Dogen Zenji's dodge
A couple of days ago I happened to come across some interesting stuff while I was reading Dogen's ideas about Buddhism in the book, Beyond Thinking, which has been edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi. This Q&A especially caught my attention.
Question 6: Why, among the four bodily presences taught in the buddha's house, do you emphasize sitting alone, recommend Zen samadhi, and expound entry into realization?
Answer: It is impossible to know completely the methods by which all buddhas from the past practiced and entered realization, one after another. It is hard to know, but if you look into it, all buddhas are engaged in zazen as the source of realization. Don't look for anything else.
This appears to be a dodge by Dogen. First of all, we learn from Dogen that it is impossible to know the methods by which the Buddhas attained awakening. But then Dogen is quite sure it was by sitting meditation, that is zazen! Dogen uses the compound term "zazen" as if za/sitting posture imparted some special power to zen/dhyâna—which it doesn't. In the Stress Reduction canon, particularly the older sections such as the Sutta-Nipata in which there are nineteen references to jhâna (dhyâna), sitting has no importance. There is no such compound in other words.
For Soto Zen—not Buddhism in general—the important part of meditation is just sitting (J., shikantaza). It is chiefly by sitting that we become Buddhas.
For the new student, this is certainly puzzling. Nor is it a correct picture of Buddhism. Dogen seems to want the student to become like a Buddha statue which never changes position. When Dogen says:
"You should know that the practice of zazen is the complete path of buddha-dharma and nothing can be compared with it."
The student can be assured that Dogen has no canonical basis for his assertion. Dogen's idea doesn't even tally with those of other Zen masters who had a much different understanding of Zen or dhyâna in which posture wasn't primary.
"While still alive, be therefore assiduous in practising Dhyana. The practice consists in abandonments. 'The abandonment of what?' you may ask. Abandon your four elements (bhuta), abandon your five aggregates (skandha), abandon all the workings of your relative consciousness (karmavijnana), which you have been cherishing since eternity; retire within your inner being and see into the reason of it. As your self-reflections grows deeper and deeper, the moment will surely come upon you when the spiritual flower will suddenly burst into bloom, illuminating the entire universe. The experience is incommunicable, though you yourselves know perfectly well what it is" (Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism [Second Series], 8).
Patch Parables 3 - The Parable of the Raft
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