Dont be a jerk, p.31
Don't Be a Jerk, page 31
If you define yourself as deluded or imperfect and imagine a state that is perfect and undeluded, you can make an effort to transform this state into that one. But in doing so, you’d miss out on the perfect thisness of this real state. What we’re working on in Zen practice is to notice clearly our own actual condition. In doing so, we subtly transform it. And yet we don’t transform anything. As I said, it’s impossible to express it without being contradictory.
The great perfection we seek is already here. Yet we need to work on it anyway.
Okay. That was a bear of a chapter and probably a difficult discussion. But take heart! We’re almost finished. The next chapter (our final Shōbōgenzō chapter) is a little bit easier.
*Throughout this chapter whenever Dōgen talks about mirrors, he’s talking about a person’s intuitive sense.
*The tree under which the Buddha got enlightened
*Bodhi means “enlightenment.”
**For the phrase I’ve paraphrased as “many images” Dōgen uses the word (bansho). This could mean “ten thousand things” but it could also mean “ten thousand statues.” Or it could mean “ten thousand images.” “Ten thousand things” is a way of saying innumerable things or, in other words, all things in the universe. It’s a pun that does not translate.
*The Chinese used to divide the day into twelve hours, as they still did in Japan in Dōgen’s time.
*The last of these is still there today.
*He actually says rōsō (no) zakai (nari), which means, “It’s this old monk’s mistake.”
25. CHANTING SUTRAS
Kankin
Reading — or Chanting — Sutras
YOU MAY RECALL that back in the chapter about “Bendowa” Dōgen said, “From the first time you learn (zazen) from a teacher, you never need to burn incense, do prostrations, recite Buddha’s name, or read (chant) sutras anymore. Just sit and get the state that’s free of body and mind,” and “People who only chant sutras are no better than frogs croaking in a pond.” But now he’s going to switch it up on us and tell us how to burn incense, do prostrations, recite Buddha’s name, and chant sutras.
A lot of people hear these quotes from Dōgen, or hear Bodhidharma’s statement about Zen being a “special transmission outside the scriptures,” or hear about Zen monks who burn all their books and then imagine that Zen people must be against chanting or indeed even just reading sutras. I often encounter people who are genuinely surprised to hear that Zen monks read stuff or to see Zen monks chanting sutras.
It’s not that Zen is a philosophy that forbids or even discourages reading or chanting. It’s just that Buddhism is a philosophy of action. Most philosophies exist in the books that are written about them. The books are the philosophies. If you understand the books, you understand the philosophy. Buddhism isn’t like that. It’s a philosophy you do.
That doesn’t mean reading is worthless. By reading the sutras you can develop an intellectual understanding of Buddhist philosophy, and that’s useful. But an intellectual understanding alone is incomplete. It has to be balanced by understanding in action.
Dōgen gets a bit mystical in this chapter. He extends the meaning of the phrase “reading sutras” to include observing nature as a kind of “sutra reading.” After all, the sutras were written to try to describe the natural world, of which human beings and the human mind are manifestations. So it makes perfect sense that things like observing the flowing of a stream or looking at the moon are examples of reading sutras. Sitting silently and observing your own mind is also an example of “reading sutras,” even if what’s in your mind is just images of cartoon characters and food.
Let’s see what Dōgen has to say on the subject.
Sometimes the practice and experience of totally righteous enlightenment depends on teachers, and sometimes it depends on sutras. Teachers are Buddhist ancestors who are completely themselves. Sutras are sutras that are completely themselves. It’s like this because the real self is completely a Buddhist ancestor and completely a sutra. What we call “self” is not limited to you or me. It’s a living eyeball, a living fist.
So there is contemplation of sutras, reading of sutras, chanting of sutras, copying of sutras, and preserving of sutras. That’s what the Buddhist ancestors practice and realize. But it’s tough to encounter the sutras. You might go millions of places and never even hear just the title of one. Unless you’re a Buddhist ancestor you never see, hear, chant, or comprehend the sutras. Even after studying with Buddhist ancestors we can just barely learn sutras in practice.
When you really hear, retain, and receive the sutras, you do it with eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, wherever you go and wherever you are. Fame whores* and bullshitters can’t practice the sutras because sutras are spread throughout fields and cities and written on rocks and trees. Dirt preaches sutras and so does plain old empty space.
Master Yakusan Igen hadn’t given a talk for a long time. The temple director tried hinting at him to give a talk by winking broadly and saying, “The monks have been hoping for your instruction for a while.”
Yakusan took the clue and said, “Ring the bell!”
The temple director rang the bell, and the monks all trotted down to the lecture hall.
Yakusan plopped himself down in front of them, sat there for a while, and then got up and went back to his room. The temple director bumbled up behind him and said, “How come you agreed to preach but then didn’t say anything?”
Yakusan said, “Sutras have sutra teachers. Commentaries have commentary teachers. Why are you concerned about an old fart like me?”
The compassionate teaching of the ancestors is that for fists there are fist teachers and for eyes there are eye teachers. But I’d say to Yakusan, “I don’t reject your words, but what are you a teacher of?”
After their poetry smackdown, which I told you about in the chapter “Twirly Flowers Twirl Twirly Flowers,” Daikan Eno told Hotatsu, “From now on we’ll call you Sutra Reading Monk!” So we ought to know that there are sutra-reading monks. This is Daikan Eno’s teaching, and he was awesome sauce. A “Sutra Reading Monk” can’t be measured in terms of reading or not reading, or in terms of having ideas or not having ideas. It goes beyond both having and not having. It’s never putting down the sutras for millions and millions of years. There is no time when they’re not being read. From sutra to sutra there is only the experience of sutras.
The twenty-seventh Patriarch in India, the Utterly Righteous Prajñatara, was invited to do lunch with the king. The king said, “Everybody else recites sutras. How come you don’t?”
Prajñatara said, “When I breathe out, I don’t follow circumstances. My in-breath doesn’t live in the realm of the five aggregates. This way I recite millions of real sutras, not just one or two.”
Prajñatara was a badass Buddhist. He understood the truth both concretely and abstractly. When he says his exhalation doesn’t follow circumstances, he also means that circumstances don’t follow his exhalation. Circumstances might be the brains and eyes as well as the whole body and whole mind. Taking circumstances for a walk and then bringing them back is what he calls “not following” them. “Not following” means totally following. Exhalation is circumstances themselves. But even so, it’s not following them.
This is the very moment when circumstances themselves investigate inhaling and exhaling. This moment has never been before, and it won’t come back again. It exists only now.
The “realm of the five aggregates” refers to the five skandhas, or aggregates that Buddha talked about in his first sermon. There he said that all people are composed of form, feeling, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. The reason Yakusan Igen says he doesn’t live in the realm of the five aggregates is that he is in a world they haven’t yet reached. Because he gets this key point, he recites millions of real sutras, not just one or two. This is wisdom without extra baggage. Intelligence and ignorance can’t touch this, and neither can smarts or stupidity. It’s the essence of the Buddhist ancestors.
The word in Chinese for recite is (ten), which can also mean “to rotate.” You need to know this in order to get the pun I’m about to make, which doesn’t translate into English. Joshu Jushin once got a donation from an old lady, who asked him to recite all the sutras. Joshu got up off his chair, walked around it, and said to the old lady’s messenger, “I’ve finished reciting (rotating) the sutras!”
The messenger reported this to the old lady. She said, “I asked him to recite all the sutras. How come he only recited half of them?”
Evidently the old lady had a certain number of sutras in mind. “I’ve finished reciting the sutras!” is Joshu’s entire sutra. His recitation is as follows. Joshu rotates (which is the same word as recites in Chinese) around the chair, the chair rotates around Joshu, Joshu rotates Joshu, and the chair rotates the chair. Everybody gets dizzy. Which isn’t to say that reciting sutras is limited to going around chairs or to chairs going around people.
Joshu made a rotation (i.e., recitation). Does the old lady have eyes to see it? Although she griped that he only recited half, she could have said, “I asked him to recite all the sutras. He doesn’t need to worry about anything!” Even if she’d said this by mistake I’d have said she really got it.
In the order of Master Tozan Ryokai (Ch. Dongshan Liangjie, 807–869 CE) there was a government official who made lunch for everybody at the temple, offered a donation, and asked Tozan to recite all the sutras. Tozan got down from his chair and bowed to the guy, and he bowed back. Then Tozan led him around the chair and bowed to him again. A couple of minutes later he asked the government guy if he got it. The guy said he didn’t. Tozan said, “We just recited (rotated) all the sutras. Why don’t you get it?”
“We just recited the sutras” is the easy part. It isn’t that reciting sutras is like playing musical chairs or vice versa. And yet Tozan kindly taught us something. So listen up.
My teacher, Tendo Nyojo, quoted this story when a guy from Korea made a donation, asked the monks to recite the sutras, and also asked my teacher to give a lecture. My teacher got up on his seat, made a big circle in the air with his flywhisk, and said, “Now I’ve recited all the sutras for you.” Then he threw the whisk down, just like a rapper dropping the mic, and left the room.
My teacher’s words were beyond compare. Maybe you should chant them. Still, did my teacher use a whole eye or half an eye? Do the words he and the ancient ancestors said depend on eyes or tongues, and to what extent? Try to figure that one out!
Master Yakusan Igen didn’t usually let people read sutras at his temple. But one day Yakusan himself was spotted reading a sutra. One of his monks asked him, “You don’t let us read sutras. How come you’re reading one?”
Yakusan said, “I just wanted to shade my eyes.”
The monk said, “Is it okay if I do it too?”
Yakusan said, “If you did, you would get so sharp you could pierce ox hide.”
The words “I just wanted to shade my eyes” are spoken by shaded eyes themselves. “Shading the eyes” is tossing away eyes and tossing away sutras. It’s total shading of the eyes, and eyes being totally shaded. “Shading the eyes” means opening the eyes within the state of being shaded, energizing eyes inside shade, energizing shade inside eyes, adding one more eyelid, using eyes in shade, and eyes using shade themselves. If there weren’t sutras for eyes, there could be no shading of eyes.
“You would get so sharp you could pierce ox hide” describes being too smart for your own good. It’s absolute ox-hide and absolute hide for an ox. It’s hiding your ox. It’s hide-rogen per-ox-hide!* That way, your whole being becomes an ox. When the student copies his master, the ox becomes the eyes, as in “shading the eyes.” The eyes become an ox.
Master Yafu Dosen (Ch. Yun-ch’i Chu-hung, c. 1100 CE) said,
Offerings to Buddhas make you happy and pink
But reading old teachings is grander
It might look like just white paper and ink
But open your eyes, take a gander
Remember that making offerings and reading sutras might be equal sources of happiness and might even go beyond mere happiness. The sutras are just ink and paper, but who can see them that way? We need to work on this problem.
Master Ungo Doyo (Ch. Yunju Daoying, 835–902 CE) once saw a monk sitting in his room, reading a sutra. He said, “Hey, monk! What’s that you’re reading?”
The monk said, “The Vimalakirti Sutra.”
Ungo Doyo said, “I’m not asking you about the Vimalakirti Sutra! What’s that you’re reading?
The monk got it and had a moment of realization.
The master’s words can be understood as, “That which you are reading is what.” They refer to the very act of reading, which itself is part of the ineffable universe. This state is profound and ancient and can’t be encompassed by the word reading. On the road this monk met a poison serpent (in the form of this question). Being startled, he came to understand his teacher. Yet when we meet as real people, we shouldn’t misrepresent things. That’s why the monk replies, “The Vimalakirti Sutra.”
Reading sutras means reading with the eyes of all the Buddhist ancestors. At that very moment, the ancestors turn into Buddhas, preach the dharma, preach Buddha, and do Buddha stuff. Without this moment of sutra reading, there couldn’t be any brains, faces, or eyes of Buddhist ancestors.
In Buddhist temples today there are various customs for the recitation of sutras at the request of donors. There are regular group recitations, and sometimes monks just recite them on their own. Also, the entire sangha will chant sutras for a deceased monk.
When a donor makes such a request, the director of the monks’ hall puts up a sign that says sutra recitation will take place. After breakfast everybody gets together. They do some prostrations, burn some incense, and ring some bells, according to the established tradition. The donor enters, does prostrations, bows to the abbot, and burns incense. The donor walks around the monks’ hall, and then sits cross-legged until the end of the chanting. Sometimes the sutras are chanted aloud, and sometimes they are read silently together.
Sutras are also read on the occasion of the emperor’s birthday. If his birthday happens to fall on, say, January 15, the chanting begins on December 15 of the previous year. A few monks each day are selected for this chanting. They get to have snacks before lunch, like maybe noodles or some steamed cakes. The cakes are served in a bowl, and the monks eat them with their hands. You hang a yellow plaque on the wall announcing there’s gonna be some chanting for the emperor that day. On the actual day of the emperor’s birthday the abbot says a few nice things about the emperor and wishes him a happy b-day. This is a long-established custom.
Yakusan Igen asked the novice Ko (Ch. Gao, dates unknown), “Did you get it from reading sutras or from listening to a teacher?”
Ko said, “I didn’t get it from reading sutras or from a teacher.”
Yaksuan Igen said, “Lots of people don’t read sutras or talk to teachers. How come they don’t get it?”
Ko said, “I didn’t say they don’t get it. But maybe they don’t want to directly experience it.”
Some in the house of the Buddhas and ancestors experience it directly, and some don’t. But reading sutras and listening to teachers are the things we do in our usual lives.
— Preached to the assembly at Kannon-dori-kosho-horin-ji Temple October 9, 1241
Phew! That was another long one! It was way worse for me than it was for you because the original is about twice as long as what I’ve given you here. Let me try to walk you through some of the stranger parts.
The lines I’ve rendered as, “Teachers are Buddhist ancestors who are completely themselves. Sutras are sutras that are completely themselves” are my paraphrasing of the lines (chishiki toiufu ha zen-jiko no buso nari — kankin toiufu ha zen-jiko no kankin nari). Nishijima/Cross and Shasta Abbey interpret this line about the same way as I have. However, Kaz Tanahashi has, “A teacher is a Buddhist ancestor of the entire self. A sutra is a sutra of the entire self.” That’s also a perfectly reasonable way to translate the lines. In fact, grammatically the Tanahashi translation is closer to the Japanese source material, while Nishijima/Cross and Shasta Abbey take some liberties.
Then we have the line that I’ve rendered as, “Even after studying with Buddhist ancestors we can just barely learn sutras in practice.” In Japanese this is (buso sangaku yori katsu-katsu kankin wo sangaku suru nari). My paraphrasing is close to what Nishijima/Cross have. But Tanahashi has, “Upon studying with a Buddhist ancestor you also study a sutra.” No doubt Dōgen would agree with that phrase, but it’s not what he says here. The onomatopoeia Dōgen uses here — katsu-katsu — indicates something that one is just barely able to do. Shasta Abbey has, “As soon as we have begun to investigate the Buddhas and Ancestors through our training, then, with some considerable difficulty, we begin to explore and train with Scriptural texts.” I hate the way they have to capitalize everything like the King James Bible, but I feel they have the meaning right.
A bit later Dōgen says, “Sutras are spread throughout fields and cities and written on rocks and trees. Dirt preaches sutras and so does plain old empty space.” He is saying that the actual meaning within the sutras can be found everywhere. The teachers who wrote the sutras were not inventing doctrines. They were perceiving the world as it is and expressing their understanding of it for our benefit.
I’d also add here that the words Buddhist and sutras, as used by Dōgen, are not limited to any sort of sectarian affiliation. Dōgen never encountered Christianity, Islam, or any Western religion and was probably only vaguely conversant with what we now call Hinduism (a designation that didn’t exist in his time). And yet I feel confident saying that there are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic scriptures and even atheistic writings that would also be examples of “Buddhist sutras” under his definition, just as there are scriptures regarded by many as Buddhist that would not qualify as “Buddhist sutras” in his definition of the term.
