we tend to create groundless views, regarding them as actual things, we miss the great way; our efforts are fruitless. Because of these views, illusory flowers bloom in various ways. Instead, sit zazen wholeheartedly, forming the Buddha’s seal and letting all things go. Then you will go beyond the boundary of delusion and enlightenment, and being apart from the paths of ordinary and sacred, immediately wander freely outside ordinary thinking, enriched with great enlightenment. If you do this, how can those who are concerned with the fish trap or hunting net of words and letters be compared with you?” (Tanahashi 150)
A classic and curious irony of quotes like this in the writings of Dôgen is his very eloquence and literacy. While advocating zazen exclusively as a profound religious practice in which attainment and realization arose naturally, he consistently indulged in speculative reflection through written words that exceeded in quantity and calligraphic style the efforts of both his predecessors and his followers (Abe 12). His personal intentions and justifications for writing the ninety-two essays that comprised his magnum opus, the Shôbôgenzô, or “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye,” cannot be known, and to guess would be merely a matter of conjecture. Nevertheless, it is important to look at this unique irony of both the eloquence of Dôgen and his insistence that texts are not themselves the cornerstone of Buddhist practice, as he states again in the Bendôwa: “To look at letters but be ignorant of the way of practice is just like a physician forgetting how to prescribe medicine: what use can it be?” (Tanahashi 148).
The riddle of the irony of writing about non-reliance on writing perhaps has to do with the way the reader judges and reacts to what is read. An important point in the Shôbôgenzô is that there is a place beyond judgment that the Zen practitioner needs to cultivate, a place Dôgen refers to as honrai menmôku, or “the original face” (Bielefeldt 125). This place was only actualized when two realms of thought were actively abandoned, that of gigi, or “reflection,” and shôryô, or “deliberation,” both being aspects of discursive thought that were consistently advised against by many of the earlier Chan masters (ibid.). According to Dôgen, the honrai menmôku is exclusively awakened through the process of zazen. This practice transcends the mere act of meditation into all aspects of daily life in a way that saturates every action and thought, a process that Dôgen called gyoji, or “ceaseless practice” (Zelinski 2).
His initial exhortations to the people of Japan, and even to the Imperial Court at Kyoto, began with the Bendôwa and the early essays of the Shôbôgenzô. However, after thirteen years of sectarian infighting, political rivalries, and a consistent failure to thoroughly establish a monastery in his hometown of Kyoto, he retreated to a distant mountain province called Echizen (Kraft 110). It was here that he developed a monastic tradition strictly based on the Chinese model, and grew more and more isolated and distant from both the lay populace and the court intrigues of Kyoto, establishing a way of life that advocated long hours of zazen, simplicity, poverty, and intense manual labor (Austin 77).
To understand why such a lifestyle was advocated involves looking at the way in which Dôgen consistently peels away the layers of both the dualities and the non-dualities that he felt were delusions. The initial layer of duality that he addresses as an illusion is the manufactured division between body and mind; the truth is what he referred to as shinjin-ichinyo, or “oneness of body and mind,” a non-duality which must be not only taken as a metaphysical truth but actualized as an existential fact in daily life (Maraldo 122). But this breakdown of the excessive reliance on the intellect or on the desires and pleasures of the flesh, and what it in turn reveals about the importance of meditation practice for all aspects of the body and the mind, is only the first step. Deeper still is the ingrained concept of the body/mind as an identity that is whole and separate from the rest of perceivable reality. According to Dôgen, it is crucial that through practice, the body/mind construct is forgotten and therefore transcended, something he called shinjin datsuraku, or “ the sloughing off of body/mind” (Bielefeldt 3).
Through the actualization of shinjin datsuraku, not only is the common dualism of body and mind forgotten; even the subsequent non-duality of body/mind is then abandoned. In this way, two more illusory but common dualities are renounced. First of all, both mind and the action initiated by thought are realized as an organic event that forms a cohesive whole, dissolving the boundaries between intent and action, in what he called sesshin-sesshô (Kim 111). Secondly, an important and unique attribute of the practice that Dôgen advocated is what he called the doctrine of shushô-ittô, mentioned before as an aspect of Caodong teachings known as “the oneness of practice and attainment” (Abe 12). This latter doctrine is an inheritance of sorts from the legacy of Buddhist thought that must first be investigated to understand the source of the notion that there is no real separation between practice and enlightenment.
In the Pali texts, the oldest written account of Buddhist teachings, there is a significant aspect of the Middle Way that the Buddha called paticcasamuppâda, often translated as “dependent co-arising” (Kalupahana 53). This rather basic Buddhist interpretation of reality is so apart, so alien, from the various Western interpretations of reality that have been our inherited legacy from the days of the European Enlightenment that we can’t wholeheartedly approach Dôgen’s shushô-ittô without first knowing what is meant by “dependent co-arising.”
Much of the Western concept of “self” that we take for granted is an ingrained definition involving concepts such as personhood, soul, and identity, all of which are as Foucault has suggested, quite recent inventions in the span of human history (Faure, Chan 243). In the Brahmanical notion of “self,” known as âtman, the Buddha saw what he felt was an unhealthy extreme, and proceeded to provide the theoretical system of paticcasamuppâda to advocate an avoidance of this notion, tying in to another of his theories, that of anâtman, or “Not-self” (Kalupahana 53). In this Buddhist notion, there is no sense of an assumption of a mysterious underlying substance relating causes to effects, no absolute identity or identities to be upheld, no ultimate objectivity, all phenomena being interdependent in a constant state of arising and ceasing (Kalupahahna 59). In this sense, things cannot be said to either exist, as identities unto themselves, or to not-exist, as something independent from the causal changes that make up the illusion of something existing in the first place.
This relates directly to Dôgen’s concept of shushô-ittô, “the oneness of practice and attainment,” because if the ingrained notions of a separate and absolute self, person, or soul are relinquished, then the whole framework of a process by which the practitioner’s “self” can attain enlightenment begins to break down. If practice arises, from whatever cause that existed in the past, then attainment is already there, because practice and attainment are interdependent on each other’s existence, and there can be no linear concept of progression if nothing is solid enough to be contained in such a straight line.
This notion of interdependence and co-arising cannot be viewed as dual in nature, because things do not exist separately enough to be contained in a contrasting duality when they sustain and interlock with everything else to such a degree. Yet, one cannot say that this notion is totally non-dual either, because arising and cessation are different in their course; as in the “dropping off of body/mind” that Dôgen advocated, even the insistence of non-duality itself is a trapping of ordinary consciousness, or ushin (Bielefeldt 147). The two extremes of viewing phenomena as expressions of an absolute nature, or viewing phenomena as totally relative in a nihilistic sense, were consistently avoided in Buddha’s teachings as an arbitrary mapping of things that do not stay constant enough to label either way.
Yet, as his monastery became well established in Echizen, its numbers grew, and he continued to compose the Shôbôgenzô, his message became more and more limited to specifically apply to the monks that studied under him (Cook 12). The view began to form that shinjin datsuraku was not enough on its own; along with body and mind, all ties must be relinquished in a monastic setting to fully actualize the Dharma: “Students of the Way, you must be very careful on several levels in giving up worldly sentiment. Give up the world, give up your family, and give up your body and mind” (Ejô 66). At this point in Dôgen’s life, he felt that to attain liberation and enlightenment, all ties of “self” to the world must be severed, to reach a point that he referred to as “realizing non-contamination” (Cleary 45).
One aspect of this relinquishment that made it a unique Buddhist practice in Japan at that time was what Dôgen called hi shiryô, or “No-thought” (Bielefeldt 2). This aspect of meditation was unique at the time, because of the popularity of kôan study, a practice of one-pointed concentration on a statement or riddle based on a recorded discourse between a master and disciple that was meant to shatter the intellect and transcend logic, after fierce and prolonged concentration (Austin 99). Dôgen advocated meditation with no such riddles, because for him the act of meditation in itself was a relinquishment of all discursive thought into the arriving and passing away of the present moment, which for him was the most significant riddle of all. Hence the whole concept of something to solve or resolve on the part of the practitioner is seen as an added ingredient to the practice that is not necessary. This sort of “silent illumination” Zen was taught to him by Ju-ching, and was a defining aspect of the Caodong Chan tradition (Zelinski 3).
Nothing is added to this process; the way that Dôgen describes practice is strictly in terms of working with what is already there. In one of his poems, he says it best by the phrase “Polishing the moon, plowing clouds” (Tanahashi 216). This phrase entails the effort and exertion that he deemed necessary to give rise to practice and the enlightenment that it is not separate from. At the same time, the phrase seems to point to an assumption that the human mind tends to jump to, an assumption of the futility of such a practice, involving the clarifying of things already present. The assumption is taken on deliberately by the tone of the phrase, which at once suggests both effort and the impossible nature of what the effort is shooting for; there is no way to polish the moon or to plow a cloud, but in the context of Buddhist practice, it is vital to do so, and to continue doing so. In the same way, monastic practice becomes justified and legitimized in a sense, although it has a tendency to be rationalized by people living in the secular world as both futile and escapist.
The very seclusion and safety of Dôgen’s mountain monastery at Echizen lends itself to such claims; that the monks is hiding, insulated from the turmoil and the challenges of the daily life of the layperson. But Dôgen suggests in his Shôbôgenzô that a renouncement of the world is necessary in order to reach a point where ingrained notions of “self” can be truly dissolved:
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly”
(Tanahashi 70)
In this way, the Buddhist doctrines of anâtman and paticcasamuppâda are continuously upheld, not as a matter of hiding from the secular world, but as a matter of facing and clarifying the fundamental difficulties posed by existence itself; difficulties that arise from an instinctual concept of self-identity, self-importance, and “self” in itself.
Although there were important Buddhist doctrines like the two mentioned above that played major roles in the composition of the Shôbôgenzô, this work also brought forth innovations that involved unique and unprecedented claims, namely that of Dôgen’s theories of Buddha-nature and of time (Faure, Chan 264). A noted aspect of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism is the concept that the impermanence or mutability of phenomena had been emphasized in contrast with the permanence of Buddha; but he insisted that they were the same (Abe 57). If the Buddha-nature is sought for simply beyond impermanence, it is not true Buddha-nature, because it stands against impermanence and thereby is still related to and limited by impermanence (Stambaugh 80). The Buddha-nature at that time had been taken to mean “the mind itself” among other branches of Japanese Buddhism; but the idea that the mind is an indestructible entity that leaves the body at the time of death was though of by Dôgen to be heresy (Faure, Visions 202). Nothing in the Shôbôgenzô exists that is not impermanent or mutable, and everything impermanent and mutable presents itself to us in the form of mysterious illusions: “All things, ultimately unfathomable, are but flowers in the sky” (Cleary 102). Although the mind can reflect clearly what is perceived, this does not entail any permanent state, as stated in a poem he wrote late in his life: “To what shall I liken the world? /Moonlight, reflected in dewdrops /shaken from a crane’s bill” (Heine 69).
This denial of the permanence of Buddha-nature was not just a reform of Mahayana concepts, but a return to the Theravadan concepts present in many of the Pali suttas (Kalupahana 99). The idea of an essence or mind-essence that was permanent and was considered One with Buddha-nature was a relatively late development in Buddhism, one exclusively limited to China and at least partially due to the influence of Daoism (Ferguson 7). Dôgen pronounces this view as being a mistaken illusion several times in the Shôbôgenzô, including the essay called Genjô Kôan, or “Actualizing the Fundamental Point”:
“When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.” (Tanahashi 70)
Another significant reform of 13th century Mahayana thought in China and Japan that Dôgen attempted in his Shôbôgenzô was the general acceptance of the permanent nature of time, a subject that he addressed in the essay Uji, or “Being-Time”: “Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment” (Tanahashi 77). Thus, existence itself is “deployed as an uninterrupted chain of eternities” (Faure, Chan 199). This concept of Dôgen’s, much like his concept of the Buddha-nature, is at once both a reform and a return to early Buddhist thought, because in many of the ancient Pali suttas, the Buddha himself is nicknamed after time itself, as “Tathagata,” or “Thus comes, thus goes” (Stryk 79). This concept of time being a flowing array of eternal moments also denies enlightenment or awakening as something designated as a future event, so that the space between practice and enlightenment collapses and forms the unity of shushô-ittô: “Practice is itself enlightenment” (Kim 116). This unity itself is relinquished once shinjin datsuraku takes place, because the practice of the buddha-dharma resides in a place that shatters all concepts, as Dôgen announces to his students: “Do not think that when you have found this place that it will become personal knowledge or that it can be known conceptually” (Cook 69).
Now that some of the basics of Dôgen’s elusive and esoteric Shôbôgenzô have been acknowledged, and compared with some of their earlier Chinese and Indian roots, a true comparison can begin between these ideas and the epistemological model of the European Enlightenment. Representing this model is an author who incessantly sings its praise: “The dream of intellectual unity first came to full flower in the original Enlightenment [in]…the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (Wilson 15). Implicit in this initial sentence is a division between mind and body, an ethnocentric over-reliance on Western contributions to civilization, and an exclusive Western claim to the very definition of “civilization” in the first place. Wilson proceeds to vacillate between critique of the European Enlightenment and praise for the ideals it represented, setting it up as an ideological, “Icarian” martyr (Wilson 17).
Yet, to demonize Wilson and his ideals is a form of self-criticism for a Westerner; for steeped in our self-perception and the way in which we view the universe, steeped in every aspect of our lives and goals, is the notion of foundationalism or logical positivism stated by Wilson’s martyred hero of Enlightenment thought, Marquis de Condorcet: “The sole foundation for belief in the natural sciences is the idea that the general laws directing the phenomena of the universe, known or unknown, are necessary and constant” (Wilson 21). While the crowned king of the European Enlightenment was intellectual reason, Wilson argues that its full flowering fell short, not because of the presumptions it makes about the nature of existence, nor because of its own staggering insistence on dominance and self-importance, but because “Humanity was not paying attention” (Wilson 22). In this way, science and reason are already set up for subtle worship; they are assumed as infallible, and if they fail, it is only because we as humans have failed them first.
It is namely a quote from Francis Bacon, Wilson’s “grand architect of [the] dream…[that] the conceptual constraints that cloud our vision of the physical world can be eased” (Wilson 24), that seems to give away an important motive of European culture itself at the time, a motive that all Westerners have inherited to one extent or another: “…turning with united forces against the Nature of things, to storm and occupy her castles and strongholds, and extend the bounds of human empire” (Wilson 25). Looking back at the European colonialism of this time, one can see this ideological battlefield not just fought against nature, but against scores of other civilizations across the globe.
There are still more assumptions inherent in Wilson’s representation of the Enlightenment and the nature of science; that of an insistence of a linear, progressive universe set into motion by the first Western scientist, God: “Chinese scholars abandoned the idea of a supreme being with personal and creative properties. No rational Author of Nature existed in their universe; consequently the objects they meticulously described did not follow universal principles” (Wilson 33). Through a linguistic sleight of hand, Wilson equates deism with both science and reason, in a way that no culture can have one without the other.
So, in comparing Wilson and Dôgen, we reach quickly a point of incommensurability in which any philosophy or school of thought that differs from science is declared “reactionary postmodernism”: “Reality, [the philosophical postmodernists] propose, is a state constructed by the mind, not perceived by it” (Wilson 44). Aside from the dichotomous dialogue between science and postmodernism, nothing exists in Wilson’s ideology, except within “other” cultures of the world, which are by definition bizarre, alien, and backward. Yet we have seen that a whole series of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese thinkers and religious figures helped form and shape Dôgen’s Shôbôgenzô, in a way that 2,500 years of Buddhist teachings could, by Wilson’s definition, be stuffed in a box labeled “postmodernism,” and designated, at best, as a “hostile force” that attacks “organized knowledge” (Wilson 47).
So far, an investigation of Dôgen’s philosophy was coupled by an analysis of the legacy of philosophical baggage that served as both a framework for his thought and ground for reform or revision. Wilson’s ideological baggage, and in turn to a limited degree our own as the cultural inheritors of science worship, must likewise be unpacked. This can be designated as “science worship,” namely because science is not viewed as a neutral tool, which we naturally assume that it is, but as a power of omniscient perfection outside of ourselves, a power that we consistently bow down to in Western society. For instance, in the media, a given report begins with the phrase, “Scientists say…,” and the listener automatically takes what is said as fact, without concern for who the scientists are, who paid them, or what theory they formed before the experimental process even began. This is subtle, but it is still worship.
This sort of worship comes naturally to Westerners because of the cultural legacy of Judeo-Christianity, and Wilson is no exception to this. The traces of this revelatory religion pervade modern Western society, from the constant application of the “martyr” paradigm (presented so well in Wilson’s assessment of the Enlightenment) to the search for a justification of total control over the universe, in which God and /or science are both the common link and determinant of everything that happens.
In addition to the “martyr” paradigm, there is the “explorer” paradigm, a process by which experience is judged in terms of maps, territories conquered by scientific definition and control, and constant talk of “frontiers” (Wilson 293). All matter and phenomena are declared as not only real, but knowable, with set boundaries and delineations that can be observed and measured in a pure sense, but only by the omniscient powers of science. No other system of thought is allowed or granted power, unless it is the male Creator of the Machine called the Universe (Wilson 34).
Wilson’s desire for consilience is deeply rooted in the language of the “explorer” paradigm, in that it “provides a clear map of what is known,” and it ”frames” the proper questions to address what is still unknown (Wilson 326). The last line of the book belies a fear of his, a fear that the meaning of existence cannot be found unless we find “our deepest roots” (ibid.). If we do not listen to him and apply science to everything in existence, then we “imagine ourselves godlike and absolved from our ancient heritage,” and “we will become nothing” (ibid.).
For Dôgen, however, the schematic framework of “what to do” about our existence is quite different. We have seen that discursive thought involving the intellect is actually viewed as a hindrance, and because of the early Buddhist logic of dependent co-arising, it cannot be said in the conventional sense that we exist as anything identifiable in the first place. The wind that fills the sails of Wilson’s “explorer” is a power expressed through knowledge, for what is known is controlled and possessed by the knower, who plants the flag and stakes the claim of yet another distant territory. Yet this need for control is recognized as an illusion in Dôgen’s Shôbôgenzô:
“Long ago a monk asked an old master, ‘When hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done?’
The master replied, ‘Don’t try to control them.’
What he means is that in whatever way objects come, do not try to change them. Whatever comes is the Buddha-dharma, not objects at all. Do not understand the master’s reply as merely a brilliant admonition, but realize that it is the truth.
Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled.” (Tanahashi 164)
As products of a capitalistic, highly individualistic, and secular society such as our own, there is an ingrained sense of self-identity that validates its assumed existence through acquisition of and/or control over things separate from ourselves. The message that Buddhist thinkers like Dôgen sends is quite different. Whether some sort of validation of existence occurs or does not occur, whether our genetic material survives into the next generation or not, none of this has anything to do with Buddhist liberation, not just the knowledge but the full arrival at the point in which we are truly “nothing” (Kalupahana 77).
According to Dôgen, the phenomenal world is basically an illusion: “The whole universe of things and space is nothing but a picture” (Cook 80). The mind is not independent of this picture, but is asserted to be a reflection of it (Maraldo 115). When these theories of existence fall upon Western ears, we may be quick to claim that they are an expression of nihilism that excuses or justifies any excess of moral laxity imaginable. For, if nothing is real, why does it matter?
In answering this question, we find the closest parallels between Dôgen and Wilson. Although worded to specifically apply to matters of phenomenon, and conforming to principles of physics alone, Wilson speaks of “the perception of a seamless web of cause and effect” (Wilson 291). Dôgen holds a view not unlike this, albeit applying to both seen and unseen processes, as is shown in a speech given to his fellow monks and recorded by his disciple, Koun Ejô: “Consider the four phrases: unseen action, unseen response; seen action, seen response; unseen action, seen response; seen action, unseen response. There is also the principle of karma and its effect; study these principles very closely” (Ejô 59). Both Wilson and Dôgen, it seems, feel it is of utmost importance to be able to perceive cause and effect in life. So why do they differ so dramatically in other areas?
It would be overly deterministic to make the claim that because of cultural circumstances alone, these two thinkers differ so dramatically in their methods of interpreting reality. The West did not simply hand Wilson his views, although they were inevitably influenced at least in part by his environment. Nor can it be said that Dôgen was purely bound by the views of Buddhism. His methods and priorities differed from the prevailing Buddhist schools of his day, and he was consistently innovative in reinterpreting not only the words of the patriarchs, but the sutras themselves (Abe 18).
The main differences between the two authors seem to comprise of their respective definitions of the mind and what it encompasses, or what it can do. Wilson sees the mind as having an exclusively “physical grounding” (Wilson 105), and everything physical can be known. The mind can know itself, and in Wilson’s rhetoric, is closing in on knowing everything. For Dôgen, however, the mind is a part of a larger construct that cannot decipher known from unknown, because it is trapped in an ordinary state in which “thinking scatters like wild birds and emotions scamper around like monkeys in the forest” (Leighton and Okumura 37-38). He distrusts the mind that draws maps and frames references, recommending a sort of existential forgetfulness as a way to break free from its own trappings.
In short, the paradigms of “martyr” or “explorer” still involve concepts of self that Dôgen views fundamentally as delusion: “When we let go of our minds and cast aside our views and understandings, the Way will be actualized (Ejô 109). The only viable paradigm left for Dôgen is the Buddha-dharma itself. He sees this as the potential and birthright for all, as long as they are willing to enter the monastic life wholeheartedly, and he sees it as a consilience that is beyond knowledge itself. The language used is a matter of surrender, setting his message apart from Wilson’s context of dominance and conquest. Both of these paradigms and definitions of “Enlightenment” and “consilience” claim to know and recommend the best way of life possible. The choice of the individual can be made only after honest and thorough understanding is made in regard to the paths available. Paths unfamiliar to our culture, like those of Dôgen, can be healthy and enriching reminders that roles like “martyr” and “explorer” are not the only options; there is also Buddha.
Works Cited
Abe, Masao. A Study of Dôgen: His Philosophy and Religion. Ed. Steven Heine. Albany: State U of New York P, 1992.
---. Zen and Western Thought. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1985.
Austin, James H., M.D. Zen and the Brain: Towards an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness. Boston: MIT P,1999.
Bielefeldt, Carl. Dôgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.
---. “Recarving the Dragon: History and Dogma in the Study of Dôgen.” Dôgen Studies. LaFleur, William R., ed. Studies in East Asian Buddhism, no. 2. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1985. 21-53.
Cleary, Thomas. Rational Zen: The Mind of Dôgen Zenji. Boston: Shambhala,1992.
Cook, Francis H. Sounds of Valley Streams: Enlightenment in Dôgen’s Zen: Translation of Nine Essays from Shôbôgenzô. New York: State U of New York P, 1989.
Ejô, Koun. Shôbôgenzô-zuimonki: Sayings of Eihei Dôgen 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.
Ferguson, Andy. Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Heine, Steven. The Zen Poetry of Dôgen: Verses From the Mountain of Eternal Peace. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 1997.
Jaffe, Richard. “Meiji Religious Policy, Sôtô 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.
Kigen, Dôgen. Shôbôgenzô. Thomas Cleary, Trans. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1986.
---. Eihei Shinji. Daniel Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, Trans. Albany: State U of New York P, 1996.
Kim, Hee-Jin. Dôgen Kigen: Mystical Realist. Rev. ed. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1987.
Kraft, Kernneth. Eloquent Zen: Daitô and Early Japanese Zen. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1992.
Maraldo, John C. “The Practice of Body-Mind: Dôgen’s Shinjingakudô and Comparative Philosophy.” Dôgen Studies. LaFleur, William R., ed. Studies in East Asian Buddhism, no. 2. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1985. 112-130.
Matsunaga, Alicia and Daigan. Foundation of Japanese Buddhism Vol. II. Los Angeles: Buddhist Books International, 1976.
McMullin, Neil. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1984.
Stambaugh, Joan. Impermanence is Buddha-nature: Dôgen’s Understanding of Temporality. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1990.
Tanahashi, Kazuaki, ed. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dôgen. New York: North Point P, 1985.
Victoria, Brian A. Zen at War. New York: Weeatherhill, 1997.
Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1978.
---. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Random House, 1999.
Zelinski, Daniel. “Dôgen’s Ceaseless Practice.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 7 (2000). 6 Feb. 2001<http://jbe.la.psu.edu/7/zelinski001.html>.
SHORTCUT MENU:
Diary: Index: Writings: Inner Pages: Research:Teachings:
Happenings: April Archive: March Archive: Feb. Archive:
