In general there are three kinds of mind. “The first, citta, is here called thinking mind. The second, hrdaya, is here called the mind of grass and trees. The third, vrddha, is here called experienced and concentrated mind.” Among these, the bodhi-mind is inevitably established relying upon thinking mind. Bodhi is the sound of an Indian word; here it is called “the truth.” Citta is the sound of an Indian word; here it is called “thinking mind.” Without this thinking mind it is impossible to establish the bodhi-mind. That is not to say that this thinking mind is the bodhi-mind itself, but we establish the bodhi-mind with this thinking mind. To establish the bodhi-mind means to vow that, and to endeavor so that, “Before I myself cross over, I will take

across all living beings.” Even if their form is humble, those who establish this mind are already the guiding teachers of all living beings. This mind is not innate and it does not now suddenly arise; it is neither one nor many; it is not natural and it is not formed; it does not abide in our body, and our body does not abide in the mind. This mind does not pervade the Dharma world; it is neither of the past nor of the future; it is neither present nor absent; it is not of a subjective nature, it is not of an objective nature, it is not of a combined nature, and it is not of a causeless nature. Nevertheless, at a place where there is mystical communication of the truth, establishment of the bodhimind occurs. It is not conferred upon us by the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and it is beyond our own ability. Establishment of the mind occurs during mystical communication of the truth, and so it is not inherent. Shobogenzo, Hotsu Bodaishin, Gudo Nishijima & Mike (Chodo) Cross

As it presupposes dualism (between “things” (dharmas) in themselves and “things” as represented) the representational view of knowledge and experience is definitely rejected in Zen Buddhism, as it is in Mahayana Buddhism generally. In Zen, all real dharmas (things, beings, instances, events, etc.) are actualized (not re-actualized, or represented) insofar as they are experienced by sentient beings.

So then, the falling tree makes no sound if no one experiences it, and in fact, there is no such thing as a falling tree that no one experiences. A tree, a human being (or any dharma) is only a real dharma if someone (a “self” or an “other”) experiences it. One obvious implication of this is that whatever (or whoever) does experience beings (or other dharmas) must also be real. This aspect of reality is one of the central topics of Dogen’s Shobogenzo.

When speaking of consciousness of self and other, there is a self and an other in what is known; there is a self and an other in what is seen.
Shobogenzo, Shoaku Makusa, Hubert Nearman

In Buddhism, as we know, experience and experiencer are nondual, and each is (like all dharmas) one with the whole universe. But the Zen masters certainly do not let matters rest there; they constantly exhorts us to look deeply and come to understand how the myriad dharmas differ, relate, and interact with each other and the rest of the world. Dogen’s Shobogenzo, for example, is a marvelous demonstration of how this task is accomplished.

Mine are:

1 Dogen
2 Hakuin
3 Chinul
4 Joshu
5 Zongmi

Peace,
Ted

In Grateful Thanks to Bodhisattva Mahasattva

Jade Alexandria Biringer

April 27, 1993 – July 13, 1993

Nurse’s Song

When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still.

“Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies.”

“No, no, let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly
And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.”

“Well, well, go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed.”
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh’d
And all the hills echoed.
~William Blake

Since we human beings are continually arranging the bits and pieces of what we experience in order to fashion ‘a whole universe’, we must take care to look upon this welter of living beings and physical objects as ‘sometime’ things… In a similar manner, we are continually arranging bits and pieces of what we experience in order to fashion them into what we call ‘a self ’, which we treat as ‘myself ’: this is the same as the principle of ‘we ourselves are just for a time’.

Shobogenzo, Uji, Rev. Hubert Nearman

Thus, entering into the depths of the mountains to ponder the Buddha’s Way may well be easy, whereas to fashion a stupa or fashion a Buddha is ever so hard. Though both approaches are ripened by diligence and strenuous effort, the one makes use of the mind and the other is being used by the Mind, which is different by far. Time after time, giving rise to the enlightened Mind in this way makes the Buddhas and Ancestors manifest.

Shobogenzo, Hotsu Mujo Shin, Hubert Nearman

‘The branch of Right Effort’ is the daily conduct of dredging out your whole being. And through dredging out your whole being, you fashion a truly human countenance…

It is one’s Eye creating the morning star.

Shobogenzo, Sanjushichihon Bodai Bumpo, Hubert Nearman

Because ‘simply our mind’ is not simply our mind, so ‘the tiles and stones of our walls and fences’ are not the tiles and stones of walls and fences. This is the everyday behavior of a Buddha doing His practice, and it is the principle of leaving things to the mind and leaving things to things even while we are creating both a mind and things.

Shobogenzo, Gyobutsu Iigi, Hubert Nearman

By relying on the principle of ‘turning to the next’, you should, by all means, thoroughly investigate both your creating circumstances and your not creating circumstances. And by relying on the principle of ‘turning to the next’, you should thoroughly investigate both what you are concocting and what you are not concocting.

Shobogenzo, Juki, Hubert Nearman

Q: What is implied by ‘seeing into the real Nature’?

A: That Nature and your perception of it are one. You cannot use it to see something over and above itself. That Nature and your hearing of it are one. You cannot use it to hear something over and above itself. If you form a concept of the true nature of anything as being visible or audible, you allow a dharma of distinction to arise. Let me repeat that the perceived cannot perceive. Can there, I ask you, be a head attached to the crown of your head?

Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, John Blofeld, p.116

Peace,

Ted

Posted some weeks back was a quote from Hee-Jin Kim which merits a little more exploration. Here is the quote: 

In the Shobogenzo, “Bendowa” (1231), Dogen succinctly enunciates his Zen: “The endeavor to negotiate the Way (bendo), as I teach now, consists in discerning all things in view of enlightenment, and putting such a unitive awareness (ichinyo) into practice in the midst of the revaluated world (shutsuro).” This statement clearly sets forth practitioners’ soteriological project as negotiating the Way in terms of (1) discerning the nondual unity of all things that are envisioned from the perspective of enlightenment and (2) enacting that unitive vision amid the everyday world of duality now revalorized by enlightenment. Needless to say, these two aspects refer to practice and enlightenment that are nondually one (shusho itto; shusho ichinyo).  ~Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen On Meditation and Thinking, p. 21

[Note: The qualifying terms “revaluated” and “revalorized” serve to emphasize the fact that the “everyday world” here means the true everyday world—the “normal” world as seen in view of enlightenment, not the “normal” (i.e. mundane) world as understood by unawakened beings.]

As clearly conveyed in the classic Buddhist literature, when duality is conceived apart from the experience of nonduality all kinds of delusions ensue. One delusion that is so common among Zen Buddhists it is almost typical, is the notion that Buddhism opposes or denies duality. In less extreme (but just as damaging) cases, many Zen Buddhists that have not experienced nonduality have demonstrated a tendency to privilege nonduality over duality. As is the case with all nondual foci (nondual relationships) duality and nonduality are coextensive and coessential—thus to imagine that duality is bad, wrong, problematic, or any way inferior to nonduality is delusional. Duality without nonduality is dualism, the basis of delusion, confusion, obscurity, chaos, and ignorance. Nonduality without duality, if it were possible, would be sterile and dead. Thus, “discerning all things in view of enlightenment,” and thereby, experiencing nonduality, in Hee-Jin Kim’s words, “within, with, and through duality,” is to revaluate the world (shutsuro).

In, Dogen On Meditation and Thinking, Hee-Jin Kim clarifies the implications of this in relation to Dogen’s teachings. For instance, in the context of Dogen’s teaching on the unity of practice and enlightenment (shusho) Kim points out:

A crucially important point here is, namely, “that which verifies” and “that which is verified” are inseparably intertwined via the body-mind… Thus, in speaking of enlightenment (sho), Dogen always presupposes the process of verification in which enlightenment entails practice, and vice versa. To put it differently, enlightenment (nonduality) makes it incumbent upon practitioners to put the unitive vision of all things into practice, in terms of duality of the re-visioned world.  ~Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen On Meditation and Thinking, pp. 21-22 (italics in the original)

To emphasize the difference between “nonduality” and what is ordinarily thought of as “oneness,” in terms of Dogen’s teachings on the nonduality of practice and enlightenment, Kim writes:

This unity does not mean that practice and enlightenment, though originally two different realities or ontological antitheses, are merged into one, or are reduced to one or the other in a mystical union of numerical oneness or an uneasy alliance… To put it another way, the unity is not the nullification of differences between the two, nor is it a transformation of one into the other, or a fusion of one with the other. Practice and enlightenment are different, yet not two. ~Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen On Meditation and Thinking, p. 24

It is vitally important for Zen practitioners to avoid making the mistake of confusing “duality” (a vital and necessary aspect of Zen practice-enlightenment) with “dualism” (a delusional view). The enormous capacity of such delusional views to obstruct practitioners from authentic realization is well attested to by the classic literature of Zen. The great Zen masters literally devoted thousands of pages to emphasize and clarify this crucial point. Therefore, one more comment by Kim seems merited.

Nonduality is not privileged or transcendantalized metaphysically any more than duality. It is simply one of the soteric foci within the process of realization… in its liberating process, nonduality embraces duality rather than abandons it. Consequently, nonduality is not extra-, trans-, pre-, post-, or antiduality. It is always necessarily rooted in duality. Therefore, nonduality functions within, with, and through duality.  ~Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen On Meditation and Thinking, pp. 33-34 (italics in the original)

Now then, we can understand that the “revaluated world” means the world of duality as revaluated through the experiential realization of nonduality. Thus, the implications of “valuation” should be clear; the duality (all things) of the world as conceived in view of delusion is the “normality” of the “ordinary mind” of unawakened beings. The unawakened “valuate” the world of duality as conceived apart from nonduality; that is, as obscure, chaotic, miscellaneous, boring, and mundane. This deluded “valuation” is inevitably the “normality” they see as the “ordinary mind” and the “everyday” world. From this perspective, “nothing special” is understood dualistically, that is, as obscure, chaotic, miscellaneous, boring, and mundane.

We can now understand Dogen’s (and Zen’s) reason for constantly, and vehemently insisting that the first and foremost task for practitioners is to “cast off body and mind of self and other.” The body and mind of “self and other” is inclusive of all traces of “self” and all traces of “other” (than self). “Without” (Japanese; “mu”) traces of self and other there is no-discrimination (mu-discrimination) no-things (mu-things). Dogen asserts that when Buddhas are experience Buddhahood they are not conscious of being Buddhas; to be conscious of being a Buddha one would have to be conscious of an “other” (than Buddha). As Dogen says:

When speaking of consciousness of self and other, there is a self and an other in what is known; there is a self and an other in what is seen.  ~Shobogenzo, Shoaku Makusa, Hubert Nearman

To cast off the body and mind of self and other is to “discern all things” in view of enlightenment (i.e. nonduality); discerning all things in this manner can just as accurately be expressed as being discerned by all things. In other words, it is to experientially realize the nonduality of duality. This “unitive awareness” is the realization that the real forms of the myriad things (duality) are, as they are, the actualization of nonduality itself (Buddha nature, the one mind, the true self, etc.). In Dogen’s terms:

To be actualized by the many things is to allow the body-and-mind of your self and the body-and-mind of other than your self to fall away.  ~Shobogenzo, Genjokoan, Ted Biringer

Peace,

Ted

Thursday, July 01, 2010

—

It is one’s Eye creating the morning star.

Zen Master Eihei Dogen (1200 – 1253), Shobogenzo, Sanjushichihon Bodai Bumpo, Hubert Nearman

—

Peace,

Ted

Next to “Buddha,” the notion of “dharma” is probably the most important concept of Buddhism. In truth, “dharma” is so variable, diverse, and pervasive in Buddhism that an entire series of books would be needed to do full justice to it. Here we only want to consider the two primary ways in which it is used in Zen literature.

The first way Zen uses the term “Dharma” is in accord with its meaning as the “ultimate truth,” “law,” or “essence” of Buddhism, which in Zen is synonymous with the “one mind” (i.e. the whole universe). When the term is used in this sense, most English works capitalize the “D,” as we do here. The capitalized version of “Dharma” then, is used in reference to ideas, teachings, and concepts of ultimate significance. “The Buddha Dharma” (or simply “The Dharma”) for example, means “the essential nature (and form) of Buddhism itself,” “the whole universe,” or “Buddha-nature.” The “Dharma-eye,” for another example, can mean “the core point of Buddhism” (the core point of the universe), or “the innate capacity (of the universe, or Buddha) to see the truth” (e.g. of a scripture or koan).

The second primary way Zen uses the term “dharma” (not capitalized) accords with its meaning as a “thing,” “being,” “entity,” “instance,” or “event.” In this case, “dharma” is synonymous with any and all particular “forms” or “things.” Examples of dharmas are trees, pebbles, houses, words, people, abilities, mountains, thoughts, the moon, skills, emotions, and even such things as doubts, surprise, wrong views, illusions, and hallucinations. In other words, every form or thing is a dharma, and all dharmas exhibit the same properties as forms or things (i.e. the form and nature of a dharma are nondual).

Thus it is that in Zen each dharma is Dharma, all dharmas are Dharma, all dharmas are all dharmas, each dharma is all dharmas, all dharmas is each dharma, Dharma is each dharma and all dharmas. Finally, dharmas are dharmas and Dharma is Dharma.

Peace,

Ted