Dogen
gives the question to his teacher. This is a very serious question. Dogen
thinks that the teachings in these sutras are similar with the six outsider
teachers. This means the sutras advocate non-Buddhist teachings such as Senika’s
theory, which Dogen introduces in Bendowa. In this case, to be non-Buddhist means
to go against the Buddha’s teaching of anatman (no permanent self). The teaching
of the metaphor of the mani jewel (one bright8jewel) which is permanent and
never changes, even though the surface color is changing is, according to
Dogen, nothing other than atman. That is the problem in Dogen’s question. He is
asking whether the theory included in these two sutras can be considered to be
authentic Buddhist teaching or not.
This is
a conversation that happened when Dogen was twenty-five years old. In China, it
seems that the authenticity of these two sutras has not been questioned.
However in Japan, in the 8th century, some Hosso School (Japanese Yogacara
School) monks doubted whether The Surangama Sutra is an authentic sutra from India
or not. Dogen and his teacher Rujing had the same question. In modern times,
almost all Japanese Buddhist scholars think that The Surangama Sutra and The
Complete Enlightenment Sutra were written in China.
The
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism says the following about the authenticity of The
Surangama Sutra:
Although
Zhisheng assumed the Surangama sutra was a genuine Indian scripture, the fact
that no Sanskrit manuscript of the text is known to exist, as well as the
inconsistencies in the stories about its transmission to China, have led
scholars for centuries to question the scripture’s authenticity. There is also
internal evidence of the scripture’s Chinese provenance, such as the presence
of such indigenous Chinese philosophical concepts as yin-yan cosmology and the
five elements (wuxing) theory, the stylistic beauty of the literary Chinese in
which the text is written, etc. For these and other reasons, the Surangama sutra
is now generally recognized to be a Chinese apocryphal composition. 2
However,
Chinese masters don’t agree. There is a Chinese temple in San Francisco named
Golden Mountain Temple, and it has a big community called the City of Ten
Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, Northern California. The founder of that temple,
Ven. Master Hsuan Hua, opposed those modern scholars:
“Where
the Surangama Sutra exists, then the Proper Dharma exists. If the Surangama
Sutra ceases to exist, then the Proper Dharma will also vanish. If the
Surangama Sutra is inauthentic, then I vow to fall into the Hell of Pulling Tongues
to undergo uninterrupted suffering.” 3 In a subsequent section of the introduction
to the Surangama Sutra, Ron Epstein and David Rounds argue that it was written
in India.4
So there
is a controversy. Since I am not a Buddhist scholar, I cannot discuss which is right.
Anyway, we are studying Dogen’s Shobogenzo, we need to hear what Dogen has to
say on this point. We need to understand that Dogen questions not only about
whether the Surangama Sutra was written in India or China but also whether the
core teaching in the sutra is non-Buddhist theory.
Dogen’s
criticism in Eihei Koroku
Not only
when he was young, but also in his later years, he repeats the same opinion regarding
the two sutras in his Dharma discourse number 383 in Eihei Koroku (Dogen’s Extensive
Record), the collection that includes9 more than five hundred formal discourses
by Dogen. Because this is a long discourse on Dogen’s disagreement with the
theory of the identity of the three teachings (Confucianism, Daoism and
Buddhism), I will only quote one paragraph of just a few sentences:
Therefore
we should not look at the words and phrases of Confucius or Lao Tsu, and should
not look at the Surangama or Complete Enlightenment Scriptures. (Many
contemporary people consider the Surangama and Complete Enlightenment Sutras as
among those that the Zen tradition relies on. But the teacher Dogen always
disliked them.) We should exclusively study the expressions coming from the
activities of buddhas and ancestors from the time of the seven world-honored
Buddhas to the present. If we are not concerned with the activities of the
buddha ancestors, and vainly make our efforts in the evil path of fame and
profit, how could this be study of the Way? Among the World-Honored Tathagata,
the ancestral teacher Mahakashyapa, the twenty-eight ancestors in India, the
six generations [of ancestors] in China, Qingyuan, and Nanyue [Huirang], which of
these ancestral teachers ever used the Surangama or Complete Enlightenment
Sutra and considered them as the true Dharma eye treasury, wondrous mind of
nirvana? 5
The
italic sentences in the parenthesis are a note made by Gien, a disciple of
Dogen who compiled volume 5 of Eihei Koruku. It is clear that he
continued to dislike these two sutraseven when he was past his youth.
Dogen
criticizes not only the two sutras but Guifeng Zongmi’s essential points in
Dharma discourse number 447 of Eiheikoroku:
I can
remember Guifeng Zongmisaid, “The quality of knowing is the gateway of all
excellence.”
Zen
master Huanrong Shixin [wuxin] said, “The quality of knowing is the gateway of
all evil.” Later students have recited what these two previous worthies said,
without stopping up to today. Because of this, ignorant people have wanted to
discuss which is correct, and for hundreds of years have either used or
discarded one or the other thing. Nevertheless, Zongmi’s saying that knowing is
the gateway of all excellence has not yet emerged from the pit of those outside
the way. What is called knowledge is certainly neither excellent nor course. As
for Huanlong [Shixin]’s saying that knowing is a gateway of all evil, what is
called knowledge is certainly neither evil nor good.
Today,
I, Eihei would like to examine those two people's sayings. Great Assembly would
you like to clearly understand the point of this?
After
a pause Dogen said:
If the great ocean knew it was full, the hundreds of rivers would all flow
upstream.6
It is
clear that Dogen knows what Guifeng Zongmi wrote about the one bright jewel. Zongmi
said that everything good came from10 this knowing (chi) or the spiritual
intelligence that is nothing other than the one bright jewel. Dogen also quotes
another Zen master, Huanrong Shixin. They said completely opposite things and
Dogen made a comment about these two opposite sayings.
Dogen
says Zongmi’s saying has not yet emerged from the pit of those outside the way.
This “pit of those outside the way” means the trap of non-Buddhist theory.
Dogen is saying that Zongmi’s saying is non-Buddhist teaching. This dharma
discourse 447 was probably given when Dogen was around 50 years old, a few years
before his death. Dogen still thinks Guifeng Zongmi’s teaching based on the two
sutras was not Buddhist.
After a
pause he said, “If the great ocean knew it was full, the hundreds of rivers
would all flow upstream.” The ocean will never fill up, so water can flow from
the mountains to the ocean continuously. However, if the ocean becomes full,
water needs to flow towards the mountains. Such a thing can never happen. From
these sayings of Dogen, it is clear to me that Dogen does not agree with what
Guifeng Zongmi had written using the analogy of “one bright jewel”.
Dogen’s Comment on The Surangama Sutra in Shobogenzo
Tenhorin (Turning the Dharma Wheel).
In Shoboenzo
Tenhorin (Turning the Dharma Wheel) written in 1244, Dogen discusses several
Zen masters’ comments on an expression from the Surangama Sutra as follows:
The
expression quoted now, that “when a person exhibits the truth and returns to
the origin, space in the ten directions totally disappears” is an expression
in the Surangama Sutra. This same phrase has been discussed by several
Buddhist patriarchs. Consequently, this phrase is truly the bones and marrow of
Buddhist patriarchs, and the eyes of Buddhist patriarchs. My intention in
saying so is as follows: Some insist that the ten-fascicle version of the
Surangama Sutra is a forged sutra while others insist that it is not a forged
sutra. The two arguments have persisted from the distant past until today.
There is the older translation and there is the new translation; the version
that is doubted is [not these but] a translation produced during the Shinryu era.
However, Master Goso [Ho]en, Master Bussho [Ho]tai, and my late Master Tendo, the
eternal Buddha, have each quoted the above phrase already. So, this phrase has
already been turned in the Dharma wheel of Buddhist patriarchs; it is the
Buddhist Patriarch’s Dharma wheel turning.7
The
translation produced in the first year of the Shinryu era (Shenlong in 705 CE)
is the ten fascicle version of the Surangama Sutra. The older ones are entitled
Surangama-samadhi sutra, translated by Kumarajiva; this is a different sutra
from the Surangama Sutra, which is a Chinese apocryphal scripture. Here Dogen doubts
the authenticity of the Surangama Sutra, but he says that once a sentence from
the sutra is quoted and used by ancestors to express the Dharma, the statement
can be thought of as turning the Dharma wheel.11
Similar
criticism in Bendowa, Question Ten
In Bendowa
and Shobogenzo Sokushinzebutsu (The Mind itself is Buddha), Dogen
criticized the theory that the mind-nature is permanent and forms are arising
and perishing. This teaching is what Dogen thought came from the same ideas
Zongmi wrote based on the Surangama Sutra and the Complete Enlightenment Sutra.
I think that to clearly understand Dogen’s points in these two writings, it is
important to know why Dogen does not appreciate these two sutras. Question ten
in Bendowa is about the problem. First Dogen formulated the question, then he
wrote the reply to the question.
[Question
10] Someone has said, “Do not grieve over life and death. There is an
instantaneous means for separating from life and death. It is to understand the
principle that mind-nature is permanent. This means that even though the body that
is born will inevitably be carried into death, still this mind-nature never
perishes. If you really understand that the mind-nature existing in our body is
not subject to birth and death, then since it is the original nature, although
the body is only a temporary form haphazardly born here and dying, the mind is
permanent and unchangeable in the past, present and future. To know this is
called release from life and death. Those who know this principle will forever
extinguish their rounds of life and death and when their bodies perish they
enter into the ocean of original nature. When they stream into this ocean, they
are truly endowed with the same wondrous virtues as the Buddha-Tathagatas. Now,
even though you know this, because your body was produced by the delusory karma
of previous lives, you are not the same as the sages. Those who do not yet know
this must forever transmigrate within the realm of life and death. Consequently,
you need comprehend only the permanence of mind-nature. What can you expect
from vainly spending your whole life doing quiet sitting? “Is such an opinion
truly in accord with the way of buddhas and ancestors?”8
Life and
death in this case refers to transmigration within samsara. In this teaching,
we don’t
need to grieve over suffering in samsara, and we don’t need to practice. This mind nature is
shinsho (心性), shin is “mind;” sho
is “nature.” This is one of the expressions Guifeng
Zongmi used. We should see the permanence of mind-nature. Even though phenomenal
body and mind are impermanent, this mind-nature is permanent. Just to see the
permanence of mind-nature is an instantaneous method to become free from
suffering. If this is true, it’s pretty easy to be released from samsara. We
don’t need to practice.
This
theory says that our life with this body is like a river. Until the river reaches
the ocean, we are living as individual persons and experiencing different
things and we attach to certain things and we hate certain things and we suffer.
But once we return to the ocean, we become free from the body. The body is the
source of delusions, but this mind nature is always pure. When this mind-nature
returns to the ocean of original nature, we are free from the suffering12 of
samsara and become like buddhas. Why do we have to go through a difficult
practice such as zazen?
According
to this theory, we don’t need to practice. We just need to know that mind nature
is permanent and undefiled, and even if we don’t practice at all, when we die
we become buddhas. This is an interesting teaching. As long as we are living,
we’re no good, and our practice doesn’t work. What we have to do is wait until
we die. Then we become buddhas. It seems easy. However, this means that as long
as we are alive we are deluded and we have to suffer. I don’t think this is an
easy way of life.
Bendowa:
reply to Question Ten
Dogen
makes up this question and replies by himself as follows:
The idea
you have just mentioned is not Buddha-dharma at all, but the fallacious view of
Senika.
This
fallacy says that there is a spiritual intelligence in one’s body which
discriminates love and hatred or right and wrong as soon as it encounters
phenomena, and has the capacity to distinguish all such things as pain and
itching or suffering and pleasure. Furthermore, when this body perishes, the
spirit nature escapes and is born elsewhere. Therefore although it seems to
expire here, since [the spiritual nature] is born somewhere, it is said to be permanent,
never perishing. Such is this fallacious doctrine. However to learn this theory
and suppose it is buddha-dharma is more stupid than grasping a tile or a pebble
and thinking it is a golden treasure. Nothing can compare to the shamefulness
of this idiocy. National teacher Echu of Tang China strictly admonished
[against this mistake]. So now isn’t it ridiculous to consider that the
erroneous view of mind as permanent and material form as impermanent is the same
as the wondrous dharma of the buddhas, and to think that you become free from
life and death when actually you are arousing the fundamental cause of life and
death? This indeed is most pitiful. Just realize that this is a mistaken view.
You should give no ear to it.9
Senika
is one of the non-Buddhist teachers that appears in the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra.
What Dogen says here in Bendowa is the same as what he says in Eihei Koroku; this
theory that insists that mind-nature is permanent is the same as the non-Buddhist
teaching.
This
spiritual intelligence is a translation of reichi (霊知) and that is exactly the same word that Guifeng Zongmi used
to describe “one
bright jewel”
in his writing when he compared the four lineages of Zen in the Tang Dynasty.
When this spiritual intelligence encounters a certain object, it creates some discrimination.
This spiritual nature escapes from our body when we die as the owner of a house
goes out when the house is burned and gets a new house.
Dogen
repeats exactly the same discussion in Shobogenzo Sokushin-zebutsu (The
Mind Itself is Buddha). There he quotes a long conversation between Nanyan
Huizhong (Nanyo Echu,13675-775) regarding the same theory of Senika. The
expression “mind itself is Buddha” is by Mazu (Baso), a disciple of Nanyan’s
Dharma brother Nanyue Huairang (Nangaku Ejo,677-744). Dogen does not agree with
the teaching of Guifeng Zongmi written in his text.
If we
interpret Xuansha’s saying, “The entire ten-direction world is one bright
jewel,” according to the same usage of the analogy that appeared in Zongmi’s
writing, then probably Dogen didn’t agree with it. What is Dogen’s understanding
of Xuansa’s statement? Is there any difference between what Xuansha said and Dogen’s
interpretation of Xuansha’s saying? This is the point of studying Shobogenzo
Ikkamyoju (One Bright Jewel). What I have been discussing is a kind of
preparation before starting to read Dogen’s insight about this analogy of “one
bright jewel”.
Dogen is
really a difficult person with whom to practice. In a sense, he’s so stubborn and
picky. Many Zen texts agree with this theory in these sutras and Zongmi’s.
Dogen is a very unusual and unique Zen master. To be his student is a difficult
thing.
Shodoka, a poem by Yongjia Xuanjue
I
pointed to the examples of usage of this analogy of “one bright jewel” in Zen
Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty. I think Dogen didn’t agree the theory behind the
expressions. He needed to make his own interpretation of what this bright jewel
is. Obviously this bright jewel is a metaphor of Buddha nature, bussho in
Japanese. We need to understand what Dogen’s understanding of Buddha nature is.
Before I
start to read the text, I’d like to introduce one more example of the same kind
of idea in one of the famous pieces of Zen literature written in the Tang
Dynasty. This is a very well known and important poem written by Yongjia
Xuanjue (Yoka Genkaku, 665-713). This person was another disciple of the Sixth Ancestor
Huineng (Eno, 638-713), and yet he stayed with Huineng only one night. On the day
he visited the Sixth Ancestor, he attained enlightenment and he left. He is a
Dharma brother of Nanyan Huizhong and Nanyue Huairang. He used to be a Tendai
monk, a great scholar and also a very skillful poet. He wrote a long poem
entitled Shodoka (Song of Enlightenment of the Way).
I found
a translation by D. T Suzuki. In this poem Yongjia Xuanjue wrote about this metaphor
of mani jewel as follows:
The
whereabouts of the precious mani-jewel is not known to people generally, Which
lies deeply buried in the recesses of the Tathagata-garbha;
The
six-fold function miraculously performed by it is an illusion and yet not an illusion,
The rays
of light emanating from one perfect sun belong to the realm of form and yet not
to it.10
As it is
generally said, people don’t see this bright jewel. It is something hidden
deeply within us. In this translation it says “the sixfold function
miraculously performed by it…” Six-fold function refers to the function of the six
sense organs when they encounter the six14 objects of sense organs. This refers
to what we do every day, the things happening between subject and object such
as seeing, hearing, sensing and knowing. All these things we do are done by
this hidden bright jewel, Buddha Nature. This bright jewel is the subject of seeing,
hearing, etc.
D.T.
Suzuki translates, “…is an illusion and yet not an illusion.” I’m not sure if
this is the right translation or not. The original word Xuanjue used is ku ()
and fuku (). Ku is“emptiness” and fuku is “not emptiness.” This means that the conditioned color
of blackness is empty but the bright jewel itself is not empty but substance as
Zongmi said.
The next
line, “The
rays of light emanating from one perfect sun belong to the realm of form and
yet not to it,”
is like this in Chinese: is the same word as ikkain ikka-myoju,
which means “one
piece”.
Even though D.T. Suzuki translated it as “perfect sun,” I think this “one-piece” refers to the mani jewel. (shiki fu-shiki) is form and not form. I would translate this
line : The perfect light of the one [bright jewel] is both form and not-form.
Of course ku and shiki came from the Heart Sutra, “shiki soku ze ku, ku soku ze shiki”.
That is what this means. “Not ku” means shiki and “not shiki” means ku, so ku
and shiki interpenetrate each other. That is what is said in the Heart Sutra.
Form is nothing other than emptiness and emptiness is nothing other than form. The
function between subject and object are performed by this hidden bright jewel.
And these are at the same time emptiness (conditioned color) and not emptiness
(bright jewel) and the light of the bright jewel is both form and yet not-form.
That is what is written in this poem. So here we can see a kind of a combination
between the teaching of emptiness and the theory of tathagata-garbha (buddha
nature). The author of this poem or the theory in the Surangama Sutra and the Perfect
Enlightenment Sutra combined these two. In a sense, this theory is an
integration or mixture of theory of emptiness, Yogacara’s consciousness only,
and tathagata-garbha.
Dogen’s
Understanding of the Bright Jewel
This
poem is still considered as a classic of Zen Buddhism and no one thinks that
this is a heretical teaching. This is considered an authentic Zen teaching.
Probably Dogen is a rare Zen master who didn’t like this idea. The interactions
of our six sense organs and the six objects of the sense organs are something
we carry out day-to-day. Yet this poem says that there is something which is
hidden and that that hidden thing called tathagata-garbha (buddha
nature) is the subject that performs these day-to-day things. Here are two
layers of reality; one is phenomena and another is probably, in Western
philosophical world, called noumenon. Buddha Nature in this case is noumenon and
things happening between subject and object are phenomena, and these phenomenal
things are a function of the noumenon. That is the basic structure of this
idea. I think this is what Dogen didn’t like, probably because viewing it from
his practice of zazen, this theory is dualistic. There is the duality of phenomena
and noumenon, or Buddha nature15and our day-to-day activities or one bright jewel
and its conditioned black color. That is, I think, the basic problem for Dogen;
thus he thinks this theory is not in accord with Buddhist teaching.
Then, in
the case of Dogen, what is this bright jewel? I think, the bright jewel in Dogen’s
teaching is like a drop of water that is illuminated by moonlight. In the case
of the structure of the theory of noumenon and phenomena, there’s no relation
between phenomenal things. But as Dogen defines delusion and realization in his
Genjokoan, delusion and realization are only within the relationship between self
and myriad dharmas. In Genjokoan, Dogen used the word jiko()
and banpo(), and he said that conveying the self
toward myriad things and carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion, and all
myriad things coming toward the self and carrying out practice-enlightenment through
the self is realization.
In
Shobogenzo Sokushinzebutsu (The Mind is itself Buddha), Dogen quotes Nanyan Huizong’s
conversation with a monk from the south who criticizes the Zen teaching in the south,
saying that the theory is the same as Senika’s, the non-Buddhist. Then the monk
from the south asked Huizong, “Then what is the ancient Buddha mind?” Huizong
replied, “Fences, walls, tiles and pebbles.” Dogen quotes this saying in
Shobogenzo Kobutsushin (The Ancient Buddha Mind) and says at the end of
Sokushinzebutsu, “The mind that has been authentically transmitted is one-mind
is all things and all things are one-mind.” Here there is no duality between
noumenon (the bright jewel) and phenomenal things (black color). I think
Huizong and Dogen mention the interconnectedness of phenomenal things within the
network of Indra’s Net.
It’s not
a matter of there being Buddha nature that is like a diamond inside the self
and to find this diamond is realization. Dogen doesn’t like this idea. If this
is the case, our practice is to find something inside ourselves, and we would
be able to attain so-called realization or enlightenment when we’ve found this
inner diamond. Then it would have nothing to do with our relationship with
others. But in the case of Dogen, practice-enlightenment is to transform the
way of our life. Transformation of our life can be only within the relationship
between self and myriad things.
In the
same writing (Genjokoan), he says that the self is like a drop of water; it’s a
tiny thing, and it is impermanent. The moonlight is the light of myriad dharmas.
The self is a part of the network of interconnectedness of myriad things. This
way of existing is the bright jewel. The bright jewel is not a permanent
noumenon. We and all myriad things are born, stay for a while, and disappear;
nothing is permanent. And yet this tiny drop of water is illuminated by all
dharmas. There are numerous things and they are all interconnected with each
other. Without this connection, this tiny drop of water cannot exist even for
one moment. This bright jewel is like a knot of Indra’s net and each knot is a
bright jewel. This bright jewel or drop of water is illuminated by everything,
and this bright jewel or drop of water also illuminates everything. In this
case,16this self is a part of the moonlight. This is like five fingers and one
hand. One hand is simply a collection of five fingers. One hand is not a
noumenon of five fingers. Practice-enlightenment or delusion and realization
exist only within this relationship between self and all other beings. There is
the difference of framework between the one bright jewel as noumenon and as a
part of interdependent origination. I think this is the point Dogen wants to
show us.
When
Dogen interprets Xuansha’s saying, “This entire ten-direction world is one
bright jewel,” he is talking about the relationship between self and myriad
things within the structure of the network of interdependent origination.
Everything
is reflected in one thing and, because this is a net, when we touch the one knot
we touch the entire net. There is no separation between self and myriad things.
It’s really one seamless reality. And yet within our views it seems subject and
object are separate. Unless we understand this point and interpret the title
“One Bright Jewel,” we don’t really understand what Dogen is talking about and why
he had to say it in this way. Dogen’s interpretation might be different from
what Xuansha expressed with this expression as I interpreted in the last issue
based on Zongmi’s comparison of the four lineages.
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