Category Archives: Questions and responses

The incompleteness of our practice

By Pau Giner – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

All the karma ever created by me since of old
Through greed, anger, and self-delusion
Which has no beginning, born of my body, speech, and thought
I now make full repentance of it[1]

Student:
Could you say something about repentance?

Okumura Roshi:
Repentance is a translation of the Buddhist term sange. The origin of sange in Buddhism is as old as the history of the Buddhist sangha. Because of certain Christian connotations, I know many American people don’t like the word “repentance.” Some people use another word such as atonement, or try to avoid the word repentance altogether. I use this word repentance because when the Bible was translated into Japanese, Japanese Christians translated the English word repentance with the Buddhist word sange. So when I use the English word repentance, in my mind this is simply the Japanese word sange in a Buddhist context. I am not referring to the meaning of this word as it is used in Christianity.

As far as repentance in Buddhism, historically, Buddhist sanghas in India had gatherings twice a month, on the evenings of the new moon day and the full moon day. In the lunar calendar the new moon day is the first day of each month, and full moon day is the middle, the fifteenth of each month. On these evenings all sangha members gathered together and the leader of the sangha recited the precepts. When any member of the sangha thought they did something against the precepts they made a kind of confession. I did such and such things and this is against the precept and I will try not to do such a thing again. That is the original practice of repentance.

When we receive the precepts, especially the Mahayana precepts, they are really difficult to completely, perfectly keep. It’s almost impossible to live completely keeping the precepts. Take the example of the precept of not killing. Even if we don’t kill animals and we kill vegetables to eat, vegetables are living beings, so we need to make repentance. Or take the example of not telling a lie. You know, if we say “sunrise” and “sunset,” it’s not true. The sun doesn’t actually move to create day and night. We use such an expression in our common usage, but it is not true. Well, my example is a kind of joke, but when we try to live following the precepts we receive, often we see we are not completely following those precepts. So we need to see, or be aware of the incompleteness of our practice. I think that is sange, or the English word I use, repentance. As far as we take our vow and practice trying to fulfill that vow we have to see the incompleteness of our practice. This awakening is repentance to me, and repentance allow us to return to the original direction in which we are going. So repentance is kind of encouragement to me, an encouragement to keep practicing.

Dōgen emphasizes that whatever the condition or situation or state of our mind, we just whole-heartedly practice. That’s it, only the reality of right now right here. But we need to practice, based on our bodhisattva vow to free all beings, to be free from our delusions, to study dharma, and to attain buddha’s way.

Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
The dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them.
The Buddha’s Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.[2]

That is our vow. Usually or almost always our practice is incomplete. We cannot really fulfill those four bodhisattva vows so we need to awaken, we need to be aware of that incompleteness of our practice. Incompleteness is not a bad thing, and to awaken to that incompleteness of our practice is important. That awakening allows us to practice repentance. So as far as we practice based on following our bodhisattva vows, we need to awake to the incompleteness of our practice and practice repentance. Vow and repentance allow us to return to the track we follow to go in that direction, that is, towards buddhahood or nirvana. And when we practice with that attitude, we can find nirvana in each step, each moment.

— • —

[1] See Shohaku Okumura, Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012), chapter 2 for an in-depth discussion of this verse.
[2] See Shohaku Okumura, Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012), chapter 1 for an in-depth discussion of this verse.

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Commentary by Shōhaku Okumura Roshi

The Dōgen Institute offers an occasional series of questions from students with responses from Okumura Roshi  about practice and study. These questions and responses are from Okumura Roshi’s recorded lectures, and are lightly edited.

— • —

For further study:

> Other Questions and responses

Copyright 2020 Sanshin Zen Community

Leaving home

Abanindranath Tagore [Public domain]

Those who are clear inevitably leave family life. Those who are dull end their lives at home, which are the causes and conditions of bad karma. – Dōgen[1]

Student:
Dōgen’s tone is quite harsh. What’s the positive intention he’s trying to convey here about leaving home to become a monk?

Okumura Roshi:
This is from Shukke-kudoku, the last chapter of the 75-chapter version of Shobogenzo. Shukke is home-leaving and kudoku is virtue or merit. It’s said that after finishing this, Dōgen wanted to make Shobogenzo into 100 chapters. He started to write, but only completed 12 of the additional 25 fascicles before he died. The very first chapter of the 12-chapter version of Shobogenzo was again Shukke-kudoku, Around this time, late in his life, home-leaving, or what becoming a Buddhist monk means seems very important to Dōgen. In Shukke-kudoku he praised the virtue or merit of home-leaving.

Dōgen’s statement here is very strong. He shows discrimination between lay practitioners and monks. Yet when he was young in Kyoto, around the time he wrote Bendowa and Genjokoan, he said in one of the Hogo[2] that there are two ways of practice in Buddhism: one is staying on a mountain or in a forest, and another is to live in the city. Within this hogo, he expressed that he didn’t want to leave the city. When he was young he made a choice to stay in the city and practice with a larger range of people in society. But when he left Kyoto, and especially later, after he came back to Echizen and Eiheiji from a visit to Kamakura, I think he developed a different idea. Kamakura was the seat of the Shogunate or the Samurai government, and Dōgen stayed in Kamakura for about eight months during 1247 and 1248. When he came back he told his monks that he really loved the mountains. Shukke-kudoku was probably written after that. The date is not clear. There was some change of opinion that had happened within him over those years.

To understand what this means is a koan. If I want to be Dōgen’s student, I have to think about this in order to make a decision about how I practice. This is a very important point. The first thing is to clearly see Dōgen’s change of attitude, this transformation. The next thing is to see the reason he made this change. This has been a koan for me for many years; even today I cannot make a clear decision which is better. When I was young, I think I had the same idea as Dōgen when he was young. This dharma should be recommended to all living beings, without any distinction between lay people and monks. That’s what he wrote in Bendowa. At that time, I think he really tried to share the dharma he studied and practiced in China. But I think he had some disappointment when he practiced and tried to recommend this genuine practice to people, especially to the high-class people in Kyoto, and the high-class government officials in Kamakura.

I think he may have found that in the Chinese stories which he described in Bendowa, stories about emperors and ministers and high government officials who practiced Zen, that what they called Zen practice or Buddhist practice was kind of insincere. For example, from my own experience, one time a Japanese prime minister had a photo of himself in the newspaper sitting zazen— and I really know that was insincere, without any question. I’m not sure if Dōgen really thought these Chinese examples were insincere, maybe he did, maybe not. He might have thought that those were really good examples and it was an ideal situation, but that it just didn’t work in Japan.

Even in Japan after Dōgen, there were many shogun, samurai, and famous people in high-class society who practiced Zen. But I think that possibly from Dōgen’s point of view their practice is not really the true practice of dharma. I don’t think those aristocrats in Kyoto and samurais in Kamakura at the time of Dōgen were so different from that prime minister. Dōgen had some disappointment after working hard with those aristocrats. I think he had some disillusionment about the people in the upper class of society, like emperors. He knew emperors because his family belonged to that society. His father was a secretary of the emperor. His grandfather was a prime minister— so he knew that society. When he was young, he was kind of idealistic, he thought that if he presented genuine dharma, people would accept it and support him and create a good dharma-world. But after ten years of his practice in Kyoto he found that was a dream. That is my understanding for now.

In any event, I think that he gave up the idea he described in Bendowa. What he next wanted to try to do was to create a small place where people with a very sincere aspiration can get together, and he felt it must be remote from the capital. He wanted to create a place where sincere people can get together and practice with him. To encourage those people who came to practice with him at this remote place, he wrote this kind of admonition or warning to his disciples, not to be involved in that kind of world. I’m not sure that he wanted to return to a separation between lay and monastic practice, but he wanted to make a small place where a small number of people could practice. I don’t think he rejected lay people, but his idea was for a small number of monks to practice at the monastery in a quiet place, and for lay people to support and join the practice whenever they can. That is similar to the original form of the Buddhist sangha. Again, that is my understanding for now.

After Dōgen, Soto Zen and the Soto School had eight hundred years of history. Neither of his two plans became actualized. That is a challenge for the Soto School today. Sotoshu is among the biggest Buddhist orders in Japan now. It has fifteen thousand temples, and more than twenty thousand priests. But the reason why the Soto School became big was not because people accepted Dōgen’s teaching of just sitting. There are other reasons, many different reasons, but it’s not because clergy and practitioners understood what Dōgen taught, and their practice was not necessarily what Dōgen taught.

Our koan for now is “so what?” What should we do in this country? Which is a better picture? The one in Bendowa or the one Dōgen presented after he moved to Eiheiji? Might there be something in the middle? What is that? This is a very important koan for Buddhist practitioners in this country right now. What we are doing creates the next generation, the history of Buddhism in this country. What I’m doing, or what we’re doing here is one attempt to find a middle way, at least to me. When I was in Massachusetts at Valley Zendo, I was very clear I didn’t want to practice in a city with a big group. I just wanted to keep this small quiet place, and that’s it. But after five years of that experience I had a question— why was I there? We had only five-day sesshin, without anything but zazen, every month, twelve times a year. I found that not many American people could sit that much. So in a sense, offering that amount of zazen is a kind of rejection of people. Of course, some people could do it but could not continue, because they had a job and a family. They didn’t have enough time or energy to practice in this way. So to offer practice in that way was a kind of a rejection. If we just wait for the very firmly determined people who are ready to practice in this way, I don’t think I need to be in this country. If such people exist, they could come to Japan. I couldn’t find any good reason to practice in that way in this country.

When I came to this country again in 1993 and started my own place, I wanted to find a middle way between what we did at Valley Zendo and spreading dharma. Now we have a five-day sesshin, not every month, but five times a year. Another thing I found is that it’s kind of dangerous to sit that amount of zazen without a clear understanding of the meaning of that practice. That’s why I started Genzo-e. I try to keep the gate a little broader. To me this is like a middle path. But still, it can be too difficult for many American people, especially American lay people. For some people, what I’m doing is still a kind of extreme. It’s kind of difficult to find where is the middle. We can’t say before we start. So while we are trying to continue to practice, we have to make some adjustments. But as a person who studied dharma and trained in Japan, and as a dharma-heir of my teacher, I myself cannot and don’t want to make such a big change. I’d like to continue to practice with a relatively small number of people. American people who practice and study with me can make a change to make this practice more accessible for a larger range of people in this country for the future. That is my wish.

 

— • —

[1] Okumura’s translation.
[2] Hogo can be translated as “Dharma words.” These are often letters of practice instruction to students. For this particular hogo, see p. 498-500 in Taigen Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, Dōgen’s Extensive Record: A translation of the Eihei Koroku (Wisdom Publications,2004), p. 632-733.

— • —

Commentary by Shōhaku Okumura Roshi

The Dōgen Institute offers an occasional series of questions from students with responses from Okumura Roshi  about practice and study. These questions and responses are from Okumura Roshi’s recorded lectures, and are lightly edited.

— • —

For further study:

> Other Questions and responses

Copyright 2020 Sanshin Zen Community

The pure water of faith

Manishpant33 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ]

If people genuinely practice with right faith, they all attain the Way equally. – Dōgen[1]

Student:
Could you talk a little bit about the phrase “right faith?”

Okumura Roshi:
“Right faith” is a translation of shōshin (正信); shō is “true” or “right” and shin is “faith” or “belief.” This Chinese character basically means “trust.” One part of the character for shin means “people” and the other part means “words,” so to believe means to believe people’s words – when someone is saying something, to accept it and trust that this person’s sayings are truth. As a Buddhist term, it’s said there are two kinds of shin or faith. One is called shinge, another is called gyoshin. Ge is understanding, so shinge is a combination of faith and understanding. Gyo means to respect, literally, to look up; so gyoshin is a combination of respect and trust.

Shinge, the first kind of faith, is explained using the example of someone who is digging a well. At the beginning, they can’t see the water, but as they keep digging, they start to see the soil getting wet. When they see that the soil is getting wet, even though they don’t have water yet, they have a belief that, “If we keep digging, then we will surely get water.” We don’t have the water yet, but we trust that if we keep this practice, we will get it. This is faith based on some understanding.

The second kind of faith comes out of our respect for the person who is speaking, such as a teacher; because of respect we trust the person, therefore, we trust his teaching, even though we don’t have any understanding. A typical example of this is faith in the pure land, as Shinran taught. Shinran said that he didn’t know whether chanting nembutsu is really a cause of being born in the pure land or not. He said that because he had nothing to do beside this practice, believing what his teacher Honen was teaching, and believing in the age of last dharma, self-power practice worked. Therefore, this practice of chanting nembutsu is the only possibility. So, even if he was deceived by his teacher and went to hell instead of the pure land, he said, that’s ok. He trusted his teacher’s teaching, because that’s the only hope he had. That kind of faith is called gyoshin— because of our trust in our teacher, we trust the teaching.

The title of Shinran’s major writing is Kyogyoshinsho; kyo is “teaching,” gyo is “practice,” shin is “faith,” and sho is “verification.” Those were all important elements for him, but in his case shin is really the basis of his teaching. In the case of Dōgen, gyo (practice) is the basis, but in this quotation he’s saying that shin is also important. Without shin or faith, we cannot keep this kind of nonsense practice, just to sit without expecting anything. This is a really difficult thing if we don’t have trust or belief or faith. Dōgen’s teaching is really difficult. As I often say, many of his teachings didn’t make sense to me at all. But somehow, I couldn’t stop, or I could continue (either expression is fine) because of my trust in my teacher’s way of life. It was not because of my understanding of Dōgen’s teaching, but because I wanted to live like my teacher, and follow my teacher’s practice based on zazen following Dōgen’s teaching. Whether I understand Dōgen or not is not so essential. But after I started to understand what he was saying, I was very happy, and my practice became more meaningful, and I had more gratitude for his teaching. I feel very fortunate; even though I didn’t understand his teaching I could continue to practice, and finally I started to understand.

So, in our practice also, I think faith is really important. Faith is the energy that allows us to continue with the many questions and doubts we have during the process of practicing for many years. Sometimes I had so many good reasons or excuses to stop, but somehow I couldn’t, because of my trust in my teacher’s way of life. My teacher and my teacher’s teacher had been practicing this zazen so many years, and they never stopped. Their life is already over. I can’t doubt their practice. They completely devoted their entire lives to this practice. So even though I didn’t understand the teaching or dharma taught by Dōgen, still I could continue. So, I think faith is really important.

One of the definitions of faith in Buddhism which appeared in the Abhidharmakośa is, in Chinese, shin chojo; cho and jo both mean to “be clear,” and shin is mind/heart. That means the mind/heart being pure or clear. According to that text, shin is like a jewel. It’s said that in India when monks travelled and had to drink water from rivers or ponds— I don’t know if this is true or not— there were certain jewels which when put in the muddy water, settled the mud down and then the surface of the water became pure. This mud is our doubt or delusions. If there is shin or faith, our delusions or our doubts go down and our life becomes clear and pure, and we can drink. Shin is not a belief in some kind of a system of belief or a doctrine we have to accept, like in many religions. Faith is something which makes our minds pure and clear.

— • —

[1] From the answer to question 18 in Bendōwa. See Kōshō Uchiyama et al., The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dōgen’s Bendōwa with Commentary (Boston, Mass: Tuttle Publishing, 1997). page 40.

— • —

Commentary by Shōhaku Okumura Roshi

The Dōgen Institute offers an occasional series of questions from students with responses from Okumura Roshi  about practice and study. These questions and responses are from Okumura Roshi’s recorded lectures, and are lightly edited.

— • —

For further study:

> Other Questions and responses

Copyright 2020 Sanshin Zen Community

Is practice practicing itself?

Photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Question Fifteen:
Even in this corrupt declining age of the world, is it possible to attain enlightenment through this practice?

Reply:
In the Teaching Schools they focus on various classification systems, yet in the true teaching of Mahayana there is no distinction of True, Semblance, and Final Dharma, and it is said that all who practice will attain the Way. Especially in this simply transmitted true dharma, both in entering dharma and in embodying it freely, we receive and use our own family treasure. Only those who practice know on their own whether they attain enlightenment or not, just as those who use water notice on their own if it is cold or warm.

Student:
Is practice practicing itself?

Okumura Roshi:
This question and answer is from Dogen’s work Bendowa. In Dogen’s answer, the sentence “Especially in this simply transmitted true dharma, both in entering dharma and in embodying it freely, we receive and use our own family treasure” is about Dogen’s own practice, the practice he teaches. “Our own family” is a translation of ji ke; ji is self, ke is house, home or family, and this “treasure” is the same “treasure-store” Dogen refers to in the last sentence of Fukanzazengi, his writing about zazen. The treasure doesn’t come from outside, the treasure-house is within our own house, it is our family treasure. It’s not a treasure we have to go out to find. We receive and use our own family treasure, it’s not dependent upon the conditions of the society. We use our own life-force to practice, so it’s not up to the condition of the world or the conditions of the age in which we live. That’s what “self” (ji) means in this passage.

This ji has the same meaning as in the phrase jijuyu zanmai. In order to practice jijuyu zanmai, Dogen described it in the early part of this writing, Bendowa. He called our zazen jijuyu zanmai. This term means we receive (ju) and use (yu) our own family treasure, so we don’t rely on others, we don’t rely on the conditions of society. We can practice using our own family treasure, our own body and mind. That’s all we need. These five skandhas are the family treasure. In order to practice this zazen as a jijuyu zanmai, what we need is only this body and mind. Nothing else. Even in a degenerate or evil world, if we practice, enlightenment is there.

There is another important teaching of Dogen, shu and sho are one. Shusho ichinyo is his expression— practice and verification (enlightenment) are one. This means if we use our family treasure, that is the five skandhas, body and mind, and practice this zazen as jijuyu zanmai, within this practice, verification is already there. Practice and verification / enlightenment / realization is not something we may attain at some time in the future, as a reward for this long and hard practice. Of course, our practice may be hard or difficult for many different reasons; still, if we practice wholeheartedly, verification is there. For Dogen, it only depends upon whether we arouse bodhicitta (aspiration) and practice, or not.

So this sentence in the answer to Question Fifteen is very important in understanding the overall point Dogen wants to teach us. Our practice is not dependent upon the condition of the world, but in our practice we use our own family treasure, and our practice can influence the world. It’s not that we cannot practice or we cannot attain enlightenment because this is a degenerate, evil world, but rather that if we really practice within these five skandhas, we can change the world. That’s another meaning of this sentence, I think. Here, Dogen is kind of very optimistic or positive.

In Genjokoan, Dogen said to study the buddha-way is to study the self, and to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be verified by all myriad dharmas. The important point is that within all those myriad dharmas (bunpo), the self or this person is included. That means all myriad dharmas verify all myriad dharmas. So this self disappears; within our practice this self should be forgotten. That is what Dogen meant when he used the expression zenki, total function, or “total dynamic work” in Katagiri Roshi’s translation. That means ji is a part of this network of interdependent origination, one knot of this network of interconnectedness, not only within space but also within time. Everything is connected with everything within the three times and the ten-direction world.

In Shobogenzo Inmo, Dogen quotes a koan about a person named Sogyanandai. After this person became a master he once had a conversation with a student, Kayashata. They saw a wind-bell hanging at the temple building. The wind blew the wind-bell and made a sound, and the master said, “Is the wind ringing or is the bell ringing?” Kayashata answered, “Neither wind nor bell, but my mind (shin) is ringing.” In Inmo, Dogen discusses what this shin is. This is an interesting question. Commonly we say the bell is ringing, but does the sound of the bell really function outside of our hearing, outside the function of our sense-organs? If no one hears it, is sound still there, objectively? In this story, Kayashata said our mind is ringing. That means the sound is here, in our head. Before reaching our ear, the sound is just a vibration of the air, it has no sound. Sound is happening here, and within our mind we perceive or receive that sensation of the vibration of the air, and we think there is a sound. So sound is actually made after the wave of the air reaches our ear, and happens within our perception and formation. Finally, we think that it is the sound made by the bell and wind. So a common understanding of Kayashata’s answer is that sound is not out there but in here.

Dogen also quotes a similar koan involving the Sixth Ancestor Huineng and two monks. The two monks are arguing. When they see a banner moving one says, “The wind is moving” and the other says, “The banner is moving” but Hui-neng said, “Neither wind nor banner is moving, but your mind is moving.” What is this shin, or kokoro, or mind which both Kayashata and Huineng cite?

Dogen strongly states that this shin is not a function of our psychology. It is not something happening within our five skandhas, when we receive this stimulation of the vibration of the air. Shin, in the answers of both Kayashata and Huineng, is not a function of our mind. Shin includes the wind, the banner, and the person seeing it. Or the wind, the wind-bell, and the person hearing it. All three are included within shin. The function of our mind or psychology is only a part of it. Dogen said that if we think this shin is a part of our psychology, then we completely miss the point of this story. Shin is the sound of the entire network of interdependent origination. Everything is working. And as a part of this entire movement, the wind moves and blows the bell and makes the vibration of the air that reaches our ear. We think this is a sound made by the bell, caused by the wind, but these are elements of this entire movement. What Dogen says is that when this mind is this mind, this is the mind that includes both subject and object.

As I said before, shin is not a part of our psychology. Uchiyama Roshi said this term should be considered as “life”— life can include all of these, but the English word “mind” cannot include all of them. Mind is a part of shin, of course it’s not excluded. It’s a part of it, but in Zen literature this shin is not part of our psychology. The function or work of this shin, including all those elements, is called zenki. It’s not that our mind is ringing. It’s not simply that the bell is ringing. It’s not a matter of the wind ringing. This sound is caused by the entire network of interdependent origination. Shin is actually “the family treasure.” So this family treasure is not our personal thing. These five skandhas are not our personal possession. As Dogen said, these five skandhas, this body and mind, is something that is public. It is not a private individual thing, it is actually a public treasure. Dogen is saying that “self” is not the small individual person, but is a part of this public thing. So, whether the world or society is difficult or not, chaotic or completely peaceful, the family treasure is never lost. When we awaken to this total function and practice, then buddha-dharma or true dharma appears or manifests right within this practice. That’s my understanding of what Dogen wanted to say.

— • —

[1] Kōshō Uchiyama et al., The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dōgen’s Bendōwa with Commentary (Boston, Mass: Tuttle Publishing, 1997).

— • —

Commentary by Shōhaku Okumura Roshi

The Dōgen Institute offers an occasional series of questions from students with responses from Okumura Roshi  about practice and study. These questions and responses are from Okumura Roshi’s recorded lectures, and are lightly edited.

— • —

For further study:

> Other Questions and responses

Copyright 2019 Sanshin Zen Community