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The view to expiate causes is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] we attain salvation. 煩悩の原因を除く智慧は法明門である。それによって解脱を得るからである。 For “the view to expiate causes,” we can read “Having the prajna or wisdom that removes the source of the kleshas or bonno.” The end of the gate statement points us toward gaining the liberation of nirvana and becoming free from desires. Bonno refers to our delusive, tempting desires, things that drive us to take unwholesome action. It’s not just mistaken views, and it’s not just desires. The problem isn’t that we want food when we’re hungry or that we aspire to have enough resources to take care of our families. The problems start when there’s clinging based on our ideas about the self. The Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy, from which our Soto school descends, says that there are four fundamental bonno from which all the other ones spring. Gachi is ignorance of the nature of the self or ignorance of the three marks of existance (interconnectedness, impermanence and egolessness) as they relate to the self. We think “I am this body or feeling or perception and anything that isn’t this body or feeling or perception isn’t me.” We don’t understand that the self can’t exist without relation to others, that it’s subject to change, and that it’s not a fixed and permanent thing. Gaken are egocentric views based on our ignorance, or clinging to our established views of the things around us. We look around and create a picture of the world, and think that the center of that world is “me.” Then we evaluate everything we encounter in relation to what it means for these five skandhas. That’s a pretty narrow view, and it doesn’t take into account what’s actually happening for others and for the universe as a whole, but it’s really hard to get beyond our habituated thinking and our preconceptions. Gamon is about pride in ourselves or the opposite, shame about ourselves. This is where we compare ourselves with others and decide whether we’re better or worse. If we’re better, then we’re happy, and if we’re not, we feel inferior. Everything is in relation to what it means for our self-concepts. Ga-ai is self-love, when everything we think or say and do shows how caught up with ourselves we are and how obsessed we are with things that the self finds pleasant. The ga 我 at the beginning of each of these is I or me. Actually, it’s the Japanese for the Sanskrit atman. In pre-Buddhist India there was a lower self which was impermanent—the body and personality—and a higher self which was a permanent essence, soul or atman. The Buddhist teaching about anatman, or no fixed and permanent self, is a distinguishing difference from Hinduism. Instead of a permanent self, there’s only a changing collection of elements that comes together for awhile and then falls apart. All of these four kinds of bonno or delusive desires have some connection to being self-involved to the exclusion of seeing the larger universe. The second bodhisattva vow is bonno mujin seigan dan (delusions are inexhaustable; I vow to end them). Delusion is 煩悩 bonno, worldly cares, sensual desire, passions, unfortunate longings, suffering and pain. As we know, delusion is not a simple thing! One word really isn’t enough to convey all the complexity of bonno. We can see why they’re inexhaustable when we look at all they cover! The first kanji of bonno is 煩 : troubles, worries, vexations, concerns, afflictions, annoyances. It has a feeling of being noisy, fussy and distracting, something clamoring for our attention. The second kanji 悩 gives the feeling of seduction or enchantment, something we yearn for or long for. These are the sufferings born from our desires. We want things even when we know they won’t help, when they’re distracting us from what we really need to do or from more wholesome things. They’re like potato chips—they seem desirable and we eat them, but they don’t really provide much nourishment, and the salt makes us thirsty. A short time later we’re hungry again, maybe for real food this time, but potato chips are easy and taste good and satisfy our body’s desire for fat and salt. Bonno has a feeling of temptation. We suffer because we are tempted by our attachments. Even when we know we’re going to suffer because of them, somehow we can’t resist. “Whenever I overindulge in internet shopping, I have trouble paying my bills—but I just can’t resist that new jacket or book or video game! Maybe this time it won’t really be a problem somehow!” This is one kind of delusion, which comes from compulsions and habituated thinking. We do the same things over and over and somehow don’t accept the result. By the way, another Japanese word related to (or sometimes used for) delusion is mayoi 迷い. In Buddhism it means maya, the illusion of thinking that duality is the real nature of things. It’s also an everyday Japanese word with a feeling of being lost. We hesitate and we are bewildered because we’ve lost our way. We’ve actually lost touch with reality. Thus we become deluded and we believe in things that contradict ultimate reality. We do it because of ignorance, which has the same root as ignore. This delusion that comes from ignorance is the first kind of bonno. Most delusions are the ignorant kind, and the way to get rid of them is to cultivate a deep understanding of the four noble truths (and therefore the nature of reality). Any time we’re in error about the nature of reality, we can’t be our true selves. In order to be fully awake, we have to completely understand how things really are, before we paper them over with our concepts and habits of thought. If there’s the slightest misunderstanding, there is some delusion there and we are not able to exist in pure awareness. Delusion is ignorance of the true nature of things. Regardless of the form they take, delusions obstruct our ability to manifest buddha nature. Delusion is subtle and pervasive. It motivates us to think and act in certain ways, and then it supports those patterns and keeps them going, resulting in suffering in this phenomenal world. Once that train is on its way down the track, it’s pretty hard to pull the brake. There are said to be 108 bonno to overcome to reach Nirvana, as mentioned in the second part of the gate statement. Temples and shrines often have 108 steps up to them. In Japan at the New Year, temple bell rings 108 times in a ritual called Joya no Kane ( 除夜の鐘 protecting night bell). The first 107 of the 108 rings are done in the old year (on New Year’s Eve), and the last one is to ring in the new year. There is one other traditional explanation about ringing the bell 108 times. 四苦八苦 shiku hakku is an expression meaning to be in dire distress, or to have difficulty; it represents the sufferings of life. This phrase has the same sound as 4, 9, 8, 9, shi ku ha ku. If you add up 4 times 9 and 8 times 9, it comes out to be 108. Thus shi ku ha ku (108 bells) helps you get rid of shikuhakku (sufferings of life). This bell not isolated up in tower the way cathedral bells might be. It’s down on the ground or maybe one story up. People have to be close to it in order for the sound to work as purification. The sound is considered something like water washing over you and cleansing you of your bonno and taking away your troubles. The physical act of ringing the bell or walking up each step is also a kind of body practice to symbolically eliminate each delusion. Of course, it would be great if removing the causes of bonno was really as simple as standing next to a ringing bell, but we know from the bodhisattva vows that our practice is never finished and that delusions and desires will keep coming back. As this gate says, having the prajna that removes the source of bonno is how we find Nirvana and become free from desires. Willpower, aspiration or intention is good, but it’s not enough. The roots are still there and the plant will keep coming back. We need to understand how these delusions arise in the first place, and if we’re going to find Nirvana, we also have to understand that our deluded samsaric world is not separate from Nirvana. The numberless, inexhaustible delusions or bonno arise in so many forms and ways, and it can seem like we’re fighting a fire on many fronts all the time. In writing about bonno, Uchiyama Roshi said: Which desire is considered the worst hindrance has differed depending on time and place. In ancient India, people thought the most troublesome obstacle for practitioners was sexual desire. They made strong efforts to control such desires. Later, in Shobogenzo Gyoji, Dogen Zenji said, “The desire for fame is worse than violating the precepts.” He considered pursuing fame and profit the greatest hindrance to practice, probably because in his time, monks in Nara and on Mount Koya and Mount Hiei competed with each other for wealth and renown. Sexual greed and desire for fame and profit are all obstacles that should be renounced by practitioners of the buddha way. Which kind of bonno may be afflicting us at any given time will change according to causes and conditions. The important thing is that all these delusions have a shared starting point: five skandhas clinging to five skandhas, or a deeply-held clinging to a concept of self. Okumura Roshi says: Buddha accessed the source or foundation of our delusions, which is clinging to the self. Each one of us has different kinds of delusions and different kinds of hindrances or problems but the basis of all those problems is the same. That basis is self-clinging or ignorance about the self and ignorance about interconnectedness. That is the way Buddha sees our delusions and he taught how to become free from them. Buddha didn’t know what kind of delusions I have but he gave me the way to practice so I can become free from these problems. This is related to the first bodhisattva vow as well: beings are numberless, I vow to free them. You don’t know what others’ delusions are or what they’re clinging to, and you can’t free them from those bonno specifically. What you can do is share the dharma in the world in ways that are skillful and appropriate. Okumura Roshi goes on to say: You have to work for yourself to become free from your personal delusions. We cannot release other people from their delusions but we can share how Buddha practiced and how other practitioners or teachers practice and become released from their own delusions. I received the teaching from my teacher and that is what I’m trying to share with people. Sawaki Roshi was getting at something related to this with his phrase “group stupidity.” One important way that we and others get caught up in bonno is being in the midst of this group stupidity. It’s about being swept along by what others are doing, valuing or expecting, and ceasing to pay attention to our own wisdom. We either become paralyzed or we fall into doing unskillful things. In commenting on this, Uchiyama Roshi said, When Sawaki coined the expression “group stupidity,” he was speaking of hindrances not only for Buddhist practitioners but for everyone in this modern age. Sawaki Roshi was looking broadly at the result of bonno in the larger society as well as the impact on individual suffering. As bodhisattvas, how can we liberate ourselves and others from the bonno of group stupidity? When it comes to finding Nirvana in the midst of bonno, that’s not about waiting until we’ve extinguished all our delusive desires and then transporting ourselves to somewhere else that’s separate and better. Menzan Zuiho (1683-1769) is an important figure in Soto Zen history. He was heavily involved with a reform movement that tried to tie all practice activities back to Dogen’s writings and remove anything that he saw as corrupted from Dogen’s original teaching. He wrote about the expression kyakujin-bonno (delusive desires are dust from outside) and this is Okumura Roshi’s translation: Original mind is like the keeper of an inn and the various kinds of thoughts are like visitors coming and going. When one visitor leaves another one comes. Each visitor is different from the others. Some belong to high society and others belong to the lower class, some are rich and others are poor. But the keeper is always the same. Or, when sunlight streams into a room through a window and you hit a straw mat, you will see dust rising up in clouds. After the dust settles, there is nothing but empty space. In this analogy, thoughts are the rising dust and original mind is the empty space. From ancient times, there have been many commentators who have carelessly misinterpreted this analogy. They have thought that arising-mind is just kyakujin-bonno; that is, delusion is like a dust that sticks to our mind. Therefore, they have thought munen-mushin (no-thought, no-mind) is our true or original mind. They have insisted on trying to eliminate thoughts by force. He says this is a mistaken view and it happens because people don’t understand that bonno and original mind are not separate. Customers and keeper or dust and empty space are not separate. Delusions are just another form of original mind, which is another way to say that samsara and nirvana are not two. There’s expression in the Mahayana tradition: bonno soku bodai (bonno are themselves awakening). Working with our delusions and desires is itself the practice, rather than closing ourselves off from the world and separating ourselves from what’s going on around us. Can we transform our desires based on the small self into desires that focus on liberating all beings from suffering and on working for general wellbeing as well as our own? When this gate says we need to have the prajna to see how bonno arise and thus we can be liberated from them and enter Nirvana, there are two ways to look at that. One is that we need to see how self-attachment in one form or another is at the root of nearly all of our delusions and suffering. The other is that we need to see that Nirvana is not separate from our delusion and suffering and thus we’re already there. We don’t need to eliminate deluded thoughts by force. Delusion begins to dissolve on its own when we understand how it arises from our clinging to self and whatever delusion remains is itself a manifestation of reality. Sometimes we use wisdom as another word for prajna, but this isn’t wisdom that we learn from books. Prajna is direct insight into what Buddha taught about the nature of reality. When we see reality clearly, that’s prajna, and we stop getting pulled around by our attachments, cravings and aversions. 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
December 2024
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