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[51] Realization of nonappearance is a gate of Dharma illumination; for[with it] we experience the truth of cessation. 無生忍是法明門、證滅諦故。 This “realization of non-appearance” is a very old teaching. The Sanskrit word is anutpattika-dharmaksanti, the recognition and acceptance that nothing really arises or perishes, which is another way to say that all conditioned phenomena are empty. In later texts we encounter this as teachings about life-and-death or birth-and-death, arising and perishing or coming and going, or appearing and disappearing. It shows up in early texts like the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, a huge description of stages of the Yogācāra path to Buddhahood. According to that text, this recognition of non-appearance is realized by bodhisattvas at the eighth stage. Nagarjuna talks about this too in his Mahaprajnaparamita Shastra. In that text, someone asks how a bodhisattva can possibly consider all beings to be equal when they’re so obviously different. A cow has cow-nature and a horse has horse-nature, and those two things can’t be switched. The same is true for good people and evil people; they have good natures or evil natures and those aren’t the same. Isn’t it a mistake for the bodhisattva to consider all of these beings the same? The answer is: yes, that would be a mistake if indeed there was such a thing as a fixed cow-nature or evil nature, but for the bodhisattva there is no distinction to be made between identity and difference, or difference and sameness. Then the text offers a verse: Non-arisen, non-destroyed, unceasing, non-eternal, Neither identical nor different, without coming or going, Dharmas resulting from causes escape from all vain wordiness The Buddha is able to define them; I pay homage to him. Conditioned things don’t arise or perish, they’re not permanent or impermanent, not different or the same and don’t come and go. Because they’re empty, they can’t be described accurately in words, but Buddha can see and understand what’s happening there. The point is: the conditioned things we encounter are empty of any permanent self-nature and therefore cannot come and go. We can’t put boundaries around them and describe them because there’s no place where we can say this thing ends and another one begins. If things are not actually separate from each other, then how can we isolate one thing and say that now just that thing is arising or perishing, as distinct from anything else? Another early text, the Prajnaparamita Shastra, shows how the bodhisattva even accepts that his or her body is non-existent. That’s not easy to do; we live in this body and it’s pretty hard to give up our idea that we are this body. If the body does not arise nor cease, then where does that leave us? It feels like annihilation. According to this text, when we accept the non-arising of the individual, personal body, there is only the dharmakaya, the dharma body of Buddha which is the same as Nirvana. Within the dharmakaya there are no pairs of opposites. There can’t be one side without the other, and yet we can’t distinguish between the sides. At what point does dark stop being dark and become light? At what point does young stop being young and become old? At what point does living become dying? The gate statement talks about accepting non-arising, but it’s implying that we also accept non-perishing since these two things aren’t separate. Accepting one part of a pair of opposites means accepting the other as well, so if we accept birth or life or arising, we also accept death. Uchiyama Roshi says: As long as we think we were born, we will die. Grasped by thoughts, people usually think only of living and put a lid on dying in order not to see it; they don’t understand true life. When we uncover the lid and see that life includes death, we can see true life clearly. As the reality of life, we are born and die within the total, interpenetrating self that has no birth and death. This is mahā—great, boundless vastness. (1) In Japanese Buddhism, there is the term shoji 生死, or life-and-death. There are several kinds of life-and-death in the Buddhist tradition. One is the process of being born, growing older, becoming sick and dying. This kind of life-and-death is an abbreviation for what Siddhartha Gautama discovered when he left the palace four times and learned about the four kinds of suffering, or dukkha. There is also life-and-death seen as one long period of time between our birth and our death. This is life-and-death seen as moment-by-moment activity: this body and mind are being born and dying (or arising and perishing) moment after moment. There is also the day to day life of ordinary people who are transmigrating through the six realms of samsara because they’re pulled by their karma, in contrast to the life of the bodhisattva who is being led by vow rather than pulled by karma and is living in the world of samsara in order to save beings. In other words, bodhisattvas aren’t living life after life because of their delusion and three poisonous minds but because of their work to liberate others. Dogen’s teaching is that life and death in samsara is the life of Buddha, not different from nirvana. He’s talking about arising and perishing before separation into samsara and nirvana. In Shobogenzo Zenki he says: Just understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth-and-death to be avoided, there is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realize this are you free from birth-and-death. In order to understand his teaching on arising and non-arising, we have to understand his view of time. It’s really a complex topic and I’m just going to say a few things about it here. Something arises and seems to exist for some period of time and then perishes, but Dogen says that each thing exists in its dharma position at this moment; it has its own past and future, but each of those moments is independent. It isn’t that there is linear time in which a thing appears, grows, changes and disappears. In this moment it’s in its dharma position, and there is some continuation that means that the thing functions like itself. A dog doesn’t become a tree or something else in the next moment, but the position of puppy and adult dog and elderly dog are independent of each other. The power of puppy is to negate puppy and become dog; that’s its function, and yet that puppy or dog is empty and has no fixed self. It’s not so easy to understand, but this is how arising and non-arising works. We have karmic influences that influence this moment, but this moment is new, fresh and independent. The past is gone; we can’t take action there. The future isn’t here yet; we can’t take action there either. In Shobogenzo Shoji, Dogen says: It is a mistake to think that life turns into death. Life is a position at one time with its own before and after. Consequently, in the buddha dharma, it is said that life is itself no-arising. Death is a position at one time with its own before and after. Consequently, it is said that death is itself no-perishing. In life there is nothing other than life. In death, there is nothing other than death. Therefore, when life comes, just life. When death comes, just die. Neither avoid them nor desire them. Right there is exactly what this gate statement is talking about. Realization of nonappearance is a gate of Dharma illumination; for[with it] we experience the truth of cessation. According to early Buddhist teachings, Buddha saw that the only way to the cessation of suffering was the cessation of rebirth. In the world of desire, our craving and aversion intersect with impermanence to keep us tied to the wheel of samsara, but even if we manage to loosen those bonds and move to another of the six realms that we might like better, the very fact of our existence means can’t leave suffering behind. This is the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: existence is characterized by suffering. According to these teachings, arising or life brings suffering with it. If beings don’t appear or arise, then suffering ceases. We can see now how Dogen interpreted this. Non-arising and cessation of suffering isn’t about leaping free of wheel of samsara and going somewhere else or not existing at all. It’s about understanding that non-arising is the reality of our moment-by-moment life experience. In that way, Nirvana, or cessation, is right here in midst of it all. From a place of awakening, we see that non-arising has already been accomplished right here. Because things are empty of a permanent self-nature, they don’t arise as independent items we can label and distinguish. Their dharma position has a before and after, but those are all independent of each other. Something doesn’t become something else because there is no linear stream of time; there is only this moment, the eternal now. When we see that, we’re released from the clinging that causes our suffering. Again in the Shushogi, Dogen says: The most important issue for all Buddhists is the thorough clarification of the meaning of birth and death. If the buddha is within birth and death, there is no birth and death. Simply understand that birth and death are in themselves nirvana; there is no birth and death to be hated nor nirvana to be desired. Then, for the first time we will be freed from birth and death. To master this problem is of supreme importance. (2) If the buddha is within birth and death, there is no birth and death. In other words, if we’re seeing with buddha’s eyes, with the eyes of awakening, there is no arising and perishing. Clearly, Dogen considers this a very important point if he says The most important issue for all Buddhists is the thorough clarification of the meaning of birth and death. He’s not just saying we need to understand our individual life stories. We need to awaken to the non-appearance and non-perishing of everything in the universe. We need to deeply understand how this works or we’ll never be free from suffering. Dogen wrote a lot about this because it’s such a central teaching, particularly in his Genjokoan, the first fascicle of the 75-fascicle version of the Shobogenzo. Okumura Roshi says that the main theme of the Mahayana tradition is seeing one reality from two sides, and that the main theme of Dogen’s Genjokoan is how to live and practice based on clearly understanding one-reality-two-sides. Okumura Roshi explains that in the word genjo 現成, gen 現 means to appear, show up or be in the present moment, but it also has the feeling of something that was hidden and then becomes visible, a manifestation of something potential into something actual. However, the larger view is that nothing is actually hidden and nothing really appears; this is the non-appearance of the gate statement. Jo 成 is to complete or accomplish, so genjo is to manifest, actualize, appear or become. Okumura Roshi says the term koan 公按 in this case is pointing to the intersection of difference and sameness, so this is all about two sides of one reality, seeing what appears or manifests in the intersection of unity and diversity, and seeing how things like arising and perishing and life and death are and are not opposites. Nishiari Bokusan was a Dogen scholar in the late 1800s. He says: The gen spoken of here is not the gen that is related to hiding or appearing, remaining or perishing. There is neither hiding nor appearing in the true genjo. When we say that a hidden thing appears, it usually refers to the appearance that is relative to hiding. In this dualistic sense, it is the phenomenon of birth and death. But actually, in the realm of the true genjo, there is no hiding. Thus there is no appearing. . . . What can be merely hidden or revealed is not the true genjo. When we say there is no hiding or appearing, it means that there is no arising or perishing, no increasing or decreasing. The dharma realm of heaven and earth as it is extends from the Kashyapa Buddha in the past to Maitreya Buddha in the future, unceasingly through the past, present and future, regardless of the creation or destruction of the world. (3) Dogen starts the Genjokoan by setting up three important sets of opposites in our practice and tradition: (1) delusion and enlightenment, (2) buddhas and living beings, and (3) life and death, or arising and perishing First he says, There is delusion and realization, practice, life and death, buddhas and living beings. Then he says, There is no delusion and no realization, no buddhas and no living beings, no birth and no perishing. Then he says, There is arising and perishing, delusion and realization, living beings and buddhas. First we perceive our lives in the usual way: beings are born, things are created, they have some lifespan and then they die or break or become obsolete. Then when we practice, we see that actually there is nothing we can distinguish as an independent being or thing that’s coming into existence and going out of existence. Finally, we understand that reality is in the intersection of these two points of view, and that the actual appearing and disappearing is within non-appearing and non-disappearing. Just like the Genjokoan, the gate statement is about understanding two sides of one reality and practicing with that understanding. There is our own birth and death. There is our experience of things coming into our lives and going out of our lives. That’s real, and also there is nothing we can distinguish as arising and perishing and coming and going, so we are living and dying in midst of non-arising and non-perishing. I think Dogen understood that even though this teaching is one of the most imporant in our tradition, it’s really difficult for us to understand. He talked about it over and over and in various different ways using various different examples, and it keeps coming back to interconnectedness and impermanence. In the Bendowa, he explains that interconnectedness and impermanence are precisely why there’s no soul or atman. He says if we accept that all things are impermanent, how can we think there’s a permanent soul that goes on somewhere else after the body dies and never perishes? If we accept interconnectedness, how can we separate the mind from the body? Yes, body and mind exist in this moment, but they don’t arise or cease, and certainly not as separate from each other. He says clinging to an idea about a permanent soul or spirit doesn’t free you from life and death; that kind of clinging is the cause of life and death. (4) There are a number of other examples in the Eihei Koroku where Dogen talks about arising or non-arising. In one place, he says: This very body and mind are not merely the five skandhas. Our wondrous existence is most excellent, and should not be an object of desire. Without coming or going, we simply respond to sounds and colors. Further, we turn around from our center, and move out in the eight directions. Negating all dualities, our feet are on the ground. How could there be arising and perishing as our magnanimous energy pierces the heavens? Although it is like this, do not say that killing Buddha after all has no results. The genuine cause of attaining buddhahood is zazen. (5) This very body and mind are not merely the five skandhas. Our wondrous existence is most excellent, and should not be an object of desire. This very body and mind are body and mind as complete manifestations of reality, beyond our limited view. We shouldn’t be clinging to life as just something that belongs to the small self or something we own for our own purposes. Without coming or going, we simply respond to sounds and colors. In the world of non-arising and non-perishing, we carry out our function in our dharma position. We do that with this body and mind, including the sense organs that take in sounds and colors, but without getting stuck or being pulled around by our karma. Further, we turn around from our center, and move out in the eight directions. We see and act from broader perspective than just this body and mind. Negating all dualities, our feet are on the ground. How could there be arising and perishing as our magnanimous energy pierces the heavens? Even though we have a body and mind that functions in this world of samsara and life and death, we also see beyond opposites. In that way we also live and die in Nirvana as bodhisattvas and we can work to liberate all beings. Although it is like this, do not say that killing Buddha after all has no results. The genuine cause of attaining buddhahood is zazen. Killing Buddha means going beyond our stories and limited ideas about awakening and being in the middle of real awakening itself. That’s what we do in zazen. Even though awakening is already here, even though we’re already beyond arising and perishing and non-arising and non-perishing, we practice in order to manifest it in the world. As Dogen frequently reminds us, practice and awakening are not two, just like so many dualities that get both negated and upheld in this practice. Notes (1) Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentary. (2018). United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 57 (2) Engaging Dogen's Zen: The Philosophy of Practice as Awakening. (2016). United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 69-70. (3) Dogen, E., Zenji, E. D. (2011). Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries. United States: Counterpoint Press, p. 13. (4) Uchiyama, Kosho. (1997). The wholehearted way : a translation of Eihei Dōgen's Bendōwa with commentary. Boston, Mass. : Tuttle Publishing, p. 32-33. (5) Dogen, E. (2010). Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku. United States: Wisdom Publications. p. 271 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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