Episode 43 - Zen teacher Dogen

In this episode I talk about the very influential Japanese Zen teacher, Eihei Dogen (1200-1253), and also say a little about an earlier Chinese teacher, Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157) whom Dogen respected and quoted many times. I describe some of the key ideas of Dogen’s teacher, Rujing (1163–1228), as they are a major influence on Dogen’s approach to Zen meditation. I also discuss their important contributions to the development of Zen Buddhism and say why I think their teachings are still of relevance today. Once more, apologies for my Chinese and Japanese mis-pronunciation!

Transcript

I want to begin by providing a little historical background and then briefly outline the main features of Hongzhi’s teaching – particularly his emphasis on a meditation method, ‘mozhao chan’, often translated into English as ‘serene or silent illumination.’

Hongzhi was born in 1091. He is quoted many times by Dogen, who was obviously very respectful of his predecessor. Hongzhi had been abbot of Tiantong temple, the centre of Caodong or Soto Buddhism in China, for thirty years prior to his death in 1157. This was the temple where Dogen was to study in 1227, when he was in China searching for an authentic teacher. Hongzhi was a prolific writer, and a useful collection of his texts can be found in an English translation titled, Cultivating the Empty Field, by Taigen Dan Leighton (2000).

It is in Hongzhi’s approach to meditation that we see affinities with the approach Dogen would take about seventy years later. Hongzhi’s method of meditation is usually referred to as ‘silent, or serene, illumination, or reflection.’ He emphasises the need both to settle the mind and to maintain clear awareness. ‘Observing the mind in tranquillity,’ is another way of describing Hongzhi’s approach – an approach that is central to the Caodong school. While many forms of meditation involve focusing on something specific, such as an image, a repeated verbal phrase or a particular sound, silent illumination involves the cultivation of the whole unified field of awareness – being aware without categorising, dividing or separating one entity from another. In this sense it involves a radical reorientation of awareness from the parts to the whole, from a world of separate things and experiences, ‘duality’, to a world of endless connection and unity, ‘non-duality’.

Another way of looking at this is as what the Chan teacher, Sheng Yen, refers to as the ‘method of no-method’ (Sheng Yen 2008) – that is a way of being aware without dwelling on anything in particular – ‘non-dwelling mind’. Every time our attention settles on one phenomenon, for instance, a thought or image or sensation, we let go or step back – releasing our attachment to it. In this way we free ourselves from a dualistic or fragmented view of the world and embrace a more wholistic unified view.

In, The Book of Serenity, Hongzhi’s most famous text, he writes:

In silence and serenity all words are forgotten;

Clearly and vividly suchness (tathata) appears.

Thus realised, it is vast and without boundaries;

We see into the nameless nature of existence. (my version of Chen-chi 1970: 57)

Hongzhi’s style of writing is reminiscent of the poetic texts of Daoism. The meaning is elusive and not easily explained. Like his Daoist predecessors, Hongzhi considers words as an impediment to serenity and clear awareness. He suggests we should aim to see through the conventional realm of words and categories (or ‘boundaries’), and to experience the world in its raw direct ‘nameless’ nature. To do this we have to let go of our tendencies to want to grasp at ‘things,’ and to let go of our habitual ways of reacting to existence. Hongzhi writes: ‘This empty, wide open mind is subtly and correctly illuminating. Spacious and content, without confusion from inner thoughts of grasping, effectively overcome habitual behaviour and realise the self that is not possessed by emotions.’ (Leighton 2000: 30) Hongzhi recommends ‘serene reflection’ as a way to be ‘present’ – to experience what is real, actual, and of this moment – untainted by habit and emotional attachment.

In Hongzhi’s approach there are echoes of the emphasis placed by Daoist teachers on acting naturally and spontaneously in harmony with the flow of nature. Hongzhi urges us to break free of the bounds of convention and habit, and to let go of our tendency to hang on to things, categories and concepts. But he warns us not to practice ‘serene reflection’ in order to achieve the goal of serenity and freedom – for attachment to this goal will be as much of a hindrance to freedom as any other attachment. He suggests instead we practice serene reflection for its own sake, not as a means to an end – ‘without desiring to gain credit’ as he puts it. (Loori 2002: 50)

We will now see how Hongzhi’s approach to meditation, and to life, is continued and developed in the teachings of Eihei Dogen.  

Eihei Dogen, or Dogen Kigen as he is sometimes known, is today seen as the most influential figure in the development of Soto Zen. Dogen wrote many works and there are many books about him. He is recognised as both a major reformer of Zen Buddhism and as a philosopher of world importance. I will focus on what I consider to be some of his key insights and teachings. 

I want to say that it was the writings of Dogen that first got me started in the practice of zazen in 1965. One short text in particular fired my interest and provided the guidance I needed for the first six or seven years of my Zen practice. This text, the Fukanzazengi, has been translated many times and the translations are very varied. Although some scholars question the date, most Dogen scholars consider the Fukanzazengi to have been written very soon after Dogen returned to Japan from China in 1527. The text is really a two-page essay, explaining to his students how to practice zen meditation or zazen. Like much of Dogen’s writing it combines passages of great clarity with sentences that are very puzzling and difficult to follow. Most of the essay describes in detail the posture to be adopted in zazen, how to sit, where to sit, and how to breath. It makes only a passing, and as we shall see, a very enigmatic, reference to what one’s mind should, or should not, be doing. In discussing Dogen’s teachings I will focus on the Fukanzazengi and a few other writings – particularly as translated by the Zen scholar, Kazuaki Tanahashi. 

First, a very brief outline of Dogen’s life. He was born in 1200 CE into an aristocratic family living in Kyoto, the Imperial capital of Japan. His father was a high-ranking government minister, but he died when Dogen was only two years old. Sadly, his mother then died when Dogen was seven – so the young boy experienced tragedy, loss and the transient nature of life at an early age. He was recognised as a precocious child, reputedly able to read Chinese poetry when only four years old, and he was reading Chinese Buddhist texts at age nine. At thirteen he was ordained a monk and studied Buddhism on Mount Hiei, the centre of the Tendai School of Buddhism in Japan. Tanahashi suggests that Buddhism was in decline in Japan at this time, reaching ‘the point where magic prayers and ceremonies were sold to the upper classes, and major monasteries had armed monks who engaged in combat.’ (Tanahashi 1995: 3) Certainly Dogen seems to have been very dissatisfied with the quality of teaching on Mount Hiei and elsewhere in Japan, and between 1223 and 1227 he studied Zen meditation in China. He eventually found Rujing, a teacher he admired and who enabled Dogen to realise a deep understanding known as satori or awakening. On his return to Japan, he lived and taught at various temples, passing on to his students a rigorous approach to Zen practice centred on sitting meditation, zazen. He spent his last years at Eihei Temple, which he had founded on a hill in present-day Fukui Prefecture in Japan. Dogen died in 1253. 

So, what was Dogen’s contribution to Zen practice? At the centre of Dogen’s teaching lies the practice of zazen, a form of sitting meditation also known in the Soto Zen tradition as shikantaza, ‘just sitting.’ For Dogen, zazen is the primary Buddhist practice, an activity in which a person can learn how to be a Buddha, or to realise that they are a Buddha – manifesting Buddha-mind or Buddha-nature – yet doing this, as we’ll see later, without having this as a goal.  

In 1223, Dogen travelled to southern China with his teacher, Myozen, to visit the major Zen monasteries in the region and to learn what he could from the monks who were there. Two years prior to this, in 1221, when he was only twenty-one years old, Dogen had already received what is known as ‘dharma transmission’ from his teacher, Myozen - an acknowledgement that Dogen was considered to have mastered the teachings of Zen. However, Dogen was dissatisfied with his own understanding, or lack of it, and he thought that the teachers in Song dynasty China would enable him to realise his Buddha-nature.  

During the first two years of his travels in China, he seems to have been disappointed by the teachings he encountered. Then, in the summer of 1225, he went to the Tiantong Mountain monastery to meet the sixty-two year old abbot, Rujing. The meeting was one of the most important events in Dogen’s life. He later wrote: 'I first offered incense and bowed formally to my late master, old Buddha Tiantong, in his abbot’s room [...] He also saw me for the first time. Upon this occasion, he transmitted dharma, finger to finger, face to face.' (Tanahashi 1995: 5) 

This seems to have been one of those moments when almost by being in each other’s presence two people communicate at a very profound level. Rujing appears to have recognised that the time was ripe for a breakthrough in Dogen’s practice and that he, Rujing, would do all he could to enable this to happen. He gave permission for Dogen to visit him at any hour for instruction and discussion, and Dogen made full use of this rare privilege. 

According to Tanahashi, Rujing was an unusual teacher, who had little time for the trappings of authority that went with his position. He never wore the ornately decorated robes that he was entitled to wear, and he argued that what he taught was ‘the great way of all the Buddhas,’ something that couldn’t be confined within the label of the ‘Zen School.’ (ibid: 6) Rujing advocated a simple but powerful approach to meditation. He told Dogen that, ‘to study meditation …. Is to drop body and mind; it is single-minded intense sitting without burning incense, worshipping, reciting, practising repentance or reading sutras.’ (Batchelor 1994: 126) ‘Single-minded intense sitting,’ ‘shikantaza’ in Japanese – is a term many scholars regard as having been introduced into the vocabulary of Zen by Rujing. Dogen was so impressed with this advice he studied with Rujing for two years and experienced a profound awakening. He returned to Japan, in his words, ‘empty-handed …. Knowing nothing more than the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical.’ But, in the paradoxical language of Zen, this was praise. Dogen was to develop and teach Rujing’s method of single-minded sitting for the rest of his life. 

Rujing’s phrase, ‘drop away body and mind,’ was to be used many times by Dogen in his writings.  Rujing and Dogen are suggesting that, in the practice of zazen, and elsewhere in our daily lives, we should let go of attachment to dualistic ideas and habits of thought, including notions of ‘body’ and ‘mind.’ Rujing was undoubtedly a forceful character. He ran a rigorous programme of instruction based on the practice of zazen. As Rujing taught it, this was a practice that did not involve wrestling with single-focus, unresolvable conundrums, as in the koan-based methods of the Linji or Rinzai school of Zen. As Dogen was to teach when he returned to Japan, zazen involves sitting just to sit, realizing Buddhahood in the very ordinary act of being attentive to one’s own existence – just being here, just becoming.    

Dogen shared with Rujing the belief that zazen was ‘authentic practice’, and that practice and awakening are one and the same. According to Dogen, we don’t have to ‘do’ anything to ‘gain’ enlightenment. We do not need to search for something over the horizon. It is already here, immanent in us, ready to be actualised. We only have to be present, to wake up to our tangible transient existence, to realise our enlightenment. For Rujing and Dogen, practice is enlightenment. Enlightenment is inherent in us, and the only way to realisation, is to let go of chasing after it, or, desiring to be someone other than who we are. Indeed, the Japanese term for awakening, kensho, means to ‘see into one’s true nature’ – which is also one of the primary meanings of the word ‘dharma.’ Dogen says, ‘stop pursuing words and letters’ – for there is no purpose to zazen, other than to sit and to be present. To practice zazen is to return to one’s original, true, nature. There are echoes, here, of the Daoist belief that by letting-go of the layers of words and concepts that we drape over ourselves and the world, we can re-discover the Dao – our spontaneous, fluid, original nature. 

The approach taken by Rujing and Dogen echoes the experiences and the teachings of Gotama Buddha 2,500 years ago. When he was sitting under the Bo-tree in Bodhigaya, Gotama realised that there is no need to look elsewhere for enlightenment, for it is right here where we are. We are all gifted with the potential for enlightenment or nirvana – if only we let go of attachments to theories, intentions, analyses and delusions of all kinds. When we set aside all opposites and dualities, we can sit single-mindedly in unity with the universe. In other words, suspend judgment, sit quietly, pay attention and be the Buddha you have always been. Trust in your own nature. 

In the year that they met, Rujing gave Dogen a certificate of transmission which states that he had achieved ‘direct penetration of merged realisation’ – the fullest tribute he could have received from his teacher. (Tanahashi 1995: 6) Dogen continued to study at Tiantong Mountain even though Myozen, his earlier teacher and companion, had died suddenly when they first arrived at the monastery. Eventually Dogen said farewell to Rujing, and in 1227 he arrived back in Japan. One of the first things he did on his return was to write his seminal essay, Fukanzazengi, in which he gives precise guidance on how to practice zazen. 

According to Dogen, when we sit and pay attention to what is going on within and around us, with no secondary acts of discrimination and attachment clouding our perceptions, we can see clearly and precisely. By attending to phenomena as they arise in consciousness, without attachment, we perceive the whole continuum and gain an insight into the harmony of the whole. The danger here is not that we can focus on aspects of the whole, for it is necessary that we discriminate between things in order to negotiate our way in the world and to communicate with each other, the danger is that we come to believe that the world is actually fragmented and compartmentalised. Dogen argues that to believe this is to be deluded, and Buddhism is, above all, a path to awakening from delusion. 

In a passage from the Fukanzazengi, Dogen writes, ‘think of neither good nor evil and judge not right or wrong.’ (Kim 1987: 58) If the universe, as a whole, is a manifestation of interdependence, then no part of it, be it a tree, a person or a proposition, exists independent of any other part. Thus, any proposition (for instance, about good or evil) or judgment (about right or wrong), must always be to open to a contrary argument, and be uncertain, because propositions are always only partial and relative – they can never be absolute or complete.  

Throughout the Fukanzazengi, Dogen combines precise instruction with poetic suggestion to show how the practice of zazen enables a sitter to gain a clear view of the world in its dynamic relational glory by the simple, yet difficult, act of sitting, attending and being-here.  Dogen advises us to take, what he calls, ‘the backward step’ (a phrase that is also used by Hongzhi) – in other words to take a small step back from our experience in order to be aware of a thought as it happens and to open up a tiny space between us and the thought. This space, small though it is, is enough to free us from the stickiness and power of the thought, or sensation, or feeling, enabling us to be calm and clear-sighted even when our minds are agitated or upset. This peaceful freedom also enables us to have a clearer grasp of what is going on around us, and to be in a position to make wiser decisions and to act with understanding and compassion. 

Hongzhi and Dogen are pointing to what they see as a key feature of Zen meditation practice, that is, not so much to enter a particular mental state of peace, serenity or happiness, or to ponder on our wayward thoughts, sensations and feelings, but rather to change the relationship we have with these thoughts, sensations and feelings. To step back from inhabiting ‘our’ thoughts - from identifying with what goes on in the mind - and instead see thoughts, sensations and feelings from the perspective of the mind itself – indeed, even to let go of our notion that they are ‘ours’ and just see them as the activity of the mind – like thought-fish swimming about in the mind-sea. 

Dogen also advises his students, when doing zazen, to be ‘neither thinking nor not-thinking.’ That is, not to be intending, or setting-out, to think or to not-think. If thinking occurs, so be it, we are thinking. If not-thinking occurs, so be it, we are not-thinking. We are not tied, or attached, to either course of action by intention or desire. We remain in a state of equanimity regarding either activity. When a thought arises, we let it go. Thinking happens. Not-thinking happens. We accept both activities equally, and we are disturbed by neither. Dogen advises us to inhabit our bodies, rather than chase after thoughts or sensations. Be present, rather than absent. Be here, rather than elsewhere. 

Just as the term, ‘thinking,’ has a very particular meaning for Dogen, so does the word, ‘mind.’ For Dogen, mind is inseparable from body - indeed the term, shin-jin, is often used by Dogen to refer to ‘body-mind’ - rather than mind on its own. The term, ‘embodied mind’, is a useful approximation in English. According to Kim, ‘the human body, in Dogen’s view, is not a hindrance to the realisation of enlightenment but the very vehicle through which enlightenment is realised.’ (Kim 1987: 96) There is no hint here of the dualistic polarising of body and mind - as is often the case in western philosophy - or in the tendency of many Christian thinkers to marginalise the body, or even to consider the body as something to be overcome or subjugated in order to become closer to God. In another of his essays (Yuibutsu Yobutsu) Dogen writes: ‘An ancient Buddha said: The entire universe is the true human body. / The entire universe is the gate of liberation.’ (Tanahashi 1995: 163) Not only does Dogen consider the body-mind to be an integrated whole, but he also recognises no essential separation between body-mind, shin-jin, and the world. For Dogen, the world and body-mind are interdependent and permeable. There is no fixed boundary between them. The embodied mind is interwoven with the entire universe.  

In the Fukanzazengi, it is very noticeable that Dogen talks more about posture than he does about what we do mentally. ‘Just sitting’ or shinkantaza, is to sit with no object in mind other than to sit, to be present, to fully inhabit the body and to bring together body and mind in the single act of paying attention. 

Elsewhere in the Fukanzazengi, Dogen argues that ‘to know the self is to lose the self’ and thus to find the self. The found self both is, and is not, the self that is lost. When the self is examined through zazen or bare attention, we realise that there is no essence or fixed substance to the self. What we encounter are currents of sensation, feelings, thoughts and intentions, interwoven and in flux. There is no fixed core or unitary hub to this river of mental activity. Recognising that this is the case is to realise that ‘the entire universe is the true human body,’ for there are no fixed limits or impermeable boundaries to the self. With this realisation, it is as if a gate has opened to a new awareness of the self as an open fluid process, rather than as a nucleus or ego somehow separate from the world. For Dogen, human beings are embodied minds participating in the relational field of the universe – thus the ‘entire universe is the gate of liberation.’ However, it is just as true to say that there can be no gate and no liberation because the universe is the self, and the self is the universe. 

Elsewhere in his writings, Dogen reminds us that we are mistaken if we believe and act as if each ego/self is a fixed and essential centre of the universe; we become wise when we act on the belief that the self has no fixed essence and is woven into the universe and inseparable from it. If we believe in a self that is separated from the rest of the world, we think we act in our own self-interest by trying to satisfy every desire of our ego - and our politics, culture and social organisation reflect this need for self-fulfilment, at the expense of all other considerations. Yet, as Peter Timmerman (1992: 74) points out, ‘how can we survive on a planet of [eight] billion points of infinite greed?’ This delusory way of living is clearly unsustainable. While ecology provides the analytical tools to understand the interconnectedness of living systems, Buddhism offers an alternative way of being-in-the-world that harmonises with ecological understanding. 

Dogen was an accomplished poet, and I would now like to read a couple of his poems. They both demonstrate Dogen’s profound relationship with the natural world, his keen awareness and his humility. The first is in a translation from Steven Heine’s book, The Zen Poetry of Dogen. I have modified it slightly, changing one word ‘vanity’ to ‘cravings and attachments.’ 

In spring hundreds of flowers, in autumn the clear moon,
 In summer a cool breeze, and in winter the white snow,
 If your mind is free of cravings and attachments, 

Then every season is fine. (Heine 1997: 9)

The other one goes like this, again with my very slight revisions:

For so long living here without worldly attachments,
 I have renounced literature and writing;
 I may be a monk in a mountain temple,
 Yet I’m still moved in seeing gorgeous blossoms
 Scattered by the spring breeze,
 And hearing the warbler's lovely song—
 Let others judge my meagre efforts. (Heine 1997: 12)

Note the wry irony here, very typical of many Zen writers. Despite, as a monk, have ‘renounced literature and writing,’ he managed to write an enormous amount!                        

In his life of fifty-three years, Dogen accomplished a lot. He taught, oversaw the building of temples and monasteries, and wrote a large body of texts that were to become very influential in the development of Soto Zen in Japan, and more recently, around the world. In 1246, Dogen renamed Daibutsu monastery, where he was based, calling it Eihei-ji – which means, ‘the temple of eternal peace’. This is still one of the main centres of Soto Zen study and practice in Japan. It is also a major centre of tourism. In 1252 Dogen became ill and in early 1253 he wrote the last part of his long text, the Shobogenzo. Later in 1253 he went to Kyoto to try to find a cure for his illness, but without success. He died in Kyoto, where he had been born, in the summer of 1253. Dogen’s legacy can be found in his writings and in the teaching, practices and institutions of the Soto school of Zen. Dogen argued that everyone, regardless of social status or wealth, has the potential for awakening, and he offered the practice of zazen as a method whereby we can all wake up to the rich, fluid, ever-changing reality of this world we inhabit. 

I want to end with my variation on another poem by Dogen. It goes like this: 

As if in a dream

I drift in a whirlwind

of wanting this and that

trying to hold on to each moment

in the rush of daily living

Then, one evening, I let go

and listen to the sound

of rain falling

on the roof

- awake at last,

I realise this is all

I need, just the sound 

of rain on the roof

and the miracle of

being here

(based on poem translated by Steven Heine, 1997: p.42) 

I hope this talk has whetted your appetite to find out more about Dogen and his teaching, and, perhaps, to take up the practice of Zen meditation – ‘silent illumination’. 

Thank you for listening and bye for now.

REFERENCES

Batchelor, Stephen. 1994. The Awakening of the West. Berkeley: Parallax Press.

Chen-Chi, Chang. 1970. The Practice of Zen. New York: Harper.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1985. Questions to a Zen Master. London: Rider.

Habito, Ruben L.F. 1997. Mountains and Rivers and the Great Earth: Zen and Ecology, in Tucker, Mary Evelyn & Williams Duncan Ryūken. 1997. Buddhism & Ecology. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Heine, Steven. 1997. The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace. Boston: Tuttle Publishing.

Kim, Hee-Jin. 1987. Dōgen Kigen: Mystical Realist, Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Leighton, Taigen Dan. 2000. Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi. Vermont: Tuttle.

Loori, John Daido. 2002. The Art of Just Sitting: Essential Writings on the Zen practice of Shikantaza. Boston: Wisdom. 

Matthiessen, Peter. 1986. Nine-headed Dragon River: Zen Journals. London: Collins

Scott, David Keizan. 2021. Shikantaza. Stonewater Zen website. Online at: https://www.stonewaterzen.org/shikantaza/ - accessed 25 March 2021.

Sheng Yen. 2008. The Method of No-Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination. London: Shambhala.

Stonewater Zen. 2021. Online at: https://www.stonewaterzen.org/2010/07/who-is-keizan-j-kin-zenji/ - accessed 21 May 2021.

Tanahashi, K. ed. 1995. Moon in a dewdrop: writings of Zen master Dogen. New York: North Point Press.

Timmerman, Peter. 1992. It is dark outside: Western Buddhism from the Enlightenment to the global crisis, in Batchelor, Martine & Brown, Kerry. 1992. Buddhism and Ecology. London: Cassel.

NB. Please note that the Japanese Soto school of Zen, is a continuation of the Chinese Caodong school founded by Dongshan Liangjie , who lived from 807-869. Dongshan is known as Tozan Ryokai in Japanese. The first two letters of Tozan’s name give us the last two letters of ‘Soto.’ The ‘So’ of Soto comes from another Japanese teacher, Sozan (840-901) - Caoshan in Chinese. S, Sozan plus Tozan equals ‘Soto’. Likewise, ‘Caodong’ brings together the Chinese names of the founders, Caoshan and Dongshan.