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Kusen

73. Buddha Nature

One of the principal differences between Theravada and Mahayana is the doctrine of Buddha Nature.

This takes a number of forms–and Dogen has a unique position on it–but generally, it is the idea that we have Buddha Nature as a kind of foundational ground or potentiality.

The doctrine probably derives from the Tathāgata Garbha tradition. Tathāgata is Buddha; Garbha means both embryo and womb.

But who is giving birth to whom?

We might be inclined to see the embryo as our latent Buddha nature, but perhaps it’s the other way around. Perhaps the doctrines, the ritual, the lineage, the traditions; everything, is the womb which enables us to give birth to ourselves.

It is as if Buddhism is a plaster-cast on something broken. When the body is healed, when the body is whole, Buddhism is no longer needed.

When we have crossed the river, do we still require to carry the boat?

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Kusen

72. Switching

A striking paradox in Mahāyāna is that whilst it is avowedly non-dualistic, it seems full of dualisms.

Saying that Saṃsāra is Nirvana appears to oblige one to explain why they seem different. So for Nāgārjuna there is the absolute and the relative, for Baso there is the phenomenal world and the truth underlying it, and for almost everyone there is the contrast of delusion and enlightenment.

Dogen is different. For him, reality can be approached by switching between perspectives, specifically between the perspective of one dharma dynamically functioning and the whole network of dependent origination functioning.

So Genjo ( manifestation) is the first, Todatsu ( liberation) is the second.

But they can switch.

Being is the first, Time is the second.

But they can switch.

The perspectives swap places.

The particular and the universal swop places.

Jumping in and out of each other.

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Kusen

Recorded Sayings of Zen master Joshu, Case 126 [translation by James Green]

The Master instructed the assembly saying, “ I do not enjoy hearing the word ‘Buddha’

A monk asked, “Do you help people, or not?”

The Master said, “ I help people”

The monk said, “ How do you help people?”

The Master said, “Not aware of the deep principle, futilely labouring to calm the mind”

The monk said, “ You said it was deep, but what is the principle?”

The Master said, “ I don’t hold on to a basis”

The monk said, “ That is deep, what is the principle?”

The master said, “ The principle is answering you”

Commentary

Joshu’s “Not aware..” is a direct quote from the Verses of Faith Mind.

This Faith Mind includes your karmic mind, but is much deeper. A frequent analogy is with the ocean. At the surface, the ocean may be calm or agitated, but it is of infinite depth, and so we shouldn’t be too concerned about these surface fluctuations, even although the waves can only see themselves.

The monk’s response seems to indicate that he is looking for a conceptual answer, as if we are some way off the ground, and can only touch it through a scaffolding of ideas. And that scaffolding can be ‘buddha’ or ‘dependent origination’, or whatever. But we aren’t castles in the air, we’re human beings.

Okumura roshi says [pointing to the head] that we are five or six feet off the ground, and it’s true. But the Body of faith grounds us.

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Kusen

The Recorded Sayings Of Joshu, number 109

The case:

The master entered the hall. After sitting quietly for a while,he said “Is everyone here, or not?”

Someone said, “Everyone is here”

The master said, “I’m waiting for one more to come, then I’ll speak”

A monk said, “You are waiting for a person who does not come”

The master said, “it’s a person that’s really hard to find”

Commentary:

Is a person who does not come, and who does not leave, always with us, or not?

In Zazenshin, Master Dogen says ” in non-thinking, there is someone, and that someone is maintaining and relying upon me”

Is this “someone” the same as Joshu’s “person”, or not?

Is it absurd to call this “person” Faith Mind, or not?

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Kusen

Book of Serentity, Case 6

Mazu’s ‘White and Black’

The case:

A monk asked Great Master Mazu, “Apart from the four propositions and beyond the hundred negations, please directly point out the meaning of living Buddhism”

The Great Master said, “I’m tired out today and can’t explain for you. Go ask Zhizang”

The monk asked Zhizang. Zhizang said, “Why don’t you ask the teacher?”

The monk said, “the teacher told me to ask you”

Zhizang said, “I have a headache today and can’t explain for you. Ask brother Hai”

The monk asked Hai. Hai said, ” Now, at this point, I don’t understand Buddhism”

The monk related this to the Great Master. Mazu said, Zang’s head is white, Hai’s head is black”

Commentary:

The four propositions derive from Nagarjuna and are:

It exists

It does not exist

It both exists and does not exist

It neither exists nor not exists

These propositions, which appear to exhaust the possibilities of expressing the nature of reality, or living Buddhism, in words, are said by Nagarjuna to be incapable of describing things as they are.

So the monk’s enquiry appears to rule out an answer in language, and of course, he doesn’t ask for this, he asks only for Mazu (Baso) to “directly point out”. If he misunderstands the answers, do the Masters misunderstand his enquiry? Or is something else going on?

If it were Rinzai or his descendants, one might picture a shout or a blow, but Baso simply describes his actual state. Does he answer the request or not? Does his tiredness make any difference, or not?

Does he answer the request in his second response?

‘White’ suggests differentiation and ‘Black’ suggests non differentiation. Hai is ‘unable’ to ‘understand’ the reality of which he is a part, because he is not separate from it. Both black and white have their place and function within dependent origination.

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Kusen

71. The Ocean and the Wave

The Great Ocean is a frequent metaphor in Buddhism for the inter-connectedness of all being. The whole ocean effects each part. Each part effects the whole. Each part effects each part. If anywhere changes, everywhere changes. Nonetheless, the wave fully lives his own life.

Until the moment of our death, we are sustained by all things. The medicine for suffering is not enlightenment, but gratitude.

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Kusen

70. The Buddha’s True Dharma Body

The Buddha’s True Dharma Body

Is just like space

Manifesting its form

According to circumstances

It is like the moon in water.

Caoshan Benji

‘Manifesting its form’ means that Buddha and human beings arise together; space and the myriad things appear together. It is not that space is pre-existing and the myriad things then take their place. It is not like that.

Similarly, Buddhism is not a house which practitioners can enter, occupy and leave. Practitioners are the house: the roof, the walls, the doors, the windows.

The heart is manifested by what it holds.

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Kusen

69. I Shin Den Shin

The transmission of the teaching is like a widening cascade of light. The brightness is indivisible.

The transmission from one real person to another is called ‘I shin den shin‘. ‘Shin’ means heart/ mind, so it can translate as ‘from my heart to your heart’

We might assume there are two hearts, but my heart is this heart; your heart is this heart. This heart is the heart of this-ness–Indivisible.

Because this is so, transmission is intimate, non-dual, feeling. Each thing is the heart of all things. Each time is this time.

Indivisible.

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Kusen

68. The Far Shore

(With thanks to David Taylor)

At the end of the Heart Sutra, there’s a mantra:

Gya tei gya tei

Hara gya tei

Hara so gya tei

Bo ji so wa ka

This is simply a Chinese/Japanese inflection of the original Sanskrit which is

Gate gate

Pāragate

Pārasaṃgate

Bodhi svāhā

The ‘ga’ in gate, pāragate and pārasaṃgate is the same ‘ga’ as in ‘Tathāgata‘, ‘Thus-come’ or ‘Thus-gone’, by which we mean the Buddha. So, ga means both come and gone.

‘Para’ has various meanings, including ‘beyond’ and ‘the opposite shore'(of a river)

‘Sam’ means ‘with’, ‘together with’

So, the mantra is often translated as

Gone, gone

Altogether gone

To the far shore

So the suggestion is that we leave this shore, cross the river, and reach the far shore of nirvana. But, in this interpretation, the metaphor is confused, because both this shore and the river are identified with samsara.

But if we re-render ‘gone’ as ‘come’, then a different possibility emerges, of the far shore arriving. Thus, it isn’t that we cross over the water of samsara to reach the far shore of nirvana, leaving this shore behind, but rather that both shores are manifested.

And this suggests Zazen, coming at the end of the sutra, which started with an explicit exchange between Śāriputra and Avalokiteśvara about Zazen ( which significantly, is the practice of the latter, not the former). When we sit, we don’t abandon our particularity, our form, our karmic existence ( this shore), but equally, we manifest the self that is not separate from all things ( the far shore)

And both these shores make manifest the river of our true life, held by both.

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Kusen

Shinji Shobogenzo Book 3, case 49 [2]

“The Buddha’s True Dharma Body

Is just like space

Manifesting its form according to circumstances

It is like the moon in water”

(poem from Tsuki)

‘Space’ [koku] was two connotations.

The ‘ku’ in ‘koku’ is the ku [emptiness] of the Heart Sutra: ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’

So, the suggestion is that the monk is ’empty’. Emptiness is not something separate from Existence.

The second connotation is that ‘space’ is a metaphor for Buddha Nature. Everywhere is the one ‘space’; there is no separation. We normally think that if something comes into existence and occupies a ‘space’, the ‘space’ disappears. However, buddhism says that the ‘something’ manifests both itself and the space it occupies. In other words, if there are no beings, there is no space. If there are no beings, then buddha nature does not appear.