I was reading the Dharma companion post and the topic of Dogen came up!

To my understanding Dogen's shtick revolved around the fact that we are all said to have buddha-nature, and if that is the case then why do we seek it? Long story short, he eventually taught that there is no enlightenment to be sought, the act of sitting is enlightenment itself.

It's interesting to me because he very obviously sought an answer to his question (Enlightenment?) only to then turn around and say that there is no enlightenment with a big E.

I was listening to a podcast and they were debating the implications of this... saying well then what's the point in sitting if there's no where to be or become?

Despite any inherent paradoxes, the soto version of insight seems to be the simplest to me at the onset, namely just sit. Of course, easier said than done!

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So I was thinking (already a big mistake) that it's interesting how there are two diametrically opposed methods in Zen. One is to ask the question: Zen master Bassui writes in a letter to an Abbess, "In order to become Buddha you must discover who it is that wants to became a Buddha." The other is the absence of a question, as in Dogen's approach.

What I find interesting is that they mutually bring about the other's existence. For example, as soon as I ask the question I also bring into existence the absence of a question due to the duality that we impose on the universe. If I am not asking the question, then it is still defined in terms of the question as it is simply the absence of the question!

So given that, I find it a little strange that he goes out of his way to bash the Rinzai method, which is to ask the question. When his own method relies on the absence of the question itself...

Maybe I've got it wrong?

Some Dogen Quotes, from Moon in a Dewdrop, Writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi:

"Indeed, when you understand discontinuity, the notion of self does not come into being."

"... practice the way as though saving your head from fire."

"The thought of enlightenment is the mind which sees into impermanence. This is most fundamental, and not the mind pointed to by confused people."


"So, when the notion of self arises, sit quietly and contemplate it. Is there a real basis inside or outside your body now? Your body with hair and skin is just inherited from your father and mother. From beginning to end a drop of blood or lymph is empty. So none of these are the self. What about mind, thought, awareness and knowledge? Or the breath going in and out, which ties a lifetime together: what is it after all? None of these is the self either. How could you be attached to any of them? Deluded people are attached to them. Enlightened people are free of them."

These were easy to find, and there are many, many more along the same lines.

Poopooed enlightenment, did he? What do you have to prove that?

The whole topic of Dogen came up in the Dharma Companion post because (here is hansen the historian again) because Rusty was at Esalen in the early 1970's studying meditation with Claudio Naranjo while Hansen was out at Julia Phieffer Beach sitting on the rocks meditating, and forgot all about Ed Browns Tassajara Bread Book, in that Tassajara Zen Center was only a few miles away, and as much as anything else the book was responsible for what was transpiring within hansen. The whole point of Dharma Overground was to skirt around these references of antiquity, and really the whole problem with Zen is that you leave a trace everywhere, when all you really wanted to do was leave no trace. The bread book is just a commentary on Dogen's Tenzo Kyokun (Instructions for the Zen Cook) which I might add is a very special form of meditation also prevalent in Theravada Vipassana, e.g. 24/7 focus on the object as well as noticing whether or not Roshi left his walking stick on the left side or the right side of the stairway. There is a difference between factuality and speculation I would draw your attention to, in that factuality is experience, whereas speculation is lacking in experience. Some speculation might eventually be realized through experience, but most of the time getting the experience also does that, making speculation somewhat redundant. Just speaking from my experience...

The real dialectic in Zen is that monks are usually idiots, and masters are usually never really followers, so go figure...

p e a c e

h a n s e n

Hey Daniel,

So from his writing called Kuge in the Shobogenzo he says:

"To approach the truth intentionally is also wrong.

To turn one's back on the Truth is wrong, and to approach the Truth is also wrong. The Truth is the approaching and the turning away, in each instance of approaching or turning away, which, in each instance of approaching or turning away, are the Truth itself. Is there anyone who knows that this wrong is also the Truth?"

So I guess maybe he doesn't really poopoo enlightenment. But it seems like the desire for enlightenment, whilst also being the Truth, is in fact that which blinds us from seeing the truth?

From my own personal experience I would say I was pretty desperate to get enlightenment. So that was Truth but it was wrong. Before that I turned my back on the Truth. Also Truth but also wrong. Now I try to focus on the boat I'm in (so-to-speak) instead of aspiring to my imagined version of an enlightened state.

So while we are discussing the truth and I am typing this it's actually right here right now as you read this.

As you say, focus on the boat.

Noticing that these sensations are it and show the universal characteristics, such as the impermanence Dogen is so into, is key.

More important: simply do a good technique that has a track record of good progress, such as Mahasi Noting on retreat, or some other very diligent, moment to moment, Three Characteristics based inquiry, rapidly, clearly, completely, to tear the thing down from a sensate level to its bare, clear sensate components. Make effort, effort to see the truth of what is happening now, the sensations as they are, the universal characteristics that lead to realization. Strong effort pays off, good investigation pays off, strong technique coupled with good appreciation of the maps and how things progress as concentration and investigation mature pay off.

Gassho

Im at a point in my practice (chan huatou) where this seems like literal experiential truth to me. As huang po said its like the sun light, grasping at it and chasing it gets you no closer and if you run from it, it follows you. I recently read an essay of dogens on effort that seems apropos:

Exertion


The great way of the Buddha and the patriarchs involves the highest form of exertion, which goes on unceasingly in cycles from the first dawning of religious truth, through the test of discipline and practice, to awakening and nirvana. It is sustained exertion proceeding without lapse from cycle to cycle. Accordingly, it is exertion that is neither self-imposed nor imposed by others but free and uncoerced. The merit of this exertion upholds me and upholds others. The truth is that the benefits of one's own struggles and sustained exertions are shared by all beings in the ten directions. Others may not be aware of this, and we may not realize it ourselves, but it is so. It is through the sustained exertions of the Buddhas and patriarchs that our own exertions are made possible, that we are able to reach the high road of Truth. In exactly the same way it is through our own exertions that the exertions of the Buddhas are made possible and that the Buddhas attain the high road of Truth.

This exertion too sustains the the sun, moon, and the stars; it sustains the earth and sky, body and mind, object and subject, the four elements and five skandhas.

The merits of these exertions are sometimes disclosed, and thus arises the dawn of religious consciousness, which is then tested in practice. Sometimes, however, these merits lie hidden and are neither seen nor heard nor realized. Yet hidden though they may be, they are still available because they suffer no diminution or restriction, whether they are visible or invisible, tangible or intangible.

At this moment a flower blossoms, a leaf falls - it is a manifestation of sustained exertion. A mirror is brightened, a mirror is broken - it is a manifestation of sustained exertion. Everything is exertion. To attempt to avoid exertion is an impossible evasion because the attempt itself is exertion. This sustained exertion is not something that people of the world naturally love or desire; yet, it is the last refuge of all.

From http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/J%20-%20Navigation%20Pages%20and%20A%20List%20of%20Books/Navigation%20Pages/Lists%20of%20Files/Ancestors.html

One of the oddities i noticed about the above essay is that if one substitutes "surrender" for "exertion", it still scans.