Living by Vow

by Shohaku Okumura

  According to Dōgen Zenji, sitting in zazen posture and letting go of thought is itself the Buddha’s wisdom, prajñā. So prajñā is not a particular state of mind or way of thinking. To express this Middle Way, Dōgen Zenji paraphrased the Heart Sutra in the chapter of Shōbōgenzō called Mahāprajñāpāramita. He said, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is form, emptiness is emptiness.” When we say, “Form is emptiness,” there is still separation between form and emptiness, between relative and absolute. When we really see the middle path we don’t need to say, “Form is emptiness” or “Emptiness is form.” When we see form, emptiness is already there. We don’t need to say, “Form and emptiness are the same.” When we say so, we are still comparing form and emptiness and thinking these two are one. This is still a relative way of thinking. So Dōgen Zenji said, “Form is form and emptiness is emptiness.” This is our practice of zazen based on Mahāyāna philosophy.

  For us as practitioners, a mere understanding of this philosophy is not enough. We must apply this understanding in our everyday activities. We see that we cannot do anything completely by ourselves. We cannot live alone; we are always living with other people and other beings. To work together and live together with other people and beings, we have to negate ourselves. We have to negate this person to see what other people are doing or thinking. This means that we negate the five skandhas and see śūnyatā as it is. When we interact with our environment, we have to express the things happening inside us through our lives. We have to do something. We have to respond to situations and make choices. As Dōgen Zenji said in “Genjōkōan,” “To study the Buddha’s Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.” To forget the self means to negate this one. By negating this one we see others more clearly. When we negate our egocentricity or personal point of view, we can see things more objectively. We can see the situation as a part of ourselves, and at the same time we see ourselves as a part of the situation. We can choose what to do right now, right here, as this person who is a part of the total situation. That’s how we can be responsible to the situation.

  This attitude applies to more than our daily lives. Dōgen Zenji said in Shōbōgenzō “Shōji” (Life and Death), “To clarify life and death is the most significant point of practice of the Buddha’s students.” We see our life and death from both sides and see reality as the Middle Way. Our body and mind is just a collection of five skandhas that is empty and will someday disappear. Sooner or later we will die. To negate the five skandhas is to see emptiness, egolessness, and impermanence. And yet if we see only in this way we may become nihilistic, pessimistic, or irresponsible. We will not live with compassionate hearts. We might think that if sooner or later it will all disappear, why should we strive to accomplish anything? That is the sickness of emptiness.

  Then we must return to the relative truth. Although we are empty and sooner or later we disappear, right here and now we are living as reality. We exist right now as a tentative collection of five skandhas. We choose to be responsible to this life at this moment. So there must be some way to live. There must be some direction to follow. This is an important point of our practice. We see reality, the middle path, from both sides and become free from attachment to either. Therefore Dōgen Zenji said in Shōbōgenzō “Shōji,”

  When we speak of life, there is nothing other than life; when we speak of death, there is nothing other than death. Therefore, when life comes we just face life. When death comes we just face death. We should not be used by them or desire them. This present life-and-death is the Life of buddha. If we dislike it and try to get rid of it, we would lose the Life of buddha. If we desire to remain [in life-and-death] and attach ourselves to it, we would also lose the Life of buddha.80

  This is almost impossible for an ordinary person. But that is the path the Buddha or Avalokiteśvara saw and tried to show us. It is very difficult simply to become free from ego attachment. To become free from emptiness is even more difficult. Yet to follow this way of life is our direction as Buddhist practitioners. This is our vow. Somehow I cannot help but follow this way of life. It is my practice. And when I see another person living this way I feel encouraged. If even one person is inspired or encouraged by my practice, I am really happy.

  EMPTINESS IN THEORY

  The third paragraph of the Heart Sutra says:

  “O Śāriputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness;

  They do not appear or disappear,

  Are neither tainted nor pure,

  Do not increase or decrease.”

  First I will discuss the philosophical aspects of this passage and then its practical meaning. This passage is very important to Mahāyāna Buddhism. If we read it superficially, we might think there is something that neither appears nor disappears, is neither tainted nor pure, and neither increases nor decreases. We might think that this passage refers to something that exists beyond the phenomena we see. We think the purpose of our practice is to realize this something beyond phenomena. But this is not Buddhism. There is nothing beyond this phenomenal world in which things are always changing, appearing and disappearing. There is nothing that never appears or disappears. That is the Buddha’s teaching.

  What does this mean? To understand these lines I think it’s helpful to look at Nāgārjuna’s dedicating verse in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Here he elaborated and refined the philosophy of emptiness. At the very beginning of this piece he wrote:

  I pay homage to the Fully Awakened One,

  the supreme teacher who has taught

  the doctrine of relational origination,

  the blissful cessation of all phenomenal thought constructions.

  (Therein, every event is “marked” by):

  non-origination, non-extinction,

  non-destruction, non-permanence,

  non-identity, non-differentiation,

  non-coming (into being), non-going (out-of-being).81

  The fully awakened one, the supreme teacher, refers to Shakyamuni Buddha. “Buddha” literally means “awakened one.” Relational origination, we’ve seen, is the same as interdependent origination. It means nothing exists independently, but only in relationship with other things, causes, and conditions. Nothing has substance, self-nature, or independent being. Everything is impermanent, egoless, and always changing. These teachings of Buddha are the same in early Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism.

  “Thought constructions” means idle discussion or argument about metaphysical philosophy, the meaning of life, or of this world. The teaching of relational origination, according to Nāgārjuna, puts an end to all idle arguments. “Non-origination” has the same meaning as “not appear” (fushō) in Chinese. “Non-extinction” is the same as “not disappear” or, for human beings, birth and death. Nothing can be destroyed and nothing is permanent. Nāgārjuna lists five pairs of dichotomies: birth and death, one and many, identity and differentiation, coming and going, delusion and enlightenment. We could add any dichotomy to the list, and Nāgārjuna would put a “no” in front of it.

  This is because we can only think about one side of things. When we think about something we take a point of the view. We form an opinion. We think, “This exists,” or “This doesn’t exist.” We may think, “I am deluded” or “I am enlightened” or “There must be something eternal” or “There is nothing eternal.” These are opinions. To form our way of thinking we have to take a side. We cannot function in society without a point of view. If we adopt different points of view at the same time, we are seen as inconsistent and untrustworthy. But according to Nāgārjuna these are all phenomenal thought constructions, idle or meaningless arguments. Whichever side you take it’s only a half of reality. Reality is there before taking a view.

  According to Nāgārjuna things do not appear or disappear, are neither tainted nor pure, do not increase or decrease. This means we should not think that these things appear at a certain time in the past and stay in this moment and then disappear sometime in the futur
e. For instance, I was born on June 22, 1948. Before that day I didn’t exist. On that day I started to exist. I will exist for a certain period of time and then I will disappear. This is a very common way of thinking. It’s not a mistake on a conceptual level. But in reality if we look closely at this being, there is nothing that can be called Shohaku. I am no more than a collection of five skandhas, different elements.

  This body and mind is like a waterfall. A river flows past a place where there is a change of height, and a waterfall is formed. Yet there is no such thing as a waterfall, only a continuous flow of water. A waterfall is not a thing but rather a name for a process of happening. This body and mind is like a waterfall. We cannot distinguish where the waterfall starts and ends because it is a continuous process. Since there is no “I,” no substance called Shohaku Okumura, I cannot say “I” will disappear. This is the meaning of “do not appear or disappear.” It refers to this body and mind and to all beings. It is not about mysterious beings beyond the phenomenal world. This is very clear, ordinary reality, and yet we cannot define it, so it is strange and wondrous. We see things happening every moment, and yet we cannot grasp them. That is the meaning of wondrous dharma. We cannot grasp it, and yet it is not mysterious. It is ordinary things happening every day. For instance, this is a book, this is a desk, this is my robe, and this is Shohaku Okumura. These are like definitions we can find in the dictionary. We think these things exist in a fixed way because they are defined in the dictionary, but it’s not true.

  In another part of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā Nāgārjuna says, “Those of low intelligence [i.e., inferior insight], who see only the existence and nonexistence of things, cannot perceive the wonderful quiescence of things.”82 By “low intelligence people” he means people who lack wisdom. Existence and nonexistence is the same kind of dichotomy he referred to in the dedicatory verse and in the Heart Sutra. This is our usual way of thinking: good or bad, right or wrong, rich or poor. But wonderful quiescence is the reality of all beings before being processed by our conceptual thinking.

  Pingala, a late third- or early fourth-century Indian scholar, wrote a commentary on Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. We know nothing about who Pingala was, but Kumārajīva translated Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā together with Pingala’s commentary and gave it the title “Zhonglun” (Jap., Chūron, The Thesis of the Middle). In it he says, “When people have not yet attained the way, they don’t see the true form of all beings. Because of causes and conditions of attachment to their own limited views, they engage in various meaningless arguments.”83 Our views are always shaped and limited by our experiences, and we are very attached to them. For example, if we have an experience with someone that leads us to believe this person is not honest or trustworthy, we make a judgment and decide this is not a good person. We then cling to this definition or preconception. We form stereotypes about people, countries, everything. These stereotypes are the basis of our usual way of seeing things. Nāgārjuna believed that these phenomenal thought constructions were the basis for meaningless arguments.

  Pingala continues, “When they see something appear they call it ‘being’ and take it as existence. When they see something disappear they think it perishes and call it nonexistence.” When we encounter something we form a view, idea, or conception. This is our usual way of life. It is not a matter of good or bad, but rather the way we are. So it follows that “When a wise person sees something appear, he extinguishes the view of nonexistence. When a wise person sees something disappear he extinguishes the view of existence.” We usually form a view when we experience something. But Pingala says that when a wise person meets someone or experiences something he extinguishes, or lets go of, his preconceptions. So each encounter becomes an opportunity to transform our preexisting ideas and to set aside our biases and preconceptions. Each experience becomes an opportunity to see a fresh new world. This is an important point. The difference between ordinary and wise is not a difference in the quality of a person’s intelligence. It’s a difference in the attitude with which they meet things in their daily lives. We form ideas that become fixed as the basis of our identity. This identity, this way of thinking or system of values, becomes a limitation and we are imprisoned by it. It’s difficult to open our perception again because it becomes very stiff, and we become very stubborn. To be a wise person, according to this commentary, we must negate, break, or open up our premade system of values every time we experience something. This is not something mysterious. It’s very clear.

  “Therefore, although a wise person sees all beings, the person sees them as phantoms or dreams,” says Pingala. Ordinary beings and wise people see things in the same way, but their attitude is different. Nothing is fixed. No one is necessarily a bad person (always bad) or a good one (always good). There is no fixed nature because we are always changing. In a sense, each time we meet a person, we meet a different person. Because I am changing, and the other person is also changing, we can appreciate each meeting as a fresh new one.

  An important phrase that conveys the spirit of having tea together in the tea ceremony is “Ichi go ichi ye.” The phrase ichi go means “one time,” “one occasion,” or “one life.” Ichi ye means “one meeting.” Each meeting or encounter happens only once. We cannot meet with the same person twice. Each meeting, each moment, is very significant and precious because it is unique. To see things as phantoms or dreams doesn’t mean they are not important. Because reality is like a phantom or dream, we have to appreciate it. Since everything is changing, since nothing stays forever, this is the only time we can meet. We have to savor each moment.

  Pingala says, “A wise person extinguishes even a view of the undefiled way.” “Undefiled way” refers to the Buddha’s teaching. A wise person extinguishes, negates, and goes beyond any view, opinion, or understanding of the Buddha’s teaching. This point is crucial to an understanding of the next part of the Heart Sutra, which appears to negate almost all of the Buddha’s teaching. To negate means to free oneself from any view, even a Buddhist one. If we take the Buddha’s teaching as an opinion or view, it’s no different from the preconceptions we have about other things. In Buddhism it’s said that ordinary people are bound by iron chains. If we liberate ourselves from these iron chains, we are still bound by the gold chain of Buddhism. We are still not free. We have to become free even of the Buddha’s teaching, even of enlightenment. That is the Buddha’s teaching.

  This is the reason Dōgen Zenji says we shouldn’t seek after enlightenment. In “Fukanzazengi” (Universal Recommendation of Zazen) he says that when we sit, we should give up even our aspiration to become a buddha. This is important. It’s not a matter of delusion or enlightenment but attitude. It’s a matter of whether we are caught by our desires, expectations, and fixed ideas. To become free from these things is our zazen. To extinguish our views is to let go of thought.

  Pingala’s conclusion is that “unless one sees the Buddha’s peaceful dharma by extinguishing views, we see being and nonbeing.” The Buddha’s peaceful dharma is reality itself free of all dichotomies. This reality is blissful and precious. We don’t usually see reality itself but only our preconceptions: things we like or dislike, something useful or useless, something desirable or undesirable. We divide reality into categories, running after things we desire and trying to avoid those we detest. Our life becomes a matter of chasing and escaping. That is our usual way of life. In this kind of life there is no stable foundation, no peace, because we are always escaping from or chasing after something. There’s no time to rest, to just calm down and be right here. Letting go of thought in zazen for ten minutes or for a day or for five days is very precious. The blissful dharma, true reality, is revealed when we let go and become free from our fixed views. When the Prajñāpāramitā Sutra says things do not appear or disappear, are neither tainted nor pure, do not increase or decrease, the sutra doesn’t refer to things outside us. It means that when we refrain from viewing and judging things in dualistic ways, our a
ttitudes toward external things are transformed. The relation between things inside of us and our perception of the world is changed. The perceptions of the external things cease to be the objects of our desires and self-centered views. We are released from the habitual association between subject and object. Then things begin to reveal themselves as they are. When our attitude toward each thing in the world is shifted as Pingala described, our way of life is transformed. The Heart Sutra does not say that there is something mysterious which neither appears nor disappears, is neither tainted nor pure, neither increases nor decreases.

  My teacher, Uchiyama Roshi, wrote a poem about life and death when he was about seventy years old and very sick. For fifty years he had tuberculosis. He’d been living with sickness almost all of his life. Several times a year he bled from his lung. He was facing death. He felt that was his practice. Facing life and death is the most important challenge for the Buddhist practitioner. This is one of his poems.

  SAMĀDHI OF THE TREASURE OF RADIANT LIGHT

  Though poor, never poor.

  Though sick, never sick.

  Though aging, never aging.

  Though dying, never dying.

  Reality prior to division.

  Herein lies unlimited depth.

  Radiant light is a metaphor or symbol of the Buddha’s life. Uchiyama Roshi was poor. He never worked just to earn money. He contrasts dichotomies—life and death, poverty and wealth, sickness and health—with the unlimited depth of reality prior to division. Our practice is to deepen our understanding and experience. This is what we do in zazen by letting go of thought. Our sitting practice is the practice of prajñā-pāramitā, which enables us to actually transform our way of life. If our lives are based on dichotomies like good and bad, we chase after good things and run from bad things. We are concerned about whether we are good or not. If we think we are good, then life is worth living. If we think we are bad, then life is just a mistake. This dualistic thinking makes our life rigid and narrow.