Dogen arrived at a port in central China in April of 1223. In June of 1225 Dogen meets his teacher Ju-ching (1163–1228). Dogen studied with Ju-ching for just over two years. He eventually receives shisho zu (document of transmission) from Ju-ching in the spring of 1227. Dogen spends a little more than four years in China, returning to Japan in 1227.
Before Dogen met Ju-ching he traveled through the Five Mountains (Wu-shan) area. He was permitted to look at five Zen transmission certificates. All this took about two years, from the fall of 1223 to 1225 when he met his teacher, Ju-ching.
So why did Dogen feel the need to look at five Zen transmission certificates, spending perhaps two years doing so? Judging from the fact that one transmission document is smuggled out so Dogen might look at it, it would seem that these documents were of great importance to Dogen. It strikes me odd, however, that Dogen, on a spiritual quest, would elect to spend half of his time in China looking at transmission documents!
Supposedly what spurred Dogen to go to China was the question that if all beings have the Buddha-nature, then why do Buddhas and Bodhisattvas arouse the longing for enlightenment and engage in ascetic practice? In other words, Dogen couldn’t resolve the problem of innate versus acquired enlightenment. Dogen did not realize that even though all beings possess the Buddha-nature, it is only potentially so, in the way cream is potentially butter—through not actually butter.
While all beings potentially have the Buddha-nature, according to the Buddha, sentient beings are “reigned over by greed, lust, anger, and ignorance” which means they don’t know what this nature looks like. It follows from this, they need help in uncovering it which must begin with manifesting the Bodhi Mind (bodhicittotpada) and its development by means of the Bodhisattva path. Can’t we say that Dogen hoped to find someone to help him with his journey to Buddhahood?
Again, it seems odd that Dogen spent so much time looking at transmission documents when, during this time, there was no guarantee that he would find a suitable teacher—which could take many years. If anything, Dogen from the moment he set foot in China, should have been trying to find the right teacher one who might help him to understand why sentient beings must first arouse the Bodhi Mind then engage in the practices of a Bodhisattva even though they are potentially Buddhas.
Dogen’s works, for the most part, seem not to show that he ever completely resolved the earlier problem between innate enlightenment (potential Buddha-nature) and accomplished Buddha-nature, i.e., enlightenment. Dogen, who never lost his faith in Tendai Buddhism, seemed to accept its cardinal notion that the appearances of things are the attributes of the Buddha which to be frank, is nonsense. In the Avatamsaka Sutra, for example, it says that “The Buddha’s body is formless, free from all defilements” and “The Buddha-body is inconceivable.”
It is more plausible that the first two years Dogen spent in China looking at five transmission documents was to gain enough information about their construction and composition to be able to eventually forge one when he got back to Japan. Dogen even claimed that he returned literally “empty-handed” (kûshu genkyo) except with the ashes of Myozen. Dogen returned to Japan with no Sutras, sacred images—and certainly no transmission document. It has now been determined that Dogen's transmission document “most certainly is a medieval forgery” (Steven Heine, Japanese Journal of Religious studies 30.102 [Spring 2003], p. 32).
It is always a sad moment to see the slow veil of insanity descend upon a being of great promise. If anything it serves to remind us, that the sleep of reason brings forth monsters obfuscating the path of our own spiritual potentiality.
Posted by: minx | June 21, 2010 at 04:42 PM
Download this book, home-boy, its the "cats balls"
http://www.archive.org/details/philosophyofplot00guthrich
get some good edu-macation
Posted by: Sally Strange | June 21, 2010 at 01:13 PM
Oh, snap! Dahhhhhh-uhm, you meanz to say dat 80% of zen (soto) is based upon the rancid piss & lies of Dogen (ironically, in russian, dogen is short for "weak, feable, flimsy)
Ohhh snap my brotha, them thar soto peoples told me that everythang was buddha-nature (svabhava).
This reminds me of that lie i heardz about some (...) on a cross who came back from da' grave.
Zombie-ism !!! ........>>
Posted by: Sally Strange | June 21, 2010 at 11:16 AM