Dogen's Fukanzazengi: Section One

Dogen's Fukanzazengi is fundamental to Soto Zen, due to the emphasis this school places on practice (zazen) being not a means to attaining realisation, but as being realisation itself.

There are a number of translations of this fascicle of the Shobogenzo available - many of them are collected together on this page which I shall use as a reference for comparing the various translations. I shall be using the first of these, marked as 'English Translation 1', as my principle text - it's the most commonly commented translation I've come across. Unfortunately I've so far been unable to find the origin of the various translations.

There is a danger with taking a single statement or passage of Dogen out of context and using it to support a viewpoint because his writings often jump from one viewpoint to another - expressing a truth that goes beyond the limited scope of any single viewpoint. Most importantly, the relative and ultimate viewpoints are expressed together without contradiction, even if they appear to do so - they are both true in their own terms.

Section One

The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammelled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?

And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is lost in confusion. Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the Way and clarifying the Mind, raising an aspiration to escalade the very sky. One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.

Dogen leaps straight to the fundamental point. The doctrines of Buddhism as they had been taught to Dogen stated that nothing is hidden, that all beings are already Buddha and that we are in the midst of enlightenment. And this lead some to conclude that it was unnecessary to practice. Yet all the Ancestors including Shakyamuni Buddha practiced with great dedication. How do we make sense of this paradox? This is the 'Great Doubt' that drove Dogen to cross the dangerous Sea of Japan to China.

We can make sense of this apparent contradiction by using a principle sometimes known as the Doctrine of Two Truths - Conventional Truth and Ultimate Truth. From the perspective of Ultimate Truth, everything is already lacking inherent nature, nothing is separate, despite appearances nothing comes into being, nothing continues and nothing stops being, all is the Unconditioned, the Unborn. This is the perspective of Sunyata as expressed in the Heart Sutra. This is how things already are, whether we realise it or not. Nothing can obstruct or eliminate this reality as even an apparent ending or obscuration is 'it' too. So from this perspective, all things are Buddha irrespective of what we do. This perspective is sometimes called 'Primordial Buddha', 'Buddha Embryo', 'Buddha Nature' or 'Original Mind'. It also corresponds to the principle of 'Sudden Enlightenment' emphasised by Master Eno (Hui Neng) - all surviving Zen schools descended from him. This is the perspective that Dogen opens with.

The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammelled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?

This also corresponds to the second statement of the Genjo Koan:

As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.

And yet, human beings simply do not see this reality clearly all the time. There is delusion, aversion and greed, which, even though (from the ultimate perspective) cannot obstruct 'Buddha', from the perspective of the mind afflicted by them they appear to do so. Being told that we are already in Nirvana is all very well, but to someone in the midst of hell this is little comfort - a merely intellectual or docrinal acceptance of this 'fact' is not enough to end suffering. We need to realise Buddha ourselves. We need to feel it. We need to experience suchness directly, to breathe it in and breathe it out, knowing in every cell that we are Buddha. This is why we practice. This relative or conventional perspective is the viewpoint of Dogen's second statement:

And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is lost in confusion.

This also corresponds to the principle of acquired or attained enlightenment, the progressive path emphasised in the Pali Canon and in the so-called Gradual School of Zen. It also corresponds to Dogen's opening statement in the Genjo Koan:

As all things are buddha-dharma, there are delusion, realization, practice, birth and death, buddhas and sentient beings.

Dogen then goes on to give an example of a mind that tastes awakening - realising primordial enlightenment and then, through clinging to this as an attainment, falls back into delusion, seeing awakening as something remote and limited, the world becoming fractured and dualistic once more.

Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the Way and clarifying the Mind, raising an aspiration to escalade the very sky. One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.

Such a one has a partial attainment in Dogen's view, but is not yet fully awakened.

Note that Dogen does not deny attainment or the concept of enlightenment as some commentators occasionally suggest. To take this view would be to get stuck to an idea of ultimate reality, a rather nihilistic idea at that.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Eleven

Dogen finishes with a koan.

Mayu, Zen master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?”
“Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent,” Mayu replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”
“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk again. Mayu just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.
The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent. Because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river.

This is the heart of the Genjo koan and directly addresses the 'Great Doubt' that he set off from Japan to China to resolve - if it is the case that we already have (or are) Buddha nature - why do we need to practice? Or, in the terms of the metaphor he uses here - if air is everywhere, why does Master Baoche bother to fan himself? There is a kind of nihilistic interpretation of Buddhism which implies that since eveything is already empty or already awakened, there is no need to practice - yet it is clear that practice is required. So is the teaching of universal Buddha nature wrong?

There are some slight variations in the the translation of this passage with permanent sometimes translated as 'stationary', 'constant' or 'never changing' and 'reaching everywhere' sometimes translated as 'universal action', 'universally present', 'principle of its omnipresence' or 'blowing everywhere'.

So what does it mean? The air represents the universal dharma or intrinsic Buddha Nature. Why isn't it enough just for the air to exist ? Why isn't it enough just for the air to be everywhere? Why do we need to practise fanning/Buddhism as well?

If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind.

Master Baoche clearly rejects the notion that practice is unnecessary or that there is any contradiction between the universality of Buddha and the need for practice. However, when it comes to explaining why we need to practice his words are not forthcoming. He responds with an action - fanning himself. Fanning here means Buddhist practice. So his response as to why we need to practise (when Buddha is universal) is the act of practicing itself.

I wonder if this satisfied the monk. To some it might appear as obscurantism or simply the revelation that there is no reason to make any effort to practise at all. If Master Baoche did not fan himself would the air not still be everywhere?

The nature of wind is permanent. Because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river.

Dogen makes it clear that there is indeed value in practice. The practice of the Buddha Dharma ('the wind of the buddha's house') brings forth or reveals the treasures of the earth (gold) and turns the river to cream, or rather to ghee as is found in some translations. Ghee is a liquid clarified butter that is produced traditionally in India. It is held to be sacred and is used in Vedic/Hindu rituals and is considered to be food for Devas. It's also a staple ingredient in cooking. Vedic philosophers believed that the ghee was the essence of milk (the cow being a sacred animal) and used it as a ritual representation of the Atman (soul). This sort of essentialist thinking is alien to the Buddha's teachings which indicate that nothing has an essence or unchanging self-nature. However, the Buddha himself used ghee as a metaphor for spiritual refinement.

From a cow comes milk; from milk, curd; from curd, butter; from butter, ghee; from ghee, the skimmings of ghee, and that is reckoned the best; even so, monks, among these four individuals the person who is engaged in promoting his own good and also the good of another is the foremost, the chief, the principal, the best and the supreme.
- Chavalata Sutta/ Anguttara Nikaya IV.95

So, Dogen is saying that although Buddha nature is always manifested, Buddhist practice is necessary to reveal it.

The air has to be known and to do that we have to fan it across our skin. Gold is always present in the earth, but it cannot be seen until 'the wind of buddha's house' reveals it. It also transforms the base substance of milk into purified ghee or reveals the ghee within it. These are metaphors for the transformation of samsara into nirvana. To experience Buddha Nature and it's universal nature we need to practice.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Ten

Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, to attain one thing is to penetrate one thing; to meet one practice is to sustain one practice.
Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your intellect. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, to attain one thing is to penetrate one thing; to meet one practice is to sustain one practice.
In our practice, we don't seek enlightenment externally to this moment. We don't make divide this experienced life into 'appearance' and 'reality'. We don't imagine an objective reality behind appearance. Both the surface appearance and the deeper revelation are 'it'. Practice and enlightenment are not separate. We don't seek for special states of mind. Samsara and nirvana are not separate.

Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma.
Enlightenment can only be found here and now in this moment. It is not the case that there is an inherent Buddha Nature in all beings - it does not appear until the moment of awakening.

Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your intellect. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.
Realisation is not intellectual understanding and it cannot be grasped intellectually. This is true in realisation as well as in non-realisation. A Buddha cannot grasp his or her realsation intellectually. Hence, it is possible to be realised without being self-conscious of realisation. And even though this realisation can be manifested in thoughts and words, those thoughts and words do not contain realisation.

Saving the world by sitting on our butts

My wife (who has a sensitive and anxious disposition) desperately wants her first child. She is in her mid-30s now. In the course of the last year she has miscarried three times and three times I have seen her heart break. There is no instruction manual given out for how best to support someone going through something like that and it has been a real learning curve for me. Even her normally-very-supportive best friend told her she could no longer support her and they are no longer firends. I know that I'm far from perfect but also know that I've been invaluable to someone who was dependent on me and whom I was in a position to genuinely support. I also know that my Buddhist and mindfulness practice has helped a great deal - allowing me to be calmer, more patient, more empathetic, less interfering and to have a better view of my own 'stuff' than I might otherwide have had.

Zen teachers I know have stated (quoting Dogen as saying that a person who does zazen unconsciously and automatically benefits all beings) that the best way to help others is not by supporting them or engaging with them in any way, but by practicing zazen. One explanation given was that without wisdom our attempts are useless or even harmful (which by itself I have some agreement with). And that zazen by itself (perhaps via the dedication ceremony) benefits all beings through some mysterious karmic processes.

This doesn't accord with my experience. My experience is that to influence the world we need to engage with it. I certainly have no experience of this mysterious process and would have to believe in it through blind faith. I remember hearing about the belief among transcendental meditators that simply by doing TM they could influence social harmony in a positive way (by emanating harmony in some mysterious way). But, as I recall, the supposed evidence for this didn't withstand much scrutiny.

One of these teachers (not knowing the full background) suggested that I should not have cut short a week-long retreat to support my wife. This seems like a rather escapist view of life.

I have also heard of a monk in the same lineage declining to visit his own father on his deathbed in order to attend an extended retreat.

Buddhist ethics are indeed focussed on the intentionality behind our actions, but if my intention is sincerely to benefit all rather than just myself then my intention will be to actually act rather than merely to have 'good intentions'. My understanding of our dedication ceremonies and vows had always been that they are expressions of selflessness, ways to let go of selfish attachments, rather than seen as acts which by themselves help others and absolve us of any further responsibility to them. Is it really more selfless to dwell in private feelings of harmony than to actually help others? For me, to help others we have to actually engage with them. Meditation and self-awareness may help us in our relationships a great deal. Letting go of trying to change others may help a great deal, but we still have to engage, to be there, to care, and to act with wisdom and compassion. We need to 'return to the world' or 'return to the marketplace' rather than simply look after and dwell in our own feelings of cosmic harmony.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Nine

Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now.

The particular cannot be separated from the whole. To try to escape from your current situation is delusion. To realise your current situation is true practice. And yet 'finding your place where you are' goes beyond both the idea that reality is carried over from the past and the idea that there is no past and that only the present moment exists.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Eight

A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once.
Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. You can go further. There is practice-enlightenment which encompasses limited and unlimited life.

There is a story of an old fish swimming past two young ones who says “The water’s nice today isn’t it?”. One of the younger fish turns to the other and says “What’s water?”.

We may go through much of our lives with our attention so preoccupied by our various goals that we may not notice, but one day we may suddenly wake up to the most fundamental of things - the reality of this moment-to-moment existence. We can call it mind, or being, or life, or Tao, or Buddha, or God, or emptiness, or the present moment, or reality - it doesn't matter much - none of these concepts really captures it.

It is easy to fall into treating this experienced reality as if it was a distinct thing and becoming attached to various metaphysical beliefs about it. At the time of Buddha, Bramins claimed the whole experience of our lives was experienced by an absolute, unchanging atman or metaphysical soul which was at the same time identical with Brahma, or God. Buddha denied this of course and so does Dogen.

This 'essence of being', Dogen calls 'life' - the fish is life and the water is life, the bird is life and the air is life. The fish is not separate from the water - wherever the fish goes, water is there - wherever the bird goes, air is there. The bird and fish are in harmony with the universe. This is their practice-enlightenment.

Beings are totally surrounded by and at one with this emptiness - breathing it in and breathing it our moment after moment, totally dependent on it and inseparable from it. Buddha is like this - it is always present and yet we may see it clearly or be blind to it.

Can Buddhism and Psychology Co-Exist?

"Meet a doctor who thinks you can better understand the self by destroying it"

After the confusion about 'annihilating the self' is cleared up this is a very interesting story.

Can Buddhism and Psychology Co-Exist?

A moment of commuter time

A moment of commuter time,
rush hour frozen,
drivers rage silently,
trapped in their cars,
rising sun illuminates,
this hazy world.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Seven

When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.
Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.

Here Dogen is talking about the relative or particular and it's relation to the absolute or universal.

There are many sayings from Patriarchs and Masters which appear to equate the particular with the universal.

For example:

A monk asked Joshu, "What is the meaning of Bodidharma's coming to China?" Joshu said, "The oak tree in the front garden."

And there are many Zen practitioners who see their own experienced reality as the whole of reality. However, according to Dogen this is an incomplete understanding. This is a self-centred or solipsistic position that takes one's relative, subjective perspective for the whole of reality. The full understanding of the dharma is that no one perspective is the whole picture. Even though object and subject are not divided, reality has an unlimited number of aspects or views depending on various viewpoints. All beings are the dharma.

Each entity in the world - his example is an ocean - has myriad appearances depending on the perspective - to a man in a boat it appears circular, to a sea-dwelling dragon it appears as a palace, to a deva in the heavens it appears as a small precious jewel. It has infinite appearances. No single perspective or appearance can be singled out as the real or objective entity. (This is not the same as the subjectivist theory that all opinions are equally valid or that believing something is the same as it being true.) Each appearance is according to the limitations of each viewpoint. All of our experiences are like this - we cannot see the whole of reality at any time. Reality includes all of these interdependent aspects of subject and object. And this is the case for everything we see and don't see.

To know the universal is to know the relativity and limitation of one's own perspective. Subject and object are not separate, yet the universe is not limited to a viewpoint of a single invidual, rather it is like a jewel with ever-changing facets or like Indra's net - a vast net with a shining, multi-faceted jewel at each vertex - each jewel reflecting every other.

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infintely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

- Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Francis Harold Cook

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Six

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

This section is about the relationship between relative and absolute or ordinary beings and enlightenment. Enlightenment is true nature, true reality and is here represented by the moon. The relative, finite, personal mind is represented by water, which reflects the absolute.

The moon does not get wet,

You cannot hinder enlightenment. The absolute is unborn and unconditioned, it isn't obstructed by our conditioning, our karma, our relative minds. It is always fully manifested. The particular cannot obstruct the whole, for it always is a manifestation of the whole. Being empty of self-nature, it is delusion to imagine that we can be anything other than Buddha.

nor is the water broken.

Enlightenment does not divide you. True realisation does not create a duality out of enlightenment and samsara. An ordinary being who does not know enlightenment creates a duality out of samsara and imagined enlightenment. An ordinary being who has glimpsed enlightenment may create a duality out of samsara and recalled enlightenment. True enlightenment is to see that there is no duality between samsara and enlightenment. Or as Dogen put it earlier 'no trace of realisation remains'.

Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

If we examine a particular thing carefully we cannot find it's essence, all we find is conditions produced by conditions produced by conditions which ultimately include the whole universe. Buddha nature is universal - it is perfectly expressed without hindrance through each particular thing no matter how small. Each particular is the entire vastness of the universal.

The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

The mind is the universe and the universe is the mind. Buddha nature or enlightenment are not something separate or additional to the self and the world. They are the true self and the true world. They are the actual nature of things at all times.