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Dogen Zenji
By Rev. Dr. Soyu Matsuoka, Roshi
Founder, Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago
January 12, 1964
How many of us have learned to know, relish and practice the life of the revered founder of the Soto Zen sect, Dogen Zenji? How many of us know his early years, those which influenced him to follow the Buddha, or his later years, when he loved to retire into the mountains for solitude, in spite of his wide-spread fame? Have we learned the secret that empowered his life and are we able to take it on as our own?
Dogen was born into fine circumstances, just as had been the Buddha. Dogen's father was a stately man who held high government offices, while his mother was of the Fujiwara house, closely linked to the emperor's family by marriage. His schooling in literature began early, but so did his schooling in life. Young Dogen lost his father at the tender age of three years, and then his mother when he was eight. The story goes that she called him to her bedside as she was breathing her last, and urged him to follow the way of the Buddha's teachings. When she died Dogen Zenji felt profound grief and was deeply impressed with the transiency of things as he saw the smoke of the burning incense slowly rising in the air of the funeral room. He began to thirst for enlightenment. The desire did not leave the young man in the first years of his youth, but grew stronger as time passed and he observed more of life. Sakyamuni Buddha, too, began to yearn for enlightenment in his youth and frequently traveled among the common folk to try to understand this suffering he saw all about him. Just as the Buddha left his comfortable abode for the life of a seeker of the Truth, Dogen Zenji aspired to leave the home he had made with his uncle. He would not be made heir to the house and its life of indulgent pleasures, but fleeting satisfactions. Instead, he sought out a younger uncle who lived as a hermit at the foot of Mt. Hiei. While Dogen Zenji's religious life really started when he first glimpsed the fleeting nature of all things, the path to enlightenment now opened before him. Within one short year, Dogen Zenji was ordained as a monk by the abbot of the Tendai sect.
Yet, as all creative men are apt to do, Dogen Zenji soon left his home monastery because he had religious yearnings and questions that went unsatisfied. One of the most fundamental beliefs to Dogen was that of the Buddha-nature he believed to be the basic form of all beings. Yet, he was perplexed by the seeming contradiction in believing in the innate enlightenment of all beings and also in their efforts to become enlightened, as it appeared that there was a difference between enlightenment and practice. Dogen comprehended the world as one, and yearned to find the solution to this discrepancy.
Thus, started Dogen Zenji' s years of seeking the Truth here and there, and from this master and that. For a while, he studied with the Tendai monk, Koin, but then went to the Kenninji Temple where he first encountered Zen. This had been unknown to him up until this time, as his schooling had been in the way of the Tendai and Shingon beliefs. Now, he entered upon the way of Zen in the Rinzai tradition and met with shouting and harsh beatings. Still, he remained unfulfilled and something drew him to distant China. Accompanied by his teacher, Dogen traveled to China where he had an opportunity to observe at first hand, the living Zen of the Chinese. It is here that most of us begin to learn about Dogen Zenji. We recall the story of his being asked upon his return to Japan, "What have you brought?" It was the custom of the day for all religious aspirants to return from China with new sutras, chants, images or ceremonies. He answered: "I have come empty-handed!" Some may have discredited him with this remark at the time, but we know they failed to see that Dogen had brought back with him the light of enlightenment. He did not wish to establish a particular school of Zen, but merely to teach its truth.
He knew that Zen cannot be confined to a school. Instead, Dogen wished to return to Japan with his new-found wisdom and to live the simple life of a very humble person. In spite of the praise heaped upon him, Dogen spent his last days teaching his young followers, retiring to meditate and to write the final chapter of the Shobogenzo.
It is important in knowing the lives of all great men that we do not fail to see the spirit of their lives for the many names, dates and places of the events in their lives. Dogen Zenji lived in many monasteries, founded Eiheiji Monastery and had many enlightened followers. Yet, it is most vital that we see into the heart of this man and learn of his most profound teachings. Although he began his early years as a scholar, Dogen Zenji wrote very little. The rest he left to transmission by his example and the practice of his disciples. In his years in China, he found the answer to his questions, and deeply experienced the unity of enlightenment and practice. When he returned to Japan, his disciples learned of this way. In the monastery of Dogen Zenji, they meditated and worked, sparing themselves little as they freed themselves of attachments.
Dogen Zenji had experienced the truth through his meditation and daily work. He had realized that in his meditation, there was the original enlightenment of the Buddha, and also the practice to perfect it. He realized also that his sitting in enlightenment could not be disregarded in the rest of his life. The many hours he spent in work brought his meditation and daily toil closer to unison. For Dogen, all was one - mind and body, enlightenment and practice. To him, one could not sit in meditation and participate in the enlightenment of the Buddha without his mind also partaking of it. Dogen could not separate the sitting of the body and the state of the mind. It is for this reason that we say: "If you sit for one moment, you are a Buddha, but if you sit for five minutes, you are a Buddha for five." In Soto Zen, sitting in meditation is sitting in the original enlightenment. The original enlightenment of the Buddha enables us to imitate him with the faith that Enlightenment is possible for each of us.
The presence of the Buddha-nature and the teaching of the Buddha that it is manifested in meditation are matters of faith. We must begin with this faith and then realize that our daily sitting in enlightenment will perfect us as it did the Buddha. Zen is a way of practice, not of doctrine, just as it is a way of practicing meditation and not discoursing about it. There is a story that some of you may have heard before, but which bears repeating. It goes: "Once in China, during the 8th century, there was an Obaku Zen priest named Kiun who had several disciples. He told his student priests not to ask the Buddha for anything, not to seek the truth outside of themselves, and not to follow the senior priests. But, every day Kiun sat in front of the statue of the Buddha and performed his devotion very piously. The disciples thought Kiun's actions contradicted his teaching and one day they asked him for his explanation. Kiun priest answered quietly: 'I do not ask the Buddha to give me anything: I only have my devotion like this', and he continued his meditation.
When the priest told his disciples, "I only have my devotion like this", he said a most significant thing. This "only" means complete pureness in deep concentration or to be without desire. To ask for the guidance or to seek for the truth is an indication that one is in need of the truth to depend upon or one is in need of some guidance to go by. Of course, to have good teachers and friends is profitable in order to make the necessary preparations, or to stimulate one's spirit. But Kiun priest pointed out that students should ask for the guidance in themselves and seek for the truth in themselves, instead of seeking them in something outside of themselves. The priest understood with Dogen Zenji that to desire is to be lacking something, just as you are lacking food if you are hungry and desire it. The priest was trying to tell his disciples that in living a life of Zen, you just meditate, you just live because you are lacking nothing. Within you is the potential. Within you is the Buddha-nature.
The purpose of Zen Buddhism is to become deeply aware of the fact that the Buddha-nature is within and to develop it. When you sit in meditation with this realization or faith, the original enlightenment of the Buddha permeates your body and mind. Continued sitting perfects them. You are sitting in the same bodily position as the Buddha when he reached enlightenment, and you have the same Buddha-nature within you. Your mind cannot be separated from this sitting, and your meditation "becomes" that of the Buddha. Your life is like a diamond. Under the surface of the raw diamond is a precious jewel, but without polish it does not shine. The jewel is the Buddha-nature, and the polish is practice. The practice is both sitting in meditation and daily work. In the Zen life, this means not only the tasks of every day life of the household or job, but also the religious practices of chanting, offering incense, bowing, making the gassho, and listening to the Buddha's teachings. Without desire for a heavenly life after death, we live our daily lives.
We know that our lives are being perfected for this life and each moment. To desire for an afterlife is to lack something in this life. We just meditate, knowing that we have the potential, the practice and the time now. This is the life Dogen Zenji lived and urged on his followers. He knew that life was fleeting, and that we have only this moment in which to act. He put his faith in the Buddha's teachings that all is One and that all is Transient. Because he had only this moment in which to act, and because he understood the unity of practice and enlightenment, he meditated and worked and became enlightened. Most important, because be knew we are the same as he, he taught us to have the confidence that enlightenment has its potential within us, too. Without this faith, our potential could hardly be developed.
A few days ago, I was reading an article by a Rinzai Zen Student, Christmas Humphreys, in which he was criticizing a book on Zen and in which he raised several questions about Soto Zen. He did not seem to feel the West has much information on Soto Zen and so he said: "What was his teaching?", referring to Dogen Zenji. He continued, "We in the West do not yet know, with only Masunaga's The Soto Approach to Zen to help us." But, he says that the writer of the book he is criticizing gets "very near, near enough to convince me that some of us, with only Rinzai Zen before us, may yet regard this differing teaching as actually higher still." He asks: "Is the right performance of Zazen, 'sitting', really enough?" "Practice end enlightenment are clearly a pair of opposites...but where does faith come in, as the author says it must?" He also asks if sitting in Soto Zen is not the same as the Koan, and if it is not a means to an end. He adds, "This is a brilliant chapter, to be studied many times."
For Christmas Humphreys, it would be good if he read the chapter once again and cleared his mind of the scholarly information about Zen which many years have taught him. Then he could devote his time to meditation with an empty mind, and he would realize that practice and enlightenment are not opposites as he is assuming, and he might begin to experience the significance of sitting one minute in the meditation of the Buddha. If he truly understood the presence of the Buddha-nature within himself, he would not have to ask how faith fits in with enlightenment and practice. He would know that it is faith in his potential to be a Buddha that gives depth to his practice of meditation. He would also know that sitting in meditation is not separate from the other moments in his life, so that its "right performance" is more than just sitting properly. "Right performance" of meditation puts one into the world of the Buddha at the very moment he is performing it and is not a mere means to an end. As I have said to you many times, meditation is not to be practiced with an end in view. You are not to desire to meditate to become a Buddha, or to expect to become gradually more like a Buddha each day. If you do this, you will be overlooking the present moment's potential for what might be in the future. Too much reliance on Zen philosophy will cloud your mind to the reality of it, of its life.
This is why it is often said that Zen will not be found in books. A history of Zen or information about its famous persons or brief facts about a Zen master's beliefs can be found in a written form, but the life of Zen can never be contained in words. This must be found in the meditation hall and by yourself. Dogen Zenji did not ignore doctrine, as he left us the Shobogenzo. But, he put it second. Dogen Zenji saw enlightenment as the conclusion of religious belief in the Buddha-nature and in the unity of enlightenment and practice. He knew that a man who relies on doctrine, depends on something outside of himself. In Zen we can rely only on ourselves and our experience. We must put the practice of sitting in meditation above our scholarly interests and grow into enlightenment!
The desire Dogen Zenji felt in his early youth had been fulfilled in this way. Like him, too, we can realize this potential. Continue your meditation and put your faith in the Buddha-nature.
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