Master Dogen’s view of delusion and enlightenment is expressed succinctly in the Genjokoan.
[In Tanahashi’s translation]: “to carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion, that the myriad things come forth and illuminate the self is awakening.”
The Zen Site [www.thezensite.com] have helpfully collected together a number of other translations of this passage, which we can usefully use as contrast.
Francis Cook translates it as “conveying the self to the myriad things to authenticate them is delusion, the myriad things advancing to authenticate the self is enlightenment”.
Nishijima’s translation is “driving ourselves to practice and experience millions of things and phenomena is delusion. When millions of things and phenomena actively practice and experience ourselves, that is realisation.”
It’s important for us to to note that the distinction which Dogen is making is between a practice which affirms or assumes the self and a practice which de-centres or [in his phrasing] drops off the self. For Dogen the practice of zazen is plainly the second.
We also need to pay attention to the word ‘jiko’ [ which is translated as ‘self ‘] has a double meaning. It means self in the usual way that we mean: ego. But it also means the bigger self: the whole of creation. Which is taken as being like a body: alive, differentiated, connected, changing. And that double meaning has an extra layer to it because obviously from the position of the bigger self Everything is part of the bigger self, including our personal, egoic sense of self.
And it’s fair to say in these translations, the sense of universal self is probably not conveyed. And the reference to what Tanahashi refers to as ‘the myriad things’, and what Nishijima refers to as ‘millions of things and phenomena’ needs to be clarified. What’s meant is everything within our experience when we’re practicing zazen. So obviously it includes what’s within our perceptual field, structures and trees and sky and all the rest of it. But also what’s arising within what we would normally think of as being the separate mental field of our thoughts, memories, emotions and suchlike.
And both form a whole. It’s not that there are two separate realms where perception is good, and the mental stuff is not good. They form a whole which in traditional language is ‘myriad things’. And which for Nishijima is ‘millions of things and phenomena’. It’s also important for us to understand that if we have a practice which thinks that we require to empty the mind or require to achieve a special state of consciousness, or need to acquire some special quality of consciousness which is called enlightenment, we’re going in absolutely the wrong direction. And similarly, when people use ridiculous language like ‘wanting non egoic experiences’, it’s just a disguised way of affirming the self.
The way to get out of all of that muddle is to do away with that false belief that the emotions, memories and so forth which arise within zazen are random junk, and that tranquility or unvarnished perception of things is good. And replaced by an understanding that everything that is arising within our experience is the universe practicing itself through us. You could also say it is interdependence. Everything that arises within our experience, no matter how unpromising, is interdependence.
When I was doing zazen this morning, I was getting a repetitive song from the early 80s. And the obvious thing was to just think that’s a distraction to be driven away. But liking or hating phenomena obscures its actual reality. We just see phenomena at the surface level. We don’t see the threads of connection which come from us.
That annoying song? I could see on reflection later that it connected to many other things. Specifically to a former friend, who I found out recently committed suicide. We would listen to that song together. And the song was sung by somebody who committed suicide.
I’m just using that as an example. Even the most unpromising things arising in our experience is us experiencing interdependence. It’s as if behind the apparent moron of our babble is a great person, extending everywhere.