Pursuit of abundant knowledge is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we truly reflect on the form of the Dharma. 多くの教えを求めることは法明門である。それによって物事の真相を正しく悟るからである。 This is the third gate in a row that’s about seeking or pursuing something (求める motomeru). A couple of gates ago, it was the meaning of the dharma. Last time it was prajna. This time it’s abundant knowledge, but this isn’t just any knowledge—it’s teachings. The second half of the gate statement is about truly reflecting on the form of the dharma. The literal translation is "precisely perceiving or understanding the real situation of everything, or the truth of all things." Perceive or understand here is 悟るsatoru, with same root as satori; thus this is the understanding of awakening, not an intellectual understanding. A couple of gates ago, when we talked about the meaning of the dharma, we were talking about dharma in the largest sense—how the universe functions, or how reality works—and we saw that at the core of that was emptiness. This time we’re talking about dharma in the sense of teachings. As we know, there are three kinds of three treasures: manifesting, maintaining and absolute. The kind of dharma we talked about last time was absolute. Now we need to talk about the other two, manifesting and maintaining. We could say that we can’t really pursue dharma in the absolute sense because it’s already here, but with dharma as teachings, we can make some effort to come in contact with them, take them on board and consider them. The manifesting version of the dharma treasure is what Shakyamuni the human teacher actually taught, how he practiced with his own sangha, and how the dharma-as-teachings first manifested in the world. The maintaining version of the dharma treasure is how the teachings are being made available today, not only what we’re reading in sutra books or dharma publications and not only what our teachers are saying, but also how we’re working with those teachings ourselves. What’s our experience and understanding of those teachings? How are we living with them every day and carrying them into the world? When this gate says “abundant teachings,” it’s not kidding. Starting with the teachings that have been written down, there are tons and tons of canonical writings in Buddhism. We don’t have one or two convenient books, like the Bible. The oldest texts are known as the Pali Canon. The things that Buddha said were transmitted orally for several centuries before they was written down. Eventually the sangha got together and decided what teachings were legitimate and valid, and they made three groups of teachings, known as the three baskets or tripitaka: the words of the Buddha (sutras), the words of his close disciples on metaphysics (abhidarma), and monastic regulations (vinaya). Theravada Buddhism looks to this Pali Canon as its set of scriptures, and these alone are abundant. They’re said to fill more than 12,000 pages in about fifty hardbound volumes, taking up about five linear feet of shelf space. Then the Mahayana came along and developed the bodhisattva ideal: everyone should put off his or her own liberation in order to first liberate all beings. That came with its own set of additional teachings and texts, and these were quite different in style and tone from the early ones. Somehow these new texts had to take a legitimate place in the Mahayana canon along with the original Pali Canon, but the Buddha had long since died, so clearly these couldn’t be the actual words of Shakyamuni. Instead, these new texts were said to have been hidden for about 500 years since the time of the Buddha, or that they were the words of Buddha but he had given these teachings in circumstances where they couldn’t have been recorded in the original canon; perhaps he’s in a heavenly realm or in some form other than human. These texts are still called sutras, like the Lotus Sutra or the Prajna Paramita Sutra, but they sound pretty different from the sutras in the Pali Canon. The early sutras are fairly practical and down-to-earth, but the Mahayana sutras are ornate and full of heavenly scenes with various buddhas and bodhisattvas and things magically appearing. They can seem quite devotional and they preach about how to be a bodhisattva and be selfless, compassionate and wise. On top of all those texts, over time various other texts have come to be important to practitioners depending on the sect or dharma family. Of course, all of these texts had to be translated from one language to another as Buddhism moved across the world, and things got changed in those translations. Syncretism happened as Buddhism encountered various new cultures, and skillful teachers emerged who wrote commentaries, manuals and other kinds of texts that provided real help for practice. For instance, when Chan arose in China, koan literature developed, stories of encounters between masters and students. In Soto Zen we think Dogen and his writings and commentaries are important and central to our practice. All of these texts are not sutras, and even the sutras are available in languages other than Buddha’s original language—but we still revere them as the dharma treasure. One of the reasons we have so many teachings and texts that we consider important is the nature of Buddha’s awakening. He didn’t have some magical experience that was reserved only for him; he wasn’t special or chosen. The basis for his teaching was that we are already awake, buddha nature and emptiness are already here, and that each of us has to do our own work to liberate ourselves and others from suffering. If he’s not the recipient of special revelations and all practitioners are already awake, then the teachings of his disciples and their disciples down to modern teachers can be completely legitimate Another reason there are so many teachings is that in the Mahayana the Buddha adapted his message based on the circumstances of his audience. It sometimes seems that he teaches one thing to one group and then says the opposite to another group. That’s explained in the tradition by saying that each group or person needed something different in that moment, but it means that there is a variety of different teachings. Let me just insert a reminder here that it’s fine to read around in the larger Buddhist tradition; there’s certainly plenty of material to work with. However, if you’re feeling confused about what you’re reading and why this doesn’t seem to agree with that, pay attention to the sect, school, time or place of the writer. The reason there are so many schools of Buddhism is that each has a different perspective. That can be very helpful, but if you’re reading about tantric visualization practice and then coming to Sanshin to learn more about it, you won’t be successful. Now related to abundant teachings, of course we have to say a few words about the position that arose within Chan in China that insentient beings preach the dharma. There are myriad insentient beings, and if they’re all preaching the dharma, that’s an even more immeasurable amount of teachings. The traditional Chan story goes that a student asked his teacher, “If the insentient actually possess Buddha nature, can they preach the dharma or not?” The teacher replied, “They preach magnificently, they preach continually, and they preach eternally without a moment’s pause.” Student: “Then why is it that I do not hear it?” Teacher: “Just because you yourself do not hear it, it does not mean that others do not hear it.” Student: “Then who can hear it?” Teacher: “All the sages hear it.” This is a famous story; Dogen and Keizan both wrote about it. It returns us to emptiness as the meaning of the dharma. The point is that when we are standing up in emptiness, we’re not making any distinctions between sentient and insentient, or ordinary people and sages, or anything else. That’s the moment when we see the suchness of each thing we encounter. That suchness or emptiness is the dharma preaching of insentient beings. An object is sitting there completely manifesting suchness without any hindrance or unclarity. The question is, can we hear it preaching the dharma? Can we hear those teachings? If so, then we’re surrounded by abundant teachings in every moment no matter where we are. If we really get that, that’s awakening, and that’s the second part of this gate statement. Again, that precise understanding is satori or awakening. Satori is a term more common in Rinzai than in Soto Zen. It refers to a sudden insight into one’s true nature. Practitioners focus on study, koans and working with a teacher in addition to sitting practice. Everything is aimed at having this kind of breakthrough, but satori is considered only the first step toward fully manifesting buddhahood. One still needs to deepen one’s insight in a lasting and mature way. One is supposed to have many instances of satori, supported by continuing practice. Soto Zen instead simply emphasizes silent illumination, or zazen, and we’re not aiming at any outcome, like a breakthrough or peak experience. Dogen felt that Zen practice was about something larger than attaining a momentary mystical state; in the Zuimonki he wrote: It is said, “Even a thousand acres of clear fields is not as good as a bit of skill that you can take around with you.” The thousand acres of clear fields is the spaciousness we experience when we have that insight into emptiness, but he says that that moment of insight isn’t the endpoint. Seeing the way that Buddha sees isn’t something that happens like a flash of lightning but something that’s happening all the time, so it’s something we can take around with us (in his words). Sometimes these two schools, Rinzai and Soto, are characterized as sudden and gradual, and another way to describe the difference is linear and nonlinear. Rinzai folks are practicing in a step-by-step way toward satori, while Soto folks are experincing that practice and awakening are not two, or practice is itself satori. Sekkei Harada, a modern teacher, wrote something I find helpful: The objective of Zen practice is to graduate as quickly as possible from zazen and return to the time before you knew anything about zazen. Our shikantaza doesn’t have any meaning outside of itself, and zazen, work, study and ritual are interpenetrated in that they are all satori. We don’t have to wait to get on the cushion. We can be receiving abundant teachings and manifesting satori at any time in the midst of any activity or circumstance. All the functions of body, speech and mind are awakening. In any case, satori is about seeing emptiness, which everyone agrees is important. In the world of Soto Zen, satori is the same as bodhi—a state of mind that is fully and accurately aware, as when one is awake rather than asleep or dreaming. To have (or be in the state of) bodhi or satori is to be a buddha, an “awakened one,” free from the delusion (迷 mayoi) that characterizes ordinary living beings. In the broadest possible sense, emptiness or awakening or satori are already here. There’s no need to sit zazen, open the hand, drop off body and mind, spend time with sutras, do mindful work or engage in liturgy. And yet: can we say that in the midst of all that we precisely understand the truth of all things? Most of the time: no! Thus we immerse ourselves in the abundant teachings, whether in the form of dharma study or in the form of dropping our self-involvement so we can hear insentient beings preaching the dharma. In other words, we’re not separate from emptiness, but we usually aren’t aware of that emptiness. In Dogen’s Genjokoan there’s a famous section about a bird’s domain being the sky and a fish’s domain being the water. It’s not possible for them to step outside of their domains to understand them. That’s a description of our life in suchness, emptiness or awakening. We can’t understand emptiness, or the precise truth of all things, by stepping outside of emptiness. We can only understand it by being completely integrated with it. Again, in the broad perspective there’s nothing we need to do—we’re already integrated with the universe—but our limited perception means we don’t see or understand it. An important point here is that that limited perception doesn’t hinder the universal self or emptiness or awakening. Emptiness is going along and functioning just fine no matter what we think or understand. It’s the same with the abundant teachings being preached by insentient beings—as it said in the story I told earlier: “They preach magnificently, they preach continually, and they preach eternally without a moment’s pause.” “Then why is it that I do not hear it?” “Just because you yourself do not hear it, it does not mean that others do not hear it.” We’re already connected with everything that’s going on. We just need to accept that we’re already part of it, Okumura Roshi calls this becoming one piece. It’s true that in the world of form we need to make distinctions. We can’t ignore that or else we can’t function and we just become sort of inert and foolish. We also can’t pay attention only to the world of form, because it’s not the whole story and we just become crazy. This is Uchiyama Roshi’s teaching about the need for balance between wanting to be passive and peaceful and wanting to be active, creative and intellectual. We need to pay attention to teachings about both of these aspects of our lives. Yes, Dogen wrote some elaborate philosophical stuff, but he also wrote instructions about how to brush your teeth and use the toilet. It’s all practice, whether we’re standing, walking, sitting or lying down—and it’s all a source of teachings. Precisely understanding the truth of all things is being free from delusion and the underlying three poisons. It’s giving up attachment to the small self while not negating or annihilating the small self. From the point of view of emptiness, there is no small self and no delusion, so it’s not that these things have disappeared. It’s just that we’ve put boundaries around things in our lives and experience and then separated from them, giving them names and forms and starting to cling to them. Satori is a return to our original condition, where we deeply understand how our perceptions and attachments arise and we see that these things have no substance or self-nature. Ironically, one of the attachments that arises is to the satori experience itself. If you have some kind of opening. you don’t want to let go of it. When it fades, you want to have that experience again. In that way, insight can impede insight. It’s kind of the opposite of using form to transcend form or using the abundant teachings to transcend the abundant teachings. In addition to five skandhas clinging to these limited five skandhas, five skandhas are clinging to emptiness. Bankei was a wandering Zen master in the 17th century, and he said about this: Since your Unborn Buddha Mind hasn’t been realized, you can’t manage smoothly in your daily affairs. In exchanging it for something like “the empty sky,” you’re obscuring the marvelously illuminating Buddha Mind. Since we’re not yet able to see through all our delusions and the stuff that arises from the three poisons, we have suffering in our daily lives. If instead of clinging to forms we cling to the empty sky (satori, non-attachment, emptiness, awakening), we’re just trading one delusion or attachment for another. We can actually become attached to non-attachment. Nonattachment doesn’t mean we don’t have a direction or goals. If we didn’t have some aspiration or vow, we could ignore all these abundant teachings and what they point us to. What’s missing is our preoccupation with the goal while we’re carrying out the activity, whether or not we’ve achieved it. What’s also missing is any effect of this success or failure on our self-esteem. In other words, we’re not using our activity to build our identity. That doesn’t mean we don’t take our practice or our life activities seriously; Dogen even took going to the toilet seriously as practice! Activity is expression of universal self as well as individual self. It doesn’t have or need any meaning or value outside of itself. We’ve seen here that insentient beings are teaching us all the time, but if that’s true, then we ourselves must also be teaching all the time with our activities. It might be that we’re being big brothers and sisters in the dharma for our sangha friends and being good examples and role models of practice, whether that’s in an official or conscious capacity or not. It might also be that the teaching and learning that’s happening is between ourselves and ourselves. Simply paying attention to our own behaviors and what we do skillfully or unskillfully is a hugely abundant source of teachings! If we’re listening, we’re preaching to ourselves all the time. Sometimes those teachings are hard to hear, but our job as bodhisattvas is not to look away. Our own day to day lives are full of abundant teachings. Whether inside or outside of formal practice, we have myriad opportunities to precisely understand the truth of all things. I’m going to leave you with a fun bit of writing by David Llano, a debater who compares a more linear, Rinzai-style debate style with a more nonlinear Soto-style debate style. (Unfortunately, the original post is no longer available online.) He describes the usual logical way that folks prepare for debate; they move from inspiration to inspiration, maybe looking for inside information on the right trick or strategy they need to win: Perhaps if you are nice enough, or lucky, or attractive, one of the enlightened masters will take you aside and confer upon you the transmission of the secret truths that will bring you enlightenment. They will help you figure out the trick to it, and you can one day, in one round, in one speech hit satori and the debate world will crack like an egg. This writer compares that with what he calls the Soto style: Soto debate is a bit rarer. This is the practitioner who sees little distinction between being a “good debater” and being a “human.” The practice bleeds into daily life, and daily life bleeds into the practice. They of course admire the success of the skilled, but recognize it was not because of a moment of satori that success was achieved. Daily sitting, daily “work” on debate was essential. When you are sitting Zazen, you are doing Zen, which means you are practicing it. There’s nothing more to do. When you debate, you are a debater, whether you make bad arguments or not. You are a practitioner. Debating is not an instrumentality, it is the goal. When you debate, you debate. You are not trying to open up something, it’s open. You opened it. This is the Soto approach. Questions for reflection and discussion
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About the text The Ippyakuhachi Homyomon, or 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination, appears as the 11th fascicle of the 12 fascicle version of Dogen Zenji’s Shobogenzo. Dogen didn't compile the list himself; it's mostly a long quote from another text called the Sutra of Collected Past Deeds of the Buddha. Dogen wrote a final paragraph recommending that we investigate these gates thoroughly. Hoko has been talking about the gates one by one since 2016. She provides material here that can be used by weekly dharma discussion groups as well as for individual study. The 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination
[1] Right belief [2] Pure mind [3] Delight [4] Love and cheerfulness The three forms of behavior [5] Right conduct of the actions of the body [6] Pure conduct of the actions of the mouth [7] Pure conduct of the actions of the mind The six kinds of mindfulness [8] Mindfulness of Buddha [9] Mindfulness of Dharma [10] Mindfulness of Sangha [11] Mindfulness of generosity [12] Mindfulness of precepts [13] Mindfulness of the heavens The four Brahmaviharas [14] Benevolence [15] Compassion [16] Joy [17] Abandonment The four dharma seals [18] Reflection on inconstancy [19] Reflection on suffering [20] Reflection on there being no self [21] Reflection on stillness [22] Repentance [23] Humility [24] Veracity [25] Truth [26] Dharma conduct [27] The Three Devotions [28] Recognition of kindness [29] Repayment of kindness [30] No self-deception [31] To work for living beings [32] To work for the Dharma [33] Awareness of time [34] Inhibition of self-conceit [35] The nonarising of ill-will [36] Being without hindrances [37] Belief and understanding [38] Reflection on impurity [39] Not to quarrel [40] Not being foolish [41] Enjoyment of the meaning of the Dharma [42] Love of Dharma illumination [43] Pursuit of abundant knowledge [44] Right means [45] Knowledge of names and forms [46] The view to expiate causes [47] The mind without enmity and intimacy [48] Hidden expedient means [49] Equality of all elements [50] The sense organs [51] Realization of nonappearance The elements of bodhi: The four abodes of mindfulness [52] The body as an abode of mindfulness [53] Feeling as an abode of mindfulness [54] Mind as an abode of mindfulness [55] The Dharma as an abode of mindfulness [56] The four right exertions [57] The four bases of mystical power The five faculties [58] The faculty of belief [59] The faculty of effort [60] The faculty of mindfulness [61] The faculty of balance [62] The faculty of wisdom The five powers [63] The power of belief [64] The power of effort [65] The power of mindfulness [66] The power of balance [67] The power of wisdom [68] Mindfulness, as a part of the state of truth [69] Examination of Dharma, as a part of the state of truth [70] Effort, as a part of the state of truth [71] Enjoyment, as a part of the state of truth [72] Entrustment as a part of the state of truth [73] The balanced state, as a part of the state of truth [74] Abandonment, as a part of the state of truth The Eightfold Path [75] Right view [76] Right discrimination [77] Right speech [78] Right action [79] Right livelihood [80] Right practice [81] Right mindfulness [82] Right balanced state [83] The bodhi-mind [84] Reliance [85] Right belief [86] Development The six paramitas [87] The dāna pāramitā [88] The precepts pāramitā [89] The forbearance pāramitā. [90] The diligence pāramitā [91] The dhyāna pāramitā [92] The wisdom pāramitā [93] Expedient means [94] The four elements of sociability [95] To teach and guide living beings [96] Acceptance of the right Dharma [97] Accretion of happiness [98] The practice of the balanced state of dhyāna [99] Stillness [100] The wisdom view [101] Entry into the state of unrestricted speech [102] Entry into all conduct [103] Accomplishment of the state of dhāraṇī [104] Attainment of the state of unrestricted speech [105] Endurance of obedient following [106] Attainment of realization of the Dharma of nonappearance [107] The state beyond regressing and straying [108] The wisdom that leads us from one state to another state and, somehow, one more: [109] The state in which water is sprinkled on the head Archives
November 2024
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