Whatever we read about Zen master Dogen (1200–1253) we cannot conclude that seated meditation (zazen) was not important for him. Indeed, seated meditaton is central for Dogen. According to Dogen it is the essence of Buddhism or shobogenzo meaning “the treasury of the eye of true dharma” which was handed down in the Zen lineage from one Patriarch to another.
If this strikes some modern readers as being a departure from Buddhism’s idea of meditation (dhyâna), to some extent it is. Simply put, seated mediation (zazen) is not at the core of Buddhism as Dogen believes it is, at least not in the Pali and Mahayana canon. It might be true that seated meditation is a valuable tool or aid which helps us to get to the threshold of awakening to Buddha Mind, but the act of just sitting (J., shikantaza) cannot itself be interpreted to be the same as the realization of Buddha Mind, the real core of Buddhism. Far from it.
Mind, in Buddhism, both in the Pali and Mahayana canon is what is defiled then liberated from the bewitching power of conditioned existence which includes the corporeal body that sits on a meditation cushion in zazen.
In the Dhammapada we read: “Mind to immateriality has gone (vi-sankhara-gatam cittam), desire’s end is accomplished” (154). Specifically, this Mind that has gone to immateriality, I hasten to emphasize, is fundamentally incorporeal. Yes, even though it is coordinate with the physical or corporeal body, it is not of it—although in ignorance we believe it is. If a person sits or stands, lies down or walks, Mind is present but unaffected for the reason that Mind transcends physical postures and actions. Most importantly, Mind transcends birth and death hence, its great importance in Buddhism.
Dogen, like those of his time such as Shiran and Nichiren, was immersed in Tendai hongaku doctrine (the doctrine of original enlightenment) in which it was believed that practice and enlightenment are nondual. (We might even call Dogen’s Zen, Tendai Zen.) For example, the immediacy of sitting is also the immediacy of complete enlightenment. But this errs in assuming that phenomena are the absolute or by example, the clay pot shape, i.e., pot-ness, is clay when more precisely, clay is independent of all shapes that might be constructed from it by causation.
Later on Dogen’s Zen is dismissed by Rinzai Zen Buddhists like Hakuin and Mujaku Dochu (1653–1744).
“This Zen said Mujaku, simply clung to the notion that the deluded mind was itself Buddhahood (môjin soku butsu) and ignored the tranformative experience of awakening (satori). Dogen ‘never even dreamt’ of the state of satori that was the meaning of the advent of the Buddha, the purpose of Bodhidharma’s mission to China, and the message of the patriarch of kanna, or koan Zen, Ta-hui” (Bielefeldt, Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation, p. 4).
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