When, for example, Dogen says, "What we call ‘Buddha Mind’ is synonymous with the three temporal worlds of past, present, and future,” Dogen doesn't understand that Buddha Mind doesn't behold a temporal world existing in its own independent right. Buddha Mind is the absolute awakening to itself which means the temporal world doesn't actually exist. The temporal world is an illusion or mâyâ.
To suggest that the temporal world is in anyway real, thus putting it on a par with Buddha Mind, is like saying that Fa-tsang's lion, in his work, Essay on the Golden Lion, possesses real substance apart from the gold—well, it doesn't. There is only gold which has been shaped and named “lion”; which is fundamentally empty of lions, etc.
In addition, Dogen doesn't seem to comprehend, as he should, that a Bodhisattva does not train in any thing or settle down in any thing or dharma according to the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra (The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, trans. Conze). This is because things do not fundamentally exist. This includes the human body and even the act of doing the ritual (J., gyôji) of zazen—even Dogen’s “jaw of a donkey and the muzzle of a horse” lacks true existence which he equates with Buddha-nature.
This leads me to wonder how much Dogen has read of the Buddha’s teachings. He seems off course in many of his observations. Echoing Hajime Nakamura, I think Dogen looks for the absolute in the phenomenal which is a phenomenalist way of thinking (cp. Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, p. 351).
Hello,
Though I am only a humble householder, please consider my query re. the posting of Yu Rei and preceeding...
VIZ: Is the UNBORN BUDDHA MIND of Bankei a thing? Or, is it an expression of Dharma of no Dharma?
Posted by: Neale Povey | January 01, 2012 at 09:53 PM
The truth of the matter is that Mind is not the phenomena and Mind is exactly identical to phenomena.
These two sentences seem to be opposed, and the very illusion of difference is the veil of Maya.
The veil of Maya is in the appearance that "is" and "is not" are separate.
The truth of the matter is that Mind is absolutely separated from phenomena, while at the same time being absolutely identical to it.
When one can think those two sentences at the same time without seeing any contradiction, one has the true seeing (which is, at the same time, a no-seeing; there is nobody there to see anything).
In the sentence "The Mind is Mountains and Rivers" Mind is both equal and separate from Mountains and Rivers. As, for example, in Hegel's sentence "Mind is a bone". It expresses the highest principle of how Mind can become its own otherness (phenomena) without losing itself into it. How it can be both equal and separate at the same time. "Identity of identity and non-identity."
It is similar to Nagarjuna's saying that from the absolute standpoint, Nirvana is exactly Samsara. It doesn't mean that the two words mean the same. It means that two different things (Nirvana and Samsara) are at the same time the same thing. This sameness of sameness and difference is what is graspable from the absolute standpoint, from the standpoint of complete and ultimate non-duality.
Many will say "This is German philosophy, conceptual thinking; Zen is beyond that." - That is exactly foolish. There is just One Matter in this world, not many matters. While Buddhism is soteriological and European philosophy isn't, it still doesn't mean that there are many Minds or many principles, or that there is a Japanese and a European Mind.
Before our parents were born, we were not Japanese or European.
If Dogen is a phenomenalist, than he is certain wrong; if he is not a phenomenalist, then he is certainly wrong. Since both phenomenalism and non-phenomenalism are wrong.
This is what should be investigated here: "You do not see that the fundamental dharma of the dharma is that there are no dharmas, yet that this dharma of no-dharma is in itself a dharma; and now that the no-dharma dharma has been transmitted, how can the dharma of the dharma be a dharma?"
Posted by: Yu Rei | May 25, 2011 at 03:35 PM
You are living in a country infested with incurable God-freaks, solid materialists and inbred rednecks. I consider it a true miracle, if your zen penetrates the thick crust of self induced ignorance in even one of these spiritual troglodytes.
To them a good "holy" appearance, even in fancy expensive winter or summer Koromo robes (1000 bucks a set!)of the japanese tradition, is more important than genuine spiritual insight.
Posted by: azanshi | May 25, 2011 at 06:15 AM