BODAI (2): Do Not Doubt It!
Sitting-zen is the practice and experience that gets right to the top and bottom of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
And yet, the Buddha’s supreme and integral enlightenment, called anuttara-samyak-sambodhi in Sanskrit, is far beyond the likes of a grim-faced grasper like me.
That being so, there is a tendency in me, a very wrong disappointed tendency, when I grasp for the Buddha’s enlightenment as if it were a state-backed pension and thereby fail to get my grubby paws on it, to doubt whether it can ever be got.
If I say a word in my defense: Because I am at least aware of this tendency as the wrong tendency of a person who is not enlightened, I have never written a word on this blog that negates the existence of the Buddha’s enlightenment. At least I hope I haven’t.
Master Dogen’s teaching in Fukan-zazengi and in Shobogenzo, as I understand it, is neither that every dumb arse that presses down on a sitting-cushion is enlightened, nor that there is no such thing as enlightenment.
Rather, we who are not enlightened should establish the mind that is directed towards enlightenment, the bodhi-mind, primarily by devoting ourselves to the practice and experience that fully realizes the Buddha’s enlightenment -- that is, sitting-zen.
About 20 years Gudo Nishijima told me, “I got the enlightenment.” Since that time I have wobbled, not only backward and forward and from side to side but also up and down -- in the words of Pierre Turlur “like a yo-yo.” Was Gudo telling me the truth? Or was he lying to himself? Is he a fake? In suspecting that he is a fake elephant, am I doubting the real dragon?
But those questions do not arise from the bodhi-mind. Those questions arise from grim-faced grasping for my own security.
To establish the bodhi-mind is to resolve, beyond hesitation, disappointment or doubt, that because Gautama the Buddha got enlightenment I will keep making my effort, together with all living beings, to cross over -- primarily by devoting myself to sitting-zen.
And yet, the Buddha’s supreme and integral enlightenment, called anuttara-samyak-sambodhi in Sanskrit, is far beyond the likes of a grim-faced grasper like me.
That being so, there is a tendency in me, a very wrong disappointed tendency, when I grasp for the Buddha’s enlightenment as if it were a state-backed pension and thereby fail to get my grubby paws on it, to doubt whether it can ever be got.
If I say a word in my defense: Because I am at least aware of this tendency as the wrong tendency of a person who is not enlightened, I have never written a word on this blog that negates the existence of the Buddha’s enlightenment. At least I hope I haven’t.
Master Dogen’s teaching in Fukan-zazengi and in Shobogenzo, as I understand it, is neither that every dumb arse that presses down on a sitting-cushion is enlightened, nor that there is no such thing as enlightenment.
Rather, we who are not enlightened should establish the mind that is directed towards enlightenment, the bodhi-mind, primarily by devoting ourselves to the practice and experience that fully realizes the Buddha’s enlightenment -- that is, sitting-zen.
About 20 years Gudo Nishijima told me, “I got the enlightenment.” Since that time I have wobbled, not only backward and forward and from side to side but also up and down -- in the words of Pierre Turlur “like a yo-yo.” Was Gudo telling me the truth? Or was he lying to himself? Is he a fake? In suspecting that he is a fake elephant, am I doubting the real dragon?
But those questions do not arise from the bodhi-mind. Those questions arise from grim-faced grasping for my own security.
To establish the bodhi-mind is to resolve, beyond hesitation, disappointment or doubt, that because Gautama the Buddha got enlightenment I will keep making my effort, together with all living beings, to cross over -- primarily by devoting myself to sitting-zen.
posted by Mike Cross at 8:28 AM
5 Comments:
Hiya Mike,
I'm assuming that you believe that Dogen was enlightened, right? (although that's always a presumption isn't it? I mean, we haven't experienced our own enlightenment never mind someone else's!... and didn't Dogen say that we will not necessarily be aware of our own enlightenment?)
Believing, and needing to believe, in someone else's enlightenment is so much horse shit; completely impractical, based on presumption and all the ignorance and grasping that will go with it.
Didn't Dogen just give a simple method that builds its own, experiential confidence to proceed? Did he promise anything beyond that or state that there was some goal beyond practicing Zazen? Is there any point whatsoever in thinking beyond that practice and its internal fool-proofs?
Religion, and all its big Pali or Sanskrit names for things we think we want, is the perfect means of swindling ourselves blind.
All the best,
Harry.
Challenging question, Harry -- thanks.
The question of whether Master Dogen was enlightened or not, is not one that I ask. I tend to assume that he was enlightened, but you are right that it is only a presumption on my part -- I don’t know. What I do know for sure is that Master Dogen left us a shining example of what it means to awaken the bodhi-mind. That shines through, for example, in the first character of Fukan-zazengi. Japanese culture tends to be very insular and chauvinistic but Master Dogen was not like that at all. Regardless of whether he himself was enlightened or not, his direction through his life was towards the salvation of all living beings through the practice and experience that perfectly realizes the Buddha’s enlightenment. The writing and rewriting of Fukan-zazengi is a conspicuous manifestation of that direction. Whether or not Master Dogen was a buddha, I don’t know. But Master Dogen was a bodhisattva. That I know. That I can tell from what he wrote. That will do for me.
So I observe Master Dogen’s rules in the same way that, as a wing forward, I used to observe (and occasionally skirt) the rules of rugby. It wasn’t that I thought William Webb-Ellis was a saint. Whether you stick to the rules of rugby or break them, without rules there is no rugby. Extending the analogy, a proper rugby player, even if his side is 70 - nil down with ten minutes to play, carries on playing to the best of his ability. Even if victory is evidently out of reach, the direction of his efforts remains the same. His view does not change that the game is, as Bill Shankly said, “not a matter of life and death. It is more important than that.”
In Fukan-zazengi Shinpitsu-bon Master Dogen writes of not having a single idea, and yet sitting away the ten directions.
He is not discussing only religious or romantic ideas, but also sceptical or cynical ideas, materialistic ideas, reductionist or simplistic ideas, iconoclastic ideas. Going further, not having a single idea means not having even a realistic idea, not having even a scientific idea, not having even an anarchic idea, not having even an idea in the middle way.
I think that we swindle ourselves with all views, ideas, and expectations -- not only religious ones but also sceptical and other ones.
The most difficult things to get rid of are the ones that don’t exist.
What is the method of getting rid of what does not exist?
Whatever idea I come up with, it is not that.
Our sceptic, iconoclastic, and simplistic views are all variations on the theme of trying to be right. We grim-faced endgainers, even if we mask our endgaining with a glued-on smile and insouciant humour, can never know what Master Dogen’s method is.
Hi Mike,
Can't we have views for a time and still practice Dogen's method? What harm are views, You don't think that some views are more of a swindle than others? Seems like a nice recipe for nihilism.
Are you suggesting some sort of enlightened brain washing?
What's wrong with trying to be 'right' if you accept the view-from-practice/experience that 'right' is not very realistic?
Maybe your views cause you more discomfort that the average person, Mike?
I don't know, it all smells quite extreme.
Regards,
Harry.
We are all in the same boat, Harry. Your problem is my problem, and my problem is your problem.
We cling stubbornly to the point of view in which we feel right, in which we feel secure. If something threatens that point of view, we resist -- sometimes aggressively, out of fear of nothingness. We are all afraid of being nobody, having nothing. That is why we fix, as if the 2nd law of thermodynamics were fictitious.
To the extent that we begin to see this, we begin to see that the vital art of sitting-zen (ZAZEN NO YOJUTSU) requires great subtlety.
We begin to see that just sitting, though it is the simplest practice in the world, asks us to do something very difficult. Truly just to sit requires us to be not the winner of something but the loser of everything.
Truly just to sit requires us to give up everything, including the most difficult things of all to give up -- the ones that don’t exist.
I am not saying that it is difficult for you but not difficult for me. I know that it is extremely difficult for me. I dare to suppose, since you are also one who seems to aspire to observe Master Dogen’s rules of sitting-zen, that it is also extremely difficult for you too. If it smells extreme to you, that might be a good sign. Because it might be the most extremelly difficult thing in the world.
"Body and mind naturally drop off, and the original face appears."
"What is called sitting-Zen is not learning Zen meditation."
"It is just a peaceful and effortless gate to reality."
"It is practice-and-experience which perfectly realizes the Buddha's enlightenment."
Well, Mike.
Like I said, its never struck me, in practice, as something to get wound up about even though the old ego doesn't always find it to be its preferred 'walk in the park' at times. I'm generally delighted to just drop all my unreasonable, ill-based, bullshit views and ideas for a time.
Re. giving up even that which 'does not exist', I always liked Nagarjuna's cautionary statement:
Buddhas say emptiness
Is relinquishing opinions.
Believers in emptiness
Are incurable.
Regards,
Harry.
ps. this is very good: "Truly just to sit requires us to be not the winner of something but the loser of everything".
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