“They are all selfless.” In other words, with I and without I, including both relative and absolute. These ten directions, the entire world, are nothing but the body and mind of the person of thusness. The entire universe is nothing but each and every one of us. And at the same time, such a person is selfless. And being selfless, the person is able to manifest body and mind as the ten directions, as the entire universe.
There is the expression, the world in the ten directions is nothing but the illumination of one’s self. So how to be this selfless person? We are already this person. What is preventing us from realizing it?
Our bodies are not really ours. Life passes with time, never stopping for a moment. Where did our ruddy faces disappear to? Although we look for them, their traces are nowhere. As we observe carefully, there are many things of the past we can no longer find. Neither do our sincere minds ever stand still; they go and come at every turn. Even though we have the mind of sincerity, it is not something sluggish surrounding the self. Within this context, there are people who arouse the mind all of a sudden; once the mind is aroused, they discard things they have hitherto indulged in; they desire to hear what they have not yet heard and seek to verify what they have not yet verified. All this has nothing to do with their personal efforts. We must know that this is so because they are persons of thusness. How do we know they are persons of thusness? We know they are persons of thusness because they think of attaining the essence of thusness.3
Dogen Zenji is talking about all of us. This passage makes me appreciate so very much all of you who are practicing. You know there is something that you must clarify, and yet your effort is not your effort. Whose effort is it? It is the effort of the person of thusness. Who is this person? Dogen Zenji says that even the hardship, anxiety, or whatever such a person experiences is also the essence of thusness. This is very true.
We say the true dharma eye looks for the true dharma eye. The true dharma eye comes to do zazen to be the true dharma eye, or manifest as such a person. In other words, you yourself as the true dharma eye manifests wherever you are as the true dharma eye.
We intrinsically have the countenance of the person of thusness, and so need not be anxious about the essence of thusness. Because anxiety is itself the essence of thusness, it is not anxiety. Moreover, we need not be startled by the essence of thusness being this way. Even if thusness appears startling and suspicious, it is thusness all the same: there is that thusness by which you ought to be startled. It can’t be measured by the measure of the Buddha, or the measure of the mind, any more than it can be measured by the measure of the dharma world, or the measure of the entire world. It is simply that “one is already a person of thusness; so why should one be anxious about the essence of thusness?”4
Isn’t this wonderful? Your life cannot be measured by any restricted ruler. This reminds me of the koan by the Sixth Patriarch and Nangaku Ejo, which I have already referred to. “Who comes here as thus?” Nangaku spent eight years struggling with this koan. “Who am I?” is a fundamental inquiry. You know the answer intellectually. I am the whole world! I am this obvious fact: the person of thusness, the essence of thusness. This is my life, your life!
Nangaku said, “If you try to explain it, it doesn’t hit the mark.” What is the mark? Where is it? You yourself are the mark, and you yourself are the bow and arrow. You yourself are everything; that is the target. How can the target be hit? Is there any kind of special bow and arrow? This wisdom that Buddha manifests is innate in all of us. It is the life of each of us. How do each of you appreciate this thusness—the unsurpassable Way—as your life, as the life of the Buddha, as the wisdom of the Tathagata? It does not matter what you call it.
How do you take care of your anxiety, your frustration over this matter? “If one wants to attain the essence of thusness, one must become a person of thusness. But one is already a person of thusness, so why should one be anxious about the essence of thusness?”
1. Hee Jin Kim, trans., “Flowers of Emptiness: Selections from Dogen’s Shobogenzo,” in Studies in Asian Thought and Religion, vol. 2. (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), 201.
2. Ibid, 201.
3. Ibid, 201–202.
4. Ibid, 202.
ON BECOMING A BUDDHIST
WHEN YOU BECOME A BUDDHIST you receive the blood lineage chart. What is the most important implication of the blood lineage? The blood lineage is the lineage of Buddha, the Awakened One. Of course the lineage has been handed down from the patriarchs to us, and for this reason the teacher is crucially important. At the same time, all of you are as equal in importance as the teacher. We should not forget this.
This blood lineage, or the life of the Buddha, stems from Shakyamuni Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha is not only a historical figure who lived some twenty-five hundred years ago, but also all the buddhas of the past, present, and future. All became Shakyamuni Buddha upon his attainment of Buddhahood. This Shakyamuni Buddha is called the eternal Shakyamuni Buddha.
Dogen Zenji writes that all the buddhas become Shakyamuni Buddha and that Shakyamuni Buddha becomes this very mind is the Buddha. This refers to the famous Case 30 of the Gateless Gate. A monk asks Master Baso, “What is Buddha?” Master Baso replies, “This very mind is Buddha.” Penetrate this well. What is it? Who is it? Needless to say, all of you are that! This very mind is the Buddha; this very body is the Buddha!
When you realize Buddhahood, you yourself are identified with Shakyamuni Buddha. Then your life literally is the same as that of the whole universe. This is the insight of awakening. This is what Shakyamuni himself found out and declared: “I and the great earth, all beings, simultaneously attain the Way.” This is Shakyamuni Buddha’s prediction, his guarantee that all of us will eventually realize Buddhahood.
Upon his awakening Shakyamuni further declared, “How miraculous it is that all sentient beings have the same wisdom and virtue of Tathagata Buddha.” To receive the precepts is to have the conviction that your life is simply the wisdom and virtue of Tathagata Buddha. Take care of yourself in this way. The ninth precaution in Dogen Zenji’s Ten Precautions on Learning the Way (Gakudo Yojin-Shu) states that in order to truly take care of yourself, you should have faith that from the beginning, your life is one with the Way. This is a fact. There is no delusion and no confusion, no upside-down views, no increase and no decrease, and no mistakes. Dogen Zenji says raise this faith, clarify it, then practice in this way.
Our life as the Way itself is what gives value to our lineage. We are not just blindly believing in something; we raise such faith in the Way and make it work as our life. What is handed down to us? What is most precious? What is the vital, warm blood that runs through ourselves and through the lives of the buddhas and ancestors? What is the living essence of the lineage? Please take care of this most important matter.
When you become a Buddhist you go through the ceremony of receiving jukai. By Bodhidharma’s definition, jukai means to become awakened to your own Buddha nature. Ju is “receiving,” or “to transmit,” and the implication of kai is “to awaken.” So jukai, or receiving the kai, means to become awakened to your Buddha nature. We can say jukai literally means to receive the lineage, for the content of the lineage is your awakening to your own nature. Your own nature is called by different names, such as self nature, true nature, Buddha nature, no-nature, empty nature, mu. When you awaken to your own nature, right here is the liberation. Right here is the sphere in which the buddhas and ancestors reside, which is no other than the life of each of us. This is one way to describe the lineage.
On the lineage chart, the red bloodline goes in one continuous circle from your name back to Shakyamuni Buddha’s name. The lineage is simply this one circle. When you receive jukai, your bloodline goes up into Shakyamuni Buddha. It is complete. At the conclusion of the jukai ceremony, we say: “When all beings receive the Buddha’s kai, they all enter into the sphere of the Buddha.” This sphere of the Buddha is the same as great enlightenment. “Indeed,
we are the sons, daughters, children of the buddhas.” The last verse of the ceremony verifies this one circle.
In one sense, receiving jukai is the ceremony of becoming a Buddhist, or at least becoming one who has faith in the Buddha Way. Who is the Buddha? Shakyamuni himself was Hindu. Being Hindu, he awakened and was called the Awakened One, or Buddha. So the word buddha means “awakened one” and was used even before Shakyamuni’s enlightenment. In this sense, Buddhism is a general term. So we could say that being Christian or Jewish, you could also be Buddha. In this context, there is no contradiction in having another religious background, regardless of your commitment to practice the Buddha Way.
I appreciate many of you from different religious backgrounds, mostly Judeo-Christian, who are interested in practicing the Buddha Way. 1 have trouble finding the words to express my appreciation for your involvement. For example, being from Japan and growing up in a strong Buddhist environment, I would need lots of courage and determination to explore other religious practices. I express my appreciation and even admiration for all of you who have a commitment to Buddhism, to awakening.
From this angle we can also say it does not matter if you are Japanese, Chinese, black, brown, or white. Even the time does not matter. Anyone, anytime, can commit to accomplishing the awakened life. We do not need to label ourselves Buddhist. Just follow the enlightened Way, or the awakened Way. This is enough. In this sense, there is no conflict. You might even become a better Christian or Jew. So generally, Buddha’s teaching is universal: one must truly be oneself as a human being, a man, a woman, whatever. This may be an extreme view, but basically Shakyamuni awakened, and as Buddha, the Awakened One, his concern was how to live this life in the best way possible.
ON LIFE AND DEATH
Firewood turns into ash, and does not turn into firewood again.
But do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood is before.
We must realize that firewood is in the state of being firewood and has its before and after. Yet having this before and after, it is independent of them.
Ash is in the state of being ash and has its before and after.
Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, so after one’s death one does not return to life again.
Thus, that life does not become death is a confirmed teaching of the buddha-dharma; for this reason, life is called the non-born.
That death does not become life is a confirmed teaching of the buddha-dharma; therefore, death is called the non-extinguished.
Life is a period of itself.
Death is a period of itself.
For example, they are like winter and spring.
We do not think that winter becomes spring, nor do we say that spring becomes summer.
—Eihei Doyen,
SHOBOGENZO GENJO KOAN
IN THIS PART OF THE Genjo Koan, Dogen Zenji makes a clear statement about life and death. He repeatedly talks about one’s life as life and death, as enlightenment and delusion, and as buddhas and beings. This passage on life and death is all about one’s practice, the practice of the Buddha dharma. How do you appreciate your life as the Buddha Way, which goes beyond all duality, beyond our assertions of this or that? What is the action by which you give life to your true self? Dogen Zenji’s response is practice. What kind of practice? Practice as realization, as the Buddha Way.
Dogen Zenji teaches about practice as realization from beginning to end. The most difficult part for us to see is the so-called no-self. What does no-self mean? It is one of the crucial points relating to life and death. “When the ten thousand dharmas are without self,” he teaches, then there is “no life and no death.” Without self, whose death is it? Without self, whose life are we talking about? Flight now, here, who is without self? Always right now, here, this me is without self. How do you deal with it? Obviously you are dealing with it, adequately or inadequately, comfortably or uncomfortably, desperately, or however.
What is the turning point? We are the turning point ourselves, but turning to what? This word turn has many implications in Japanese, including “come back to.” Come back to what? To the original self. The original self literally means here. Come back to here. From the very beginning, you have never gone anywhere. You have always been here. When you really turn back to here, all the ten thousand dharmas are without self. All ten thousand dharmas are Buddha dharma, the life of each of us. This is what we are appreciating.
We can be released from the confinement of the so-called I. We are enslaved by our understanding of I: I as a hungry ghost, I as this or that, or in its best sense, I as a human being. But what is the relationship between a human being and the Buddha Way? Is there anything more important than your life? Not your life as a hungry ghost, not even your life as a human being, but your life as the Buddha Way, as the very best unsurpassable Way. Dogen Zenji says that when a person is practicing that Way, he or she is called a buddha.
So who is dying? What kind of death are we talking about? When firewood burns, it becomes what we know as ash. Here Dogen Zenji is not saying that there is no death, nor that death does not exist. He is saying that life does not become death. Death has its own life. Life has its own life, and it has a before and after. We are born and living, there is a before and after, but life does not become death. Death does not become life, just as ash does not become firewood. You may wonder about the teachings of rebirth. We do not deny rebirth. According to karmic causations, whatever will happen, happens. But life still does not become death, death does not become life. It is unborn and undying. How do we understand this kind of life?
There are at least three different ways to understand life and death: in terms of division, in terms of change, and in terms of instances. Life and death in division is our usual understanding of being born. We live for ten, fifty, or sixty years, some of us for a short time, others longer, and then die. Life and death in terms of change is the life during which we realize some kind of enlightenment and are hence revitalized and born anew. But the most realistic life and death is the life and death of each instant. We are being born and dying 6,500,000,000 times every twenty-four hours.
The more I appreciate this, the more it becomes so real. I am very happy that I am having a new life every moment! I really mean it. Dogen Zenji writes in Birth and Death (Shobogenzo Shoji) that this life and death that we are encountering all the time is no other than the life of the Buddha. It is not only our life and death; all around us our relatives, close friends, and strangers are dying. We recently scattered someone’s ashes on the mountainside. How do you practice a life that changes so much as the life of the Buddha?
There is a famous koan of Master Dogo and his student Zengen in the Blue Cliff Record, Case 55. Dogo was the elder brother of Ungan Donjo, Master Tozan’s teacher. Even though he was the elder, Dogo did not become a monk until much later in life. He was a successful businessman and perhaps he thought that becoming a monk was ridiculous. However, his brother Ungan became a monk while young and studied for a long time with Master Hyakujo. Dogo was a brilliant man, and after becoming a monk, he advanced quickly and his understanding surpassed Ungan’s. They were wonderful brothers.
The story is that one day Master Dogo and Zengen went to visit a family to perform a service for a dead family member. I do not know whether caskets were used or not in those days, but according to the story, Zengen hit the casket and asked Master Dogo, “Is this alive or dead?” The person was obviously dead. Being dead, is something alive or not? Even being a corpse, something is alive. Where? How? Is it alive or dead? Master Dogo replied, “I won’t say, I won’t say.”
On their way back to the temple, Zengen was very serious. He asked again, “Is it alive or dead?” It is a serious question. All of us should be grabbed by this question. Am I really alive or not? As a human being, what kind of life is this? As the life of the Buddha, what is this? Zengen demanded of Dogo, “If you do not answer me, I am going to beat you up.” He was that serious. Zen
gen was obviously not just asking whether the man had died or not. What was he really asking? Alive or dead?
It is the same thing that Dogen Zenji is talking about here. Since we will not die after death, it is called unborn and undying, or nonborn, nonextinguished. What does this mean? Your life is unborn, now, here. How to take care of it? Zengen actually beat up Master Dogo. And Master Dogo said, “You’d better leave the temple. If others notice that you beat me up, they’re going to beat you up.” And Zengen left.
Now we are all laughing while I am telling this story, but I want you to take it seriously. Master Dogo and Zengen were so serious about resolving this issue of life and death. That is also why their realization is so clear. If you just listen to a talk and you feel that perhaps something is understood, it is still not convincing enough for you to confirm your life. You must experience yourself as the Buddha Way! That is why Zengen left. He had to experience the answer for himself.
Zengen went on a pilgrimage, and there are several other koans that record his practice after that. Finally he realized this grave matter of alive or dead. He was very appreciative of Master Dogo. Can I tell you just a little bit more? While on his pilgrimage, Zengen entered the dharma hall of a temple. The hall was very large. Upon entering, Zengen walked back and forth from the south end to the north end, from the north end to the south end, carrying a hoe. A monk saw him and asked, “What are you doing?” Can you imagine what Zengen responded? He said, “I am looking for the remains of my teacher.” It is too much, isn’t it?
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