Dōgen

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

No creator and no eternal mind: the whole of existence is buddha-nature

No creator GodStated explicitly

Dōgen does not raise the question of a creator God: his framework is Mahāyāna Buddhism, in which liberation depends on no supreme being. What takes the place of the ultimate is buddha-nature, and in «Busshō» he rereads it radically: the Nirvana Sutra's statement that all beings have buddha-nature comes to mean that the whole of existence is buddha-nature. At the same time he refuses to read it as a soul or eternal mind hidden behind phenomena; in «Sokushin zebutsu» and in the «Bendōwa» he calls that idea the heresy of Śreṇika. The ultimate is not behind things: according to «Shohō jissō», the true form of reality is phenomena themselves, mountains, rivers and the earth.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

To study the self is to forget the self

There is no permanent selfStated explicitly

Dōgen's answer lies in the most quoted passage of the «Genjōkōan»: to study the Buddha way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be verified by the ten thousand things, and that is to drop off one's own body and mind and those of others. There is no true self to be discovered behind body and mind: in the «Bendōwa» and in «Sokushin zebutsu» Dōgen expressly rejects the idea of an eternal mind-nature that would survive the dissolution of the body. What is called self is realised in letting go, in the «dropping off of body and mind» he heard from his teacher Rujing and identifies with zazen.

Why do we suffer?

Flowers fall though we love them: suffering is resisting impermanence

Craving and attachmentInferred from their doctrine

Dōgen does not build a theory of suffering distinct from the classical Buddhist one, but he gives it his own accent. In the «Genjōkōan», after describing how buddhas awaken within delusion, he observes that, even so, flowers fall though we love them and weeds grow though we dislike them: attachment and aversion stop nothing. The talks recorded by Ejō in the Shōbōgenzō zuimonki return again and again to impermanence, to the brevity of life and to the desire for fame and gain as what turns one from the way. The remedy is not to flee change but to practise without seeking gain, as the Gakudō yōjinshū asks, and to drop the self that clings.

What happens after death?

Life and death are the Buddha's life; karma also ripens in future lives

Rebirth according to karmaStated explicitly

Dōgen treats death in two registers. In the «Genjōkōan» firewood does not become ash: firewood occupies its position in time, and ash its own; likewise life does not become death, just as winter does not become spring. In «Zenki» life is the manifestation of the total function and so is death, and the brief «Shōji» states that this birth and death is the very life of the Buddha. None of these texts promises the survival of a soul: the «Bendōwa» expressly rejects the idea of a mind that survives the body. Yet in the late fascicles, such as «Sanjigō», Dōgen insists that karma ripens in this life, in the next or in later ones.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

Practice and realisation are one: sitting is already awakening

Through disciplined practiceStated explicitly

For Dōgen, the way is zazen, and his central thesis is in the «Bendōwa»: to think that practice and realisation are not one is the view of those outside the way; in the Buddha Dharma they are one and the same. One does not meditate in order to attain awakening later: sitting in the right posture, seeking nothing, is already its realisation, and so practice never ends. The same text records the watchword of his lineage: from the first meeting with the teacher, do not resort to incense, prostrations, invocations, repentance or sutra reading, but simply sit and drop off body and mind. The Universal Recommendation for Zazen presents it as a gate open to all.

Is a teacher necessary?

The way is transmitted face to face; without a true teacher, no way

IndispensableStated explicitly

Dōgen is one of the firmest defenders of the teacher in the history of Zen. His own life illustrates it: he travelled to China because he found no one in Japan to answer him, and only with Rujing did he understand, as he says in the Eihei kōroku, that the eyes are horizontal and the nose vertical. In Points to Watch in Studying the Way he asks the beginner to seek a true teacher, for without one it is better not to study. In «Menju» he insists that the way is transmitted from person to person, face to face, and in «Shisho» he describes the certificate of succession that attests it. In «Jishō zanmai» he criticises those who claim to verify their awakening by themselves, without teacher or scriptures.

Is the world real?

The mountains and waters of the present are the expression of the ancient buddhas

Manifestation of the divineStated explicitly

Dōgen is perhaps the Buddhist thinker who most emphatically affirms the reality of phenomena. The «Sansuikyō» begins by saying that the mountains and waters of right now are the realisation of the expression of the ancient buddhas, and comments on the saying that the blue mountains are constantly walking. In «Shohō jissō» the true form of reality is not behind things but is things themselves. In «Kūge» he inverts the classic image of illusion, the flowers in the sky seen by the diseased eye, and holds that they too are the flowering of reality. And in «Uji» he joins being and time: each thing is a time, complete in its moment, and the whole world is that unfolding.

What is love?

Generosity, kind speech, beneficial action and identity with others

Boundless compassionStated explicitly

Dōgen does not treat love as a feeling but as the conduct of the bodhisattva. His most direct exposition is «Bodaisatta shishōbō», on the four methods by which the bodhisattva draws beings: generosity, which asks nothing in return; kind speech, born of a compassionate mind and able, he says, to change the course of things; action that benefits others without distinguishing between them and oneself; and identity with others, not separating oneself from them. In «Hotsu bodaishin» he defines the mind of awakening as the vow to free others before oneself. And in the Instructions for the Cook he shows the same attitude in the care with which food is prepared for the community.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

No one escapes causality, not even the awakened

Karma and choiceStated explicitly

Dōgen returns twice to the kōan of Baizhang's wild fox: a former master was reborn five hundred times as a fox for answering that one who has awakened does not fall into the law of cause and effect, and was freed on hearing that he does not ignore it. In «Dai shugyō» he treats it with the ambiguity of the kōan; in «Jinshin inga», from his late series, he strongly affirms that no one, not even the awakened, escapes the causality of karma, and that denying it is the worst of wrong views. «Sanjigō» explains how acts ripen in this life or later ones. But karma does not cancel practice: «Shoaku makusa» recalls that not doing evil and practising good is something chosen and carried out.

Why meditate or pray?

Zazen is not learning meditation: it is the gate of repose and joy

Meditation is not a techniqueStated explicitly

Dōgen devoted whole texts to zazen, from the Universal Recommendation for Zazen to «Zazengi» and «Zazenshin». In them he describes precisely the place, the cushion, the posture, the breathing and the attitude: sitting immobile like a mountain, think not-thinking; and how does one think not-thinking, by non-thinking. But he warns that the zazen he speaks of is not learning meditation, not a gradual technique for reaching a state: it is the gate of repose and joy, the Dharma itself. In «Zazenshin» he criticises quietist readings that make meditation an emptying of the mind. One sits, then, not to obtain something, but because sitting in this way is already the realisation of the way.

Can reason know the ultimate?

The way is not intelligence, yet words too realise it

The ultimate lies beyond the mindStated explicitly

Dōgen occupies a singular place in Zen. On the one hand, he warns in Points to Watch in Studying the Way that the way must not be confused with intelligence or learning, and his instruction for zazen is to think not-thinking: an activity that is neither thinking nor ceasing to think. On the other, he rejects the Zen contempt for words. In «Gabyō» he holds, against the proverb, that without painted rice cakes there is no way to satisfy hunger; in «Dōtoku», that the buddhas always express the way and that saying something true is realisation itself; in «Bukkyō», that there is no special transmission outside the scriptures. Language is not a finger pointing at the moon: rightly used, it is the moon.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

Leaving home is the way of all buddhas, far from court and fame

Withdraw in order to findStated explicitly

Dōgen's views evolved on this point. In the 1231 «Bendōwa» he answered that lay people too can practise zazen and realise the way. But over the years he increasingly affirmed the superiority of monastic life: in «Shukke», preached in 1246 at the newly founded Eihei-ji, he holds that all buddhas attained the way after leaving home, and «Shukke kudoku», from his late series, sets out with sutra quotations the merits of ordination over lay life. His own life reflects it: in 1243 he left Kyoto for the mountains of Echizen, far from the court, and the Pure Standards of Eihei regulate every gesture of a secluded community. Service to the world is done from monastic practice.