Birthday of Enlightened Zen Master Dogen

Born in year 1200, in Kyoto Japan, Dogen was a Japanese Buddhist during the Kamakura period (1192–1333), who introduced Zen to Japan in the form of the Soto school. A creative personality, he combined meditative practice and philosophical speculation. He was ordained a monk at 13 and studied the holy scriptures of Buddhism on Mount Heie the centre of Tendai Buddhism, without, however, fully satisfying his spiritual aspirations. Between 1223 and 1227 he studied Zen meditation in China and gained enlightenment under the Zen master Ju-ching. Back in Japan again, he lived at various temples and worked for the spread of Zen practice.

His first literary work, Fukan zazen gi (1227; “General Teachings for the Promotion of Zazen”), contains a brief introduction to the Zen practice. He wrote a number of other instructive works as well. His chief work, Shobogenzo (1231–53; “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”), containing 95 chapters and written over a period of more than 20 years, consists of his elaboration of Buddhist principles. Dōgen taught shikan taza, “zazen only,” zazen signifying the Zen practice of meditation in the cross-legged (lotus) position. He stressed the identity of practice and enlightenment.

Osho says, ”Before I explain Dogen to you, let this be the introduction, because this is what he is trying to say: that everything passes and yet there is something that never passes; that everything is born and dies and yet there is something that is never born and never dies. And unless you get centered into that eternal source you will not find peace, you will not find serenity, you will not find blissfulness, you will not find contentment. You will not feel at home, at ease in the universe. You will remain just an accident, you will never become essential. And the whole effort of Zen, or any meditative method, is to bring you closer to that which never changes, that which is always. It knows no time”

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

DOGEN WROTE:

TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF. TO STUDY THE SELF IS TO FORGET THE SELF. TO FORGET THE SELF IS TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS. TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS IS TO REMOVE THE BARRIERS BETWEEN ONE’S SELF AND OTHERS. THEN THERE IS NO TRACE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, THOUGH ENLIGHTENMENT ITSELF CONTINUES INTO ONE’S DAILY LIFE ENDLESSLY.

THE FIRST TIME WE SEEK THE LAW, WE ARE FAR AWAY FROM THE BORDER OF IT. BUT SOON AFTER THE LAW HAS BEEN CORRECTLY TRANSMITTED TO US, WE ARE ENLIGHTENED PERSONS.

Maneesha, this is the first day of a new series of talks, devoted to the full moons. The moon is an ancient symbol of transforming the hot rays of the sun into cool, peaceful, beautiful rays. It has nothing of its own. When you see the moon, you are seeing only a mirror which is reflecting the rays of the sun. Those reflected rays are just like the ones you can see when the sun is reflected in a river. The moon is a mirror but not only a mirror, it is also a transforming agent. It changes the heat rays into cool, peaceful rays. That is the reason why the moon has become the most significant symbol in the East. This series is dedicated to the full moons. In the series itself we are going to discuss one of the most unique masters, Dogen. Before I enter into the sutras, it will be good for you to know something about Dogen. That background will help you to understand his very condensed sutras. Apparently they look contradictory. Without the background of Dogen’s life pattern they are like trees without roots, they cannot bring flowers. So first I will talk about Dogen’s life structure.

DOGEN WAS BORN INTO AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY IN KYOTO, EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS AGO. HIS FATHER WAS A HIGH-RANKING GOVERNMENT MINISTER AND HE HIMSELF WAS AN UNIQUELY INTELLIGENT CHILD. IT IS SAID THAT HE BEGAN TO READ CHINESE POETRY AT THE AGE OF FOUR — another Mozart.

Chinese is perhaps the most difficult language in the world, because it has no alphabet. It is pictorial and to read it means years of hard work to memorize those symbols. To the born Chinese it is not so difficult, because from the very birth it becomes ingrained into his mind, but anybody who is studying Chinese from the outside world … I have been told by friends that it takes ten years at least, if one works strenuously; thirty years if one works the way any ordinary student will work. At the age of four, to understand Chinese — and not only Chinese, but Chinese poetry; that makes it even more difficult. Because to understand the prose of any language is simple, but the poetry has wings, it flies to faraway places. Prose is very marketplace, very earthly; it creeps on the earth. Poetry flies. What prose cannot say, poetry can manage to indicate. Prose is connected with your mind, poetry is more connected with your heart; it is more like love than like logic.

At the age of four, Dogen’s understanding of Chinese poetry immediately showed that he was not going to be an ordinary human being. From that very age his behavior was not that of a mediocre child; he behaved like a Buddha, so serene, so graceful, not interested in toys. All children are interested in toys, teddy-bears … who cares about poetry? But, fortunately or unfortunately, his father died when he was only two years old and his mother died when he was seven. Dogen used to say later on to his disciples, when he became a fully-fledged master in his own right, that everybody thought it was a misfortune: “What will happen to this beautiful, intelligent child?” But in his deepest heart he felt it was an opportunity; now there was no barrier.

Modern psychologists will perhaps understand it: you may be grown up — fifty, sixty, seventy — your father and mother may be dead … still they dominate you in a very psychological way. If you silently listen to the voices within you can work out that, “This voice comes from my father, or from my mother, or from my uncle, or from my teacher, or from the priest.”

Dogen used to say, “It was a great opportunity that both the people who could have distracted me, who loved me and I loved them … and that was the danger. They died at the right time. I am infinitely grateful to them just because they died at the right time without destroying me.”

It is something very strange for a seven-year-old child to understand this. It has been discovered only now by the psychologists that man’s greatest barriers are the father, the mother. If you want to be a totally free consciousness, you have to drop somewhere on the way, your teddy-bears, your toys, the teachings that have been forced upon you. They have all been of good intent, there is no question about it, but as it is said in an ancient proverb, “The path to hell is paved with good intentions.” Just good intentions are not enough; what is needed is a conscious intention, which is very rare. To find a father and mother with a conscious meditative energy is just hoping for the hopeless.

When his mother died Dogen was translating the most significant Buddhist scripture, abhidharma — “the essence of religion” — from Chinese into Japanese. He showed every sign of a tremendous future. And at the age of seven, when his father and mother had both died, the first thing he did — which is unbelievable — was to become a sannyasin. Even the neighbors, relatives, could not believe it. And Dogen said, “I will not miss this opportunity. Perhaps if my father and mother were alive, I might not have left the world in search of truth.” He became a sannyasin and started searching for the master. There are two kinds of seekers who become interested in truth. One starts looking for scriptures: he may become a great intellectual, he may become a giant, but inside there will be darkness. All his light is borrowed, and a borrowed light is not going to help in the real crisis of life.

I am reminded of a Christian priest who used to repeat in every sermon Christ’s saying, “If somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other, too.” Everybody liked his sermons, he was quoting such great statements. But in one place a man really stood up and slapped the priest on one of his cheeks. The priest was shocked, because he had just been quoting Jesus. But anyway, to save his face, he gave his other cheek. And that man must have been a real rebellious type; he slapped the other one, too. Now this was too much!

The priest jumped at the man and started beating him. And the man said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “The scripture stops with the second cheek. Now I am here and you are here: let us decide this.” Borrowed scriptures won’t help in actual encounters. In life there are everyday realities to be faced. In death the ultimate reality has to be faced. And borrowed knowledge is not going to help at all.

The second type of seeker does not go towards the scriptures, but starts searching for a master. These are two different dimensions: one is looking for knowledge, the other is looking for a source which is still alive. One is looking for dead scriptures, the other is looking for a living scripture whose heart is still beating and dancing, in whose eyes you can still see the depth, in whose presence you can see your own potential. This second type is authentically the seeker for truth. The first type is only a seeker for knowledge. You can have tons of knowledge and still you will remain ignorant. The man who has found the master may have to drop all his knowledge so that he can become open and vulnerable to the master’s presence, so that he can dance with the master’s heart. In this dance there happens a synchronicity, both the hearts slowly settle into the same rhythm. This rhythm is called the transmission. Nothing visible is given — no teaching, no doctrine — but invisibly two hearts have started dancing in the same tune. All that the master knows slowly goes on this invisible track and pours into the hearts of the disciples to the point of overflowing.

Dogen shows his intelligence, certainly, that he never turned to the scriptures. While his mother was alive, he was translating abhidharma, one of the most important Buddhist scriptures, from Chinese into Japanese. If his parents had lived, he might have become a great scholar. After his parents had died, he burned all that he had translated with that scripture, abhidharma. It is so unbelievable. A seven-year-old child had the great insight that, “Words won’t quench my thirst. I have to go in search of a living source, of someone who has known not by words, but by actual experience; one who is existentially a Buddha.” The search for the master is the search for the Buddha.

AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN DOGEN WAS FORMALLY INITIATED. It was not easy to be initiated, one had to prove one’s capacity, potentiality, possibility. One had to prove that one will not betray on the path, that one will not waste the time of the master, that one will wait infinitely. So he had to wait until the age of thirteen, and then: HE WAS FORMALLY INITIATED INTO THE MONKHOOD ON MOUNT HIEI, THE CENTER OF TENDAI BUDDHIST LEARNING IN JAPAN. FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS HE STUDIED THE SCHOOLS OF Mahayana AND Hinayana, VERSIONS OF BUDDHISM, UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF HIS TEACHER, ABBOT KOEN.

BY THE TIME HE WAS FOURTEEN DOGEN HAD BECOME TROUBLED BY A DEEP DOUBT CONCERNING ONE ASPECT OF THE BUDDHIST TEACHING. This is the sutra that made him troubled to the very core of his being.

IF, AS THE SUTRAS SAY, “ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE ENDOWED WITH THE BUDDHA-NATURE,” WHY IS IT THAT ONE MUST TRAIN ONESELF SO STRENUOUSLY TO REALIZE THAT BUDDHA-NATURE, TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT?

A very significant question. If everybody is a Buddha, then to recognize it should be the simplest thing in the world. If you are potentially a Buddha, then the barriers cannot be much; they cannot hinder you. Nothing can hinder you. A rose bush brings roses, a lotus seed brings the lotus. If every man is a seed Buddha, then why so much discipline? He was only fourteen years of age, and just one year before he had been initiated, but this sutra disturbed him immensely. It is obvious that if to be a Buddha is our nature, then it should be the simplest thing … without any discipline, without any effort — just a natural phenomenon, as you breathe, as your heart beats, as your blood runs in the body. There is no need of all the nonsense that has been forced upon people to become Buddhas, to achieve Buddhahood.

At this point he left his teacher because the teacher could not answer him. The teacher was just a teacher. He could teach the sutras, but he could not answer. He could realize the great significance of the question. Either Buddhahood is not everybody’s nature … it is some faraway mountaintop, that you have to travel through all kinds of hardships to reach. But if it is your very nature, then this very moment you can realize it — there is no need even to wait for a single moment. But the teacher could not say that, because he himself had not realized Buddhahood. He had been teaching Buddhist scriptures, and not a single student had ever said, “This sutra is contradictory.”

IN SEARCH OF SOMEONE WHO COULD HELP RID HIM OF HIS DOUBT, DOGEN FOUND HIMSELF WITH ANOTHER TEACHER, MYOZEN.

Teachers are many. Just to graduate into a certain branch of knowledge is not anything unique or special. But to find a master is really arduous, in that they both speak the same language — the teacher, the master. And sometimes it may be that the teacher speaks more clearly, because he is not worried about his own experience. The master speaks hesitantly, because he knows whatever he is saying is not perfectly appropriate, does not express the experience itself … that it is a little way off. The teacher can speak with full confidence because he knows nothing. The master either remains silent or, if he speaks, he speaks with a great responsibility, knowing that he is going to make statements which appear to be contradictory, but which are not. But every teacher wants to be known as a master. For the seeker this creates a problem. Myozen also proclaimed himself a master, but time proved that he was not a master.

IN SPITE OF LONG YEARS OF TRAINING UNDER MYOZEN, DOGEN STILL FELT UNFULFILLED. AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE HE DECIDED TO MAKE THE JOURNEY TO CHINA WITH MYOZEN, IN ORDER TO STUDY ZEN BUDDHISM FURTHER. LEAVING THE SHIP, DOGEN FOUND HIS WAY TO T’IEN-T’UNG MONASTERY, WHERE HE TRAINED UNDER MASTER WU-CHI.

STILL UNSATISFIED, FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS HE VISITED NUMEROUS MONASTERIES. JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP HIS SEARCH AND RETURN TO JAPAN, HE HAPPENED TO HEAR THAT THE FORMER ABBOT OF T’IEN-T’UNG HAD DIED, AND THAT HIS SUCCESSOR, JU-CHING, WAS SAID TO BE ONE OF CHINA’S FINEST ZEN MASTERS.

He changed his plan to go back to Japan and went again to the same monastery where he had been. The old master, who was just a teacher, was dead, and he had been succeeded by Ju-ching — a man who had soared high and touched the peaks of consciousness, who had dived deep and touched the depths of his being, who had moved vertically upwards and downwards, who had traveled through all his conscious territory. This man Ju-ching proved to be a man who answered doubts, settled them, because Dogen was still carrying the same question: that if Buddhahood is your nature, then why is any discipline needed? It was Ju-ching who said, “No discipline is needed. No discipline, nowhere to go, no way to be traveled … just be, silent, settled, at the very center of your being, and you are a Buddha. You are missing it because you are looking and trying everywhere else except within you. You will never find your Buddhahood by changing this monastery for another monastery, this master for another master. Go in!”

Ju-ching is known as one of the finest masters, a very fine sword that cuts things immediately. His presence, his fragrance, his grace … Dogen remained with him, never asking a question, just drinking the very presence of the master, the very atmosphere, the very climate — getting drowned. And a moment always comes … An ancient Tibetan proverb says, “If the disciple is ready, the master appears.” The whole question is of the disciple being ready. But the disciple can be ready only if he comes across a man of consciousness — not a man only of words, but a man of the experience — who has been to the highest peaks, to the lowest depths. And just being close to him one can feel the vibe, the coolness. He radiates the truth; and if you are ready, suddenly something clicks. All doubts disappear, you know you have found the master. Now there is nothing to be asked. Whatever is needed, the master will give it. In fact, it is only because of the poverty of language that we say, “The master will give it.” The truth is, when you are ready it simply showers on you — the master cannot even prevent it. The master is already radiating, just the doors of your being are closed. So those vibrations, and they are simply vibrations, return back. If the doors are open, nothing is said and everything is understood.

When Dogen became a master in his own right, when Ju-ching declared to him, “Now, no more play the role of being a disciple,” at that moment he hit Dogen and said, “You have come to understand; now be compassionate on the blind humanity. Now don’t go on sitting by my side. You are a Buddha. Just because you were wandering here and there, you could not understand. Then sitting by my side, silently … I have not given you anything. You have simply become centered, and in this centering is the inner revolution.”

DOGEN WROTE: TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF.

Now these are tremendously valuable statements. He is saying, “Don’t ask about the way — there is no way.” TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF. The way leads away, and the further you go in search, the more you are lost. Drop all going and remain at home, just doing nothing. As Basho has said:

ANCIENT POND.

A FROG JUMPS,

AND GREAT SILENCE.

And Basho was just sitting there, so he wrote a small poem, sitting silently, doing nothing: A frog jumps in the ancient pond. A little sound and then great silence. We are little sounds in a great silence. Between us and the universe there is not much more difference than between a sound and silence. In every temple in the East we have used different kinds of bells. Even today they are used without any understanding. The reason is to give you a message — you ring the bell, a sound is created from nowhere. It echoes in the empty temple, it re-echoes, and every echo becomes more silent, more silent, and finally it disappears. Our existence is nothing but a sound in an immense ocean of silence.

TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF.

Don’t bother about the way, just study yourself.

TO STUDY THE SELF IS TO FORGET THE SELF.

Who is going to study the self? The one who is going to study the self has already dropped the self. The one who is studying the self is the witness — your real self.

TO STUDY THE SELF IS TO FORGET THE SELF. TO FORGET THE SELF IS TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS.

Then it does not matter in what situation you are — any situation will make you enlightened. People have become enlightened in every kind of situation you can imagine. The question is, if the self is dropped — then you may be chopping wood or carrying water from the well, it does not matter. The moment there is no self — only a witnessing, a silent watchfulness — you are enlightened by all things.

TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS IS TO REMOVE THE BARRIERS BETWEEN ONE’S SELF AND OTHERS.

To be enlightened simply means: neither I exist nor you exist. What exists is something transcendental to I and thou, something more, something bigger and higher.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment Chapter #1

Chapter title: To study the way … to forget the self …

References:

Osho has also spoken on many Zen Masters and Mystics Mahakashyap, Bodhidharma, Hyakujo, Ma Tzu, Nansen, Dogen, Isan, Joshu, Kyozan, Basho, Bokuju, Sekito, Yakusan, Bankei, Sosan, Yoka, Nan-in, Ikkyu and many more in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master
Ancient Music in the Pines
Ah, This!
A Bird on the Wing
Dang Dang Doko Dang
Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment
Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth
Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky
Joshu: The Lion’s Roar
Kyozan: A True Man of Zen
The Language of Existence
Ma Tzu: The Empty Mirror
Nansen: The Point of Departure
Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haikus
No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity
No Water, No Moon
Yakusan: Straight to the Point of Enlightenment
Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing