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Equality of all elements is a gate of Dharma illumination; for it obviates all rules for harmonious association. 大平等是法明門、斷於一切和合法故. Today we continue to look as aspects of equality, or byoudou 平. The kanji here say “great equality” 大平, which makes me think of equality in the largest possible sense. However, if we don’t create separation, if we give up discriminative thinking, then we might also give up the guidelines and rules and laws we have in place to make it possible to live together, and this doesn’t seem to make sense. If we don’t distinguish between a green light and a red light and we also throw out all the traffic laws, won’t there be chaos? Yes, there will. I suggest this gate is pointing us toward good and bad, going beyond good and bad, and what that means for living by the precepts. This is a real problem, because when we misunderstand the equality of all elements, or going beyond good and bad, we can decide that ethics and morality aren’t important--that there’s no good and no bad, so we can do whatever we want. We can also decide that people who keep precepts are good and anyone who doesn’t is bad. It can be a way to justify discrimination against people like fishermen or leatherworkers who kill as part of their jobs, or against people who have disabilities or difficult situations if we think that this is simply their bad karma coming back to them. That’s a problem for bodhisattvas who vow to liberate all beings from suffering and have compassion for everyone. Because of wisdom and compassion, the meaning of the precepts changes moment to moment. That makes it really difficult to know what is good and what is bad. There is no fixed code of behavior based on the precepts. One reason that we can’t pin down good and bad is impermanence. Something that’s useful now might not be later on. Okumura Roshi has frequently pointed out that a marker is useful as a marker until it runs out, and then when it can’t write anymore, we call this same object trash. Sawaki Roshi had a lot to say about good and bad and going beyond good and bad, for instance: What adults teach children are often nothing more than out-dated views. The view that good is good and bad is bad has already had its best days. Even a vegetable which was once good is inedible once it’s past its prime. We’ve got to always be able to see things from a fresh perspective. Defining a fixed code of behavior isn’t what the precepts are about. They’re guidelines for carrying out bodhisattva vows. They also describe what life is like when we live from a place of awakening, before our individual likes and dislikes kick in and when we see the equality of all elements. That means deeply knowing whether differences are really true and whether or not they’re important. Seeing the network isn’t enough; we also have to see the individual nodes in the network—oneness and diversity, or difference and sameness—and then we have to see which differences matter in this moment. The difference between french fries and carrot sticks is important if you’re serving a meal, but the difference between long carrot sticks and short ones isn’t important. In our daily lives, we can’t entirely go beyond good and bad and see only the equality of all elements. We have to be able to make distinctions and choices. Within our relationships with others and with the world in general, we have to decide what’s valuable or meaningful for ourselves and other beings. There must be some rules or guidelines for how to live in a healthy, wholesome way in order to reduce suffering and have some peace and harmony, If we see only this one unified reality and think that we only live in a world beyond discrimination or distinction, that’s a problem. We can decide that going beyond good and bad means we can do whatever we want. Going beyond good and bad can become an excuse for unwholesome or unskillful behavior. Historically, this has been a problem in some Western Zen centers. Teachers have made mistakes, sometimes really bad ones, because they and their students thought they were beyond good and bad. Not seeing individuals can make it easy to ignore suffering, which is the opposite of what the bodhisattva does. I recently heard someone on the radio talking about the opera Silent Night. The story is that enemies meet in a ceasefire during World War I. German, French, English, and Scottish troops talk and come to know each other, at least a little. The composer, Kevin Puts, says “Once your sworn enemy ceases to be faceless, war becomes far less possible.” War is a big impersonal complicated set of activities and circumstances, and within those larger circumstances, individuals are hurt and killed, so we can’t ignore the particulars and see only the broad perspective. Yet this gate says that equality of all elements makes rules unnecessary, so what’s going on? There’s a famous verse in the Dhammapada which I’m sure you’ve encountered: Not doing of any evil, doing of all good deeds, purification of one’s own mind, this is the teaching of all buddhas. These Threefold Pure Precepts in a slightly different form are still part of our precepts ceremonies and ryaku fusatsu today. Not doing evil and doing good are straightforward enough, but what about the third line about purification of one’s own mind? It’s talking about going beyond good and bad, not clinging to evil but also not clinging to good, because any kind of clinging is defilement. The Dhammapada is one of the oldest Buddhist texts, so we can see that this problem of good and evil on one hand and the equality of all elements on the other has been around since the beginning of our practice. It’s still a conundrum today. Sawaki Roshi said, “‘Do good, leave the bad.’ There’s no doubt about that, but is it so clear what’s good and what’s bad? Good and bad go hand-in-hand.” Yet we have to be able to distinguish wholesome from unwholesome, because wholesomeness lessens suffering and unwholesomeness makes it worse. Actions that bring about pain to oneself or to other people are unwholesome. Actions that brings about happiness, joy or pleasure to oneself and to others are wholesome. This is a key aspect of the principle of cause and effect, which is hugely important to skillful action and is the basis of Buddhist ethics. No matter what our faith tradition, we start to understand good and bad from a very young age. With toddlers, it’s all about self-interest: I won’t do this because Mommy will punish me and I will do that because I want the reward Daddy promised me. When kids are a little older, ethical judgements are based on the damage done and the intent. Breaking three glasses is worse than breaking one glass, but breaking them while helping to wash the dishes is better than breaking them while playing around. After that, there’s some degree of social approval involved. I won’t do this bad thing because I want people to like me or because it’s against the law. By adolescence, with luck, we understand that there are things we don’t do because we’re morally obligated not to or because they’re simply wrong. However, chances are, until we started to practice, no one ever suggested we go beyond good and bad. When we live in the world of good and bad, we transmigrate around and around the six realms based on whether we’re doing things that cause suffering or things that help liberate ourselves and others from suffering. We also have the problem of our clinging to ideas about what good and bad are, particularly what’s good or bad for me. When we go beyond good and bad to the equality of all elements, that’s Nirvana. That’s purification of one’s own mind, as the Dhammapada said. It’s also called awakening, pure mind or Buddha. So how do we go beyond good and bad? How do we let go of the yardstick without creating chaos? We just do good without clinging to those good actions or comparing our good deeds with what others are doing. Sawaki Roshi says, There is a bad deed, called “doing good.” For some, doing good is just a decoration. In other words, it’s just another way to shore up the sense of a separate self, even though we think our motivation is pure. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do the good action when we notice we’re clinging to it. That clinging doesn’t necessarily negate the good action. There are very few human actions that don’t have at least some tiny bit of self-clinging, which includes avoiding doing bad simply to avoid the unpleasant consequences for oneself. Under that kind of thinking, I would decide it’s OK to steal your chocolate cake if somehow I wouldn’t get caught. I would do whatever bad I wanted if only someone wasn’t standing there ready to punish me. That’s the toddler phase, but adults fall prey to it as well. Sawaki Roshi again: However much good they do, everything that humans do is bad. If you give, all day long you think, “I gave!” If you do religious practice, you think “I practiced, I practiced!” If you do something good, you never forget, “I did good, I did good!” Does this mean that we should do something bad instead? No, even when we do good, it’s bad. When we do something bad, it’s even worse. If you do good, you start to work yourself up about everything bad you suddenly see in others. When you have done something bad, you’re quiet, because your own ass itches. People don’t only calculate when it’s a matter of money. In everything they do they try to bargain up or down. That’s because their body and mind haven’t dropped off. Only when body and mind have dropped off does this business not count any more. Dropping off body and mind means immeasurability, or limitlessness. We need to understand that this teaching about doing good and not doing evil is not a man-made rule. It’s a manifestation of absolute reality that we actualize with body and mind. Body and mind dropped off means that the perspective of these five skandhas doesn’t get in the way. We see with the eyes of Buddha; we see reality as it is before we poke our heads in. A minute ago I said the same thing about the precepts—they’re not just rules but a description of living from a place of awakening. This is the same thing This is another way to say that practice and awakening are not two, one of Dogen’s most important points. Awakening isn’t a thing or a state, it’s an activity. It’s the activity of experiencing this moment from the point of view of Buddha, before the small self starts writing stories. Small self is there, individual karmic circumstances are there, but they’re not the starting point of our experience and we’re not constrained and limited by them. When we see the equality of all elements as well as individual characteristics, our actions are skillful and appropriate and beneficial without being “good” or “bad.” Okumura Roshi says, When supreme awakening is expressed in words, what it says is “do not do any evil,” and in fact, not doing evil is awakening itself. That’s our practice of receiving and following the precepts. Doing good and avoiding evil isn’t something we do by ourselves based on our own labeling or good and bad, or a personal effort to get a result. It’s something that arises together with the functioning of all beings. It’s just the universe doing what the universe does. It’s just complete practice in this moment. Now, there’s a real but subtle difference between ignoring good and bad and going beyond good and bad. It’s not simply using the intellect to convince ourselves that differences don’t exist or aren’t important. Consciously letting go of preferences or just not acting on them isn’t enough. We need to be in the place where we see them arising, and yet we’re not pulled around by them because we also see something bigger. It’s not a matter of being offered tea or coffee and saying either one is OK even though we really want the tea. Practitioners in dharma centers are sometimes surprised to find that the teacher has preferences. The people who know what these preferences are sometimes feel like they have inside information, or like they’re seeing cracks in the great leader’s practice. Wait! Aren’t longtime practitioners supposed to see everything as equal? All that stuff is just thinking. It’s fine to like cherry pie better than apple as long as you don’t make a lot of suffering out of it. When we can see the entirety of what’s happening in this moment we naturally realize there’s no ground to stand on. It’s fine to have plans, values and priorities. It’s fine to study and commit to precepts. However, in this moment, what’s happening? We can’t even stand on the plans, values and precepts. Sawaki Roshi says: Fortune and misfortune, good and bad – not everything is how it looks to your eyes. It’s not how you think it is either. We’ve got to go beyond fortune and misfortune, good and bad. In zazen, we experience the equality of all elements without ignoring the particulars. We let go of thinking, don’t act on the delusion that arises because of our karma, and experience the world directly, without the filters or mediation of our conditioning. Again, this isn’t something we need to learn or acquire. We’re not sitting in zazen contemplating the precepts so that we can decide what to do when we get up off the cushion. Sawaki Roshi says: Zazen is beyond good and evil. It’s not moral education. Zazen takes place where Communism and Capitalism finish. In zazen there are no opposites, no competing factions, no discrimination between inside and outside or good and bad. When we come to the end of that kind of separation, what’s waiting for us there is pure mind, awakening or Buddha. It’s always there if we can just shift our focus from clinging to small self. Zazen sits in the intersection between good and bad and going beyond good and bad, and the threefold pure precepts also sit in that intersection. The version we use in our ceremonies is: - the precept of embracing moral codes - the precept of embracing beneficial actions - the precept of embracing all living beings Okumura Roshi has explained that a late 17th century teacher called Menzan taught that these three precepts were a way to use the three poisons for good—in other words, to connect unwholesomeness and wholesomeness. Embracing moral codes is the same as not doing evil. We can use anger or aversion to harmful activities to keep from going down that path. It helps us not to do unwholesome things that cause suffering in the world. Embracing beneficial actions is the same as doing good. We can use greed to help us do as many good things as possible; there’s always one more good thing we can do. Dōgen Zenji said in the Tenzo Kyokun: “You must not fail to add a single speck on top of the mountain of good deeds.” Embracing all living beings is the same as going beyond good and bad or seeing the equality of all elements. We can use ignorance to see beyond separation and discrimination and help all beings equally, not just ones we like or feel sorry for. These three pure precepts also give us another way to look at the other ten precepts: Don’t do evil: Don’t break the precept and engage in killing or stealing or some kind of misconduct Do good: It’s not enough just to passively not do bad things; we also have to actively do good. Don’t just not steal, be generous. Don’t just not slander the three treasures, take refuge in them and care for them. Go beyond good and bad: See what’s actually happening in this monent and what’s actually needed, and then break precepts when necessary. In other words, don’t cling even to the precepts because nothing is fixed. The question we have to ask ourselves is not what is the good thing or the bad thing to do in this situation, but what will keep the network of interdependent origination in a healthy condition? We take action with the same mind we have when we’re in the middle of in zazen. When we’re sitting, we just sit, with nothing extra; that’s shikantaza. When we’re helping, we just help, with nothing extra. The “extra” we’re not adding is what we think good and bad are. That extra gets between us and the pure mind or a direct experience of this moment. Because this moment is the true reality of all beings, it includes both individual elements and the equality of all elements. 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
January 2025
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