Zazen For The People - Fukan Zanzengi (Part 1)

Zazen For The People - Fukan Zanzengi (Part 1) - Kanshin Allison Tait on April 26th 2026 - $5 Suggested Donation

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning. Welcome to Seattle Soto Zen. My name's Kanshin. I'm the resident teacher here. And uh just recently we finally finished up a series of lectures on uh a Zen poem called The Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. And uh so I thought let's start today with another uh text that is also in our champ book. And uh this is called the Fukun Zazengi of Ehe Dogen. And uh I think back in 2020 or 2021, uh we did a a year of uh all all Dogen texts for the whole year. Uh and we'll probably do it again sometime, but we actually didn't cover Fukun Zazengi in 2020 or 2021, whenever it was. And uh I think it's a good place to start if you're new and if you're not familiar with uh Dogen. Uh he's uh his writing is usually pretty dense. Uh Fukan Zazengi is the uh extraordinarily approachable as far as Dogen goes. So Fukan Zazengi, it's uh can be translated many different ways. It's uh a universal recommendation of Zazen, suited meditation, uh recommending Zazen for all people, how anyone can sit, and it's basically Dogen Zenji's meditation instructions for uh the type of meditation that uh he prescribes for Soto Zen. And uh is does everyone familiar with Dogin? Kind of know who he is, maybe. So I want to start by saying yeah, he has a few different names. So his uh his name, uh his Dharma name, I don't think we know what his birth name uh is Dogen Keegan, way source uh rare profound. So in uh the Zen school, depending on which um what your teacher and your teacher's teacher's way was, uh you can either get uh a name that's two uh kanji, two Japanese characters, or four Japanese characters. So it's either a two-part name or just a single name of two characters. So I'm Kyoji Kanchen, I just go by Kanchen. Uh he was Dogen Kigen, he mostly went by Dogen. It can also be called Dogen Zenji, which is uh Dogen way source, and Zenji just means Zen Master, Zen teacher, and he's also known as Ehe Dogen, and that is because he was the abbot of Eheji monastery. Uh it's a different G than in Zenji. This G is uh temple, so it's a temple of eternal peace. So the abbot uh traditionally receives the name of the temple as the first part of their name. And uh so Ehedogen is Dogen of Eheji monastery. It was actually a second monastery. Uh his first was in Kyoto, and it was uh, I think Kanandori. Um one of my teachers said he he wanted uh a temple, a monastery that was more remote, like in the mountains outside of you know downtown Kyoto. Um and uh but one of my teachers said he just didn't want to be called Kanandogen for Kanandori temple. That's not true. So uh traditionally we uh we oh sorry, and Dogen was born in the year 1200. Um and uh he was the uh illegitimate child of a noble family, and Dogen's mother died when uh Dogan was very young, uh, probably around seven. And uh he was uh inspired to become a monk after his mother's death. So he said uh at her funeral, he, you know, there's a story of um Shaky Muni Buddha, our first ancestor, original founder, uh, of him falling kind of quite naturally into a state of meditation in childhood. Uh and in his case, it was a lovely summer day sitting in the shade of a fruit tree or a rose apple tree. Um, Dogin Zenji also had an experience of naturally falling into meditation as a child, but uh in rather different circumstances, he said it was as he was watching the smoke rise up from uh the incense at his mother's funeral. And he had this profound experience of meditation and of you know impermanence and the importance of uh having a spiritual life. So at age uh 13 uh he became a monk in a Tendai monastery. So he uh traditionally we say that um Fukan Zazenki was sort of the first uh Zen essay that Dogen wrote as a teacher uh in 1227, which was right after he returned from China. And that's based on what he wrote in another early essay called Bandowa. Uh he said he wrote it in uh 1231, and he said five years ago I wrote the Fukanshengi, was put in 1227. Um, but the oldest, uh, so he was 27 years old. The oldest dated copy we have was from 1233, and it's actually written in Dogen's hand, and it's uh all in Chinese characters. Um, and it's uh it's uh preserved as a national treasure at a Heiji monastery. Um, this is a different version from the one in our chant book. The one in our chant book was probably written first, but it was edited several times in Dogen's lifetime. So he uh it obviously was important to him. He revisited and revised it many times. And uh interestingly, it's written in uh completely in Chinese characters, uh, and his Dogen's sort of great collection of essays, Shobogenzo, is written in Japanese in Kana. But uh the Fukan Zazengi is in kanji. And uh actually large sections of the Fukan Zazengi are taken directly from a manual of Zen meditation that Dogen found in China, and he just straight copied it. So, interestingly, not a lot of people uh know that as well as being a poet and a Zen teacher and a writer, Dogen was a translator. So he brought a lot of Chinese texts to Japan when he returned. And uh interestingly, he was the first Japanese teacher to introduce the uh Koan collection, the Blue Cliff Records, to Japan. The legend is uh on a Dogen found this Koan collection, the Blue Cliff Record. He first read it on his last day in China before he was supposed to get on the boat the next day. So he stayed up all night and copied it. So they call it the one night Blue Cliff Record, which has also been preserved, not at Aheiji, a different monastery. I'm not sure if it's an uh if it's officially a national treasure. But uh the very first paragraph of Fukun Zazengi is not copied directly from this Chinese text. So this is actually Dogen Zenji speaking. So don't have the page number 20. 20. The way is basically perfect and all pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice this uh intro? This was a um very pressing concern for Dogen Zenji as a young monk. The way is basically perfect and all pervading, how could it be contingent upon practice and realization? So this was Dogen's great concern as a young monk. If as we're taught in Mahayana Buddhism, we are all originally endowed with Buddha nature from the start. Buddha nature is inseparable from our own human mind, our true self.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

How come we don't act like it? Right?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

We're all originally endowed with the wisdom and compassion of an enlightened Buddha. So why do we behave so foolishly and so selfishly so much of the time?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Or as uh is put in uh Abbe's biography of Dogan?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Both exoteric and esoteric Buddhism teach the primal Buddha nature or Dharma nature and the original self-awakening of all sentient beings. If this is the case, why have the Buddhas of all ages had to awaken the longing for and seek enlightenment by engaging in ascetic practice? If I'm already Buddha, then whatever I'm doing should be Buddha activity, but I know it's not because I'm selfish and lazy and foolish.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Another important thing to know about Dogan is that uh he was rather tragically intelligent, he was smarter than all of his teachers and senior monks, and he knew it, and they knew it, and they knew that he knew it.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

And uh so when he posed this question, you know, if we're all endowed with food and nature, why do we have to do all of this hard practice? Why is it so difficult to behave like a Buddha if I already am a Buddha? So he he asked this question of the teachers and senior monks, and they gave him answers, but he could tell that these were, you know, kind of wrote answers that you know they didn't really think about it as deeply as he did, and he wasn't satisfied with any of their answers. Unfortunately, he was probably quite vocally dissatisfied. If you've read very many of his essays, you know he doesn't hold that when he thinks somebody else has a wrong idea of something. Typically they say that Soto Zen doesn't use koans, which obviously isn't true because Dogin Zenji uh introduced the Blue Cliff Records to Japan for the first time. Um but uh it it is true in the sense that you know we don't go through this koan curriculum. Um so that in uh in Rinzaizen, depending on your teacher, the you have some practice of you know, when you're sitting you're practicing with uh a certain koan. And usually there's you know a series of koans, and if when you're satisf when your teacher is satisfied that you've penetrated the first one, they assign you the second one, and then on and on. Um but uh Dog and Zenji, he practiced with this question for already endowed with Buddha nature: why isn't it easy to act like a Buddha? And he practiced with it kind of like a koan, very much like a koan. Another, oh Dog's first name was Hitisubun. I pronounced that wrong. Thank you very much, Shindo-sun. Uh Shindo Steve can uh can read Chinese characters, which I can't, so he's able to find uh sources that are impenetrable for me. So another uh koan collection, the Gateless Barrier, uh, begins with the Koan uh Mu, which is very famous Koan. If you don't know it, good off to know it. But uh the uh commentary is to practice with the Koan Mu day and night. And he says, when you're really working with this koan, it is like a red hot ball of iron lodged in your throat.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

You can't swallow it, you can't puke it up, it's just burning there inside your throat until you finally see through it. And I think this was how he was practicing with his personal kohan.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

And one of his more famous work was called Genjokan, which translates to the koan of our everyday human life. So uh 1217, and he was about 18 years old, uh Dogen actually moved to from this Tendai monastery to uh Kaninji Zen Temple. It's a Rinzai temple, and the founder um traveled to China as a young man, studied with a Chinese master, and kind of brought these Chinese texts and Chinese methods of teaching back to Japan and founded his monastery. So um Dogen's elder friend, sort of informal teacher Myo Zen, was uh a student of this uh teacher who spent a lot of time in China, and so Myo Zen thought, you know, maybe we should go to China as well. And Dogen said, maybe one of the Zen masters in China can answer my question. Because none of the teachers in Japan have been able to so far. So in 1223, when Dogen was 23 years old and Yozen a little bit older, they went to China in in search of a true teacher and the authentic Dharma. So it's a little bit funny that Dogan says, What is the use of going off here and there to practice? When he undertook this dangerous sea voyage from Japan to China. Uh, and this was actually during uh a time when the Mongols were raiding large parts of China. Uh Toget didn't really write about that. So he got to China and he started tracking down all of the Chinese Zen teachers he could find and asking him this question, this ko on that was burning in his throat. And at first, he wasn't too happy with their answers. Uh there was one notable exception in uh another famous work of Dogen Zenji's uh The Instructions for the Cook. He writes about his meeting with uh a Zen teacher who really inspired him. So I guess when their boat first arrived in China, uh they were quarantined for a little while. So they weren't allowed off the boat for a couple of weeks. And uh this elderly monk from a Chinese monastery came up to the boat looking for mushrooms, so they were carrying as cargo these you know special mushrooms, and uh their head cook wanted to buy some as a special treat for the monks, and uh he obviously Dogen and Miozen introduced themselves, and they had this lovely conversation with this elderly monk, and uh at some point the elderly monk kind of slapped his eyes and said, Well, better be heading back to my monastery. And Dogen said, But we're having such a wonderful conversation. Why don't you spend the night and we can keep talking about Zen? And the monk said, Well, nope, I've just picked up these mushrooms, which was my task, but I need to, you know, actually get them back to the kitchen and prepare them and cook them. And you know, otherwise the monks aren't gonna have their special mushroom meal. And Dogan said, but you're obviously very educated and clever. Why do you waste your time cooking? And the old monk said, if you think cooking for my fellow Zen students is a waste of time, you don't really understand Zen.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And Dogen said, but you're old.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Shouldn't someone else do this for you? And he said, No, this is my job. I'm happy to do it, I'm proud to do it, and I'm gonna head back to the money. Industry and cook meal a meal for my monks. And Dogen was very confused, but also very inspired. So as I said before, Dogen was uh the illegitimate child of a noble family, and uh they for you know um noble families in Europe uh around that time, the sort of standard was the eldest son would be trained to inherit their you know their property, and uh so that would be their job is to um train with their father and learn how to run the family business basically. Uh the second son would be would go to the military. This was when you would buy officers' commissions. Uh and then if you had a third son, he would go to the church, to the priesthood. Especially, you know, if you went to the Catholic priesthood, you wouldn't have to worry about him producing more sons that you also had to provide for. And uh in Japan, in Doga's time, it was pretty much the same. So most of the monks were um kind of surplus sons from noble families, they were educated, and the monastery was a good place for them, right? They would be taken care of, uh, they wouldn't be in the way, and uh it was very stratified. So Dogan and his fellow monks were of the literate class, and they studied and practiced meditation and talked philosophy all the time. And the people from the less educated, from you know, the poorer classes, lived in the monastery, they didn't ordain, they did chores all day. So this was what Dogen was used to, and meeting this um educated monk who was you know who thought that cooking and taking care of the temple and serving his fellow monks was as important as meditation and reading and everything else was a completely new concept for Dogen. And, you know, I don't know if you can draw a straight line, but I think you can between that and the title of Fukun Zazengi, How anyone can sit zaze. Dogan was very inspired by this way of doing things, and he said, you know, I really he really took it to heart when this old monk said, if you don't understand how serving monks is important practice, you don't understand Zen.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

So Dogen really deeply investigated that.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

And then he left the boat and started traveling to different Chinese monasteries and putting his questions to different Chinese Zen masters, and it turns out most of them weren't any better than the Japanese Zen teachers he knew. So he was very discouraged. And then finally, uh in 1225, Dogen and Myozen went to Miao Tiantai because they heard of this very uh inspiring teacher on Mount Tiantai named Rujing. And Dogen was sitting Seixhin at Mount at uh Ruzing's monastery, and the monk next to him fell asleep. And uh I guess he really fell asleep, and it was pretty obvious. And Ruzing actually got up and he hit the sleeping monk with his slipper. He smacked him on the back with his slipper and said, You're not here to sleep, we're here to drop off body and mind. So last week I talked about a turning word, which is a Zen term for you know uh a phrase that you know gets you unstuck, or that answers, you know, a burning question you have. So it can be something your teacher said, can be something, you know, the butcher in the village says, can be, you know, anything, but a lot of the time it's you know, uh your teacher finally answers this question in a way that you really understand it. And Rujing's drop off body and mind somehow it resolved this question that had troubled Dogen for so long. He said, Well, this is the answer to how come if we're originally Buddha, we still have to work so hard to act like a Buddha.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Is dropping off body and mind that is the answer. So he went to talk to Rujing and he said, I understand, drop off body and mind, and Rujing said, Body and mind dropped off.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

And in 1227, 1227, uh Dogen's friend Myozin died in China. He got really sick and uh did not recover. Also in 1227, Dogen receives Dharma transmission from his uh teacher Rujing.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

So Ruzing uh formally recognized Dogen as his successor. And then also 1227 Dogen returns to China, and then Rujing dies.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

It's unclear whether he died before or after Dogen left China to go back to Japan. And then still 1227 Dogen writes Fukun Zazengi.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

It was a busy year for him. So again, the way is basically perfect and all pervading.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? So, in case drop off body and mind didn't clarify the whole question for you, I have a commentary here from uh Maseo Abe's study of Dogen.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

And this is basically uh he's he's picking off different um short sections of uh various writings of Dogen's to explain how he resolved this question, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:23

If we already have Buddha nature, why do we have to sit so much zuzand and work so hard and put so much effort into behaving like a Buddha?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

So, Dogin's solution to this question.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

How was the problem of the relationship between resolution practice and the Dharma nature solved at the very moment of dropping off body and mind? Dogan's solution is shown here and there in his writings. This dharma is amply present in every person, but unless one practices it is not manifested. Unless there is realization it is not attained. To think that practice and realization are not one is a heretical view. In the Buddha Dharma, practice and realization are identical, because one's present practice is practice and realization. One's initial negotiation of the way in itself is the whole of the original realization. Thus, even while one is directed to practice, he is told not to anticipate realization apart from practice, because practice points directly to original realization. As it is already realization and practice, realization is endless. As it is practice and realization, practice is beginningless. Thus, even when one is directed to practice, he is told not to anticipate realization, apart from practice, because practice points directly to original realization. As it is already realization in practice, realization is endless. As it is practice in realization, practice is beginningless. So while we are acting like Buddha, we are Buddha.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Outside of acting like Buddha, we are not Buddha.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

As for the truth of Buddha nature, the Buddha nature is not incorporated prior to attaining Buddhahood, it is incorporated upon the attainment of Buddhahood. The Buddha nature is always manifested simultaneously with the attainment of Buddhahood. This truth should be deeply, deeply penetrated in concentrated practice. There has to be twenty or even thirty years of diligence and practice. He said somewhere else, if you practice sincerely, ten out of ten of you will attain realization. In the great way of Buddhas and Patriarchs, there is always continuous practice which is supreme. It is the way which is circulating ceaselessly. There is not even the slightest gap between resolution, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

The way of continuous practice is ever circulating. So there's uh a very famous metaphor that you might have already heard.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

It's in the the Lotus Sutra. There's a story of a young man who is maybe he's going to China. Anyway, he's going off on a great adventure, and he has a massive going away party the night before. And he gets really, really drunk. And his wealthy friend who attended his going away party wants to help him out on his travels. So he sews a precious gem, you know, maybe a gold bar or something, into the lining of his friend's robe to keep it safe, right? They didn't have they hadn't invented pockets yet. So he sighed it, he he he sewed it into the sleeve of his rope. Unfortunately, his friend got so drunk that in the morning he didn't remember that he had this money sewn into his jacket. So he went off on his you know backpacking journey of China. And uh, you know, he was he was living in backpackers' hostels. He was, you know, washing dishes in exchange for meals, sleeping in barns, and you know, it was you know, it was a good adventure, but it kind of sucked a little bit too. And then one day he got his sleeve cut on a nail or something, and it tore. And this diamond that his friend had given him all these months before fell out.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

And he realized, oh, all this time I've been sleeping in stables. I was a wealthy person.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

So this is the same as being originally endowed with Buddha nature, right? It's true, but if we don't know it, then it doesn't help us. It's like having a precious jewel hidden in our pocket, you know, it's like that uh $20 bill you find in your winter coat. It was there all along, but before you saw it and held it and made use of it, you know, it really wasn't if you didn't know you had it, you couldn't do anything with it, right? So this is uh a very famous story, which I'm sure Dogen's teachers and elder friends used as an answer to his question. But, you know, it didn't compute for him at then. Um maybe it doesn't compute for you now, but that's okay. We've got many more paragraphs to go in for Gensa Zenki. Thank you all so much for your kind attention. But please take very good care of yourselves. We'll end with the after Dharma Top chat, which is also on page two and also in the Zoom chat.