Dont be a jerk, p.33
Don't Be a Jerk, page 33
I remember sort of scratching my head because I really had no idea. None of my teachers ever did that. Dōgen never wrote about it. I couldn’t think of anything in the Zen tradition that addressed that question. That’s when it occurred to me that this is a communal practice. Although you can — and I think you should — do zazen by yourself, that larger thing we call Zen Buddhism is not something you do by yourself. You can do zazen by yourself. You do Zen Buddhism with other people.
And yet Zen Buddhists have no doctrines and no belief system. That’s kind of weird. Every church I’ve ever visited was all about doctrines and belief systems. As far as I’m aware pretty much all mosques and synagogues are too. The Hindu temples that I know of also spend a lot of time and energy making sure that everyone understands their doctrines and believes the same things. In fact, in many forms of Buddhism they do this too and are very concerned that all members share a common set of beliefs about the universe and can recite the basic doctrines of their form of Buddhism when asked.
But my teachers never cared if I believed what they believed. They never made any effort to get me to memorize any doctrines or creeds. Dōgen in his writings sometimes indicates what he believes about stuff, but he never insists his readers share his beliefs. Noticing this has led me to form a different sort of vision of what we’re doing when we participate in this practice.
When we come together to sit on our cushions and stare at the walls, we don’t look to anyone else to frame our experience for us. We don’t, for example, do guided meditation sessions in which a leader tells us what to focus on or how to breathe. We are totally left to discover for ourselves whatever it is we might discover.
It’s just as if we’ve climbed to the top of a mountain or entered a deep, solitary cave to get away from all distractions and focus on ourselves. But — and this is significant — we are not on the top of a mountain or deep in a cave all by ourselves. Instead, we’re in a temple or a rented yoga studio or a house or wherever we’ve found to gather, and we’re not alone; we are with a group of others who are similarly interested in this kind of deep inquiry into what it means to be human.
We don’t try to impose what we find on each other. Even the person who leads the group does not try to impose what she or he has discovered on anyone else there. We regard every person’s unique experience of themselves to be fully and equally valid. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi talked about “beginner’s mind,” saying that even the most inexperienced Zen practitioner’s understanding was just as valid as that of the greatest master. It’s different, to be sure. But that does not make it any less valid.
However, in order to establish a space that is somewhat like what one would find if one were to climb to the top of a mountain or enter a deep cave by herself, we have to set up some rules about how to conduct ourselves within the space we have chosen.
Very basically, we have to be quiet and respectful to each other so that everyone involved can get on with the business of studying themselves. In a way, it’s like going to the library. People go to libraries to read, but they also go there because reading by yourself at home is kind of lonely and they want to read with other people. Even so, they want to read. They don’t want to chat or listen to music or listen to you chatting or listening to music. They want to be together, but they want to be quiet.
That, to me, is the ultimate objective of any Zen space — to provide as adequate a place as possible for people to sit quietly together and look deeply into themselves. The people who come to such spaces, we can assume, come because they want two basic things. They want to search within themselves, and they want to do this with others.
One of the ways to do this is to enter a temple and become ordained as a monk. In Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen writes a lot about monastic rules. We looked at a couple of those chapters earlier in this book, like the one in which he tells his monks precisely how to clean up after taking a poop and the one in which he tells them how to wear their robes. A huge portion of Dōgen’s writings are devoted to this kind of instruction. He was attempting to establish a place that created just the right atmosphere for individual inquiry.
Unlike any other religion I know of, the rules in Zen are strictly about how to conduct ourselves in the spaces in which we gather to work on ourselves. I’m not talking about the Buddhist precepts here, which also include good pieces of advice for how to conduct oneself in society. I’m talking about the specific regulations we come across.
To take what seems to be everyone’s favorite example, let’s look at the Buddhist ideas about sex. For many Christians, homosexuality is a sin. For Buddhists, at least in the Zen tradition, homosexuality is only addressed in terms of how homosexual activities can be disruptive in shared spaces where people come to do deep inquiry of themselves. There are no rules saying that you can’t ever have gay sex. There are only rules saying that you can’t have gay sex while undergoing meditation training in a communal setting, and only because sexual activity of any kind creates all sorts of weird noises and smells, and because it potentially sets up uncomfortable social interactions. Furthermore, it’s not just homosexual sex that’s disallowed in these settings; all types of sex are against the rules. However, once you leave that setting you can do whatever you like, within the bonds of secular law.
Every other rule that we establish in our communal places of individual deep inquiry is established for the same reason: to make sure everyone involved can focus on what we’ve all come together to focus on.
So, you may ask, what about chanting old poems, lists of dead people’s names, and the rest? Where do those things fit in?
The historical reason we chant the Buddhist sutras is to honor our earliest ancestors in the practice. The first Buddhists didn’t trust the written word to be a good carrier of their teachings. So for the first two hundred years or so, the Buddha’s teachings were not written down; they were memorized. In order to do this, the monks gathered and recited Buddha’s words. We still do that today, even though it’s all also available in written form now. This is because we’ve found that chanting the words together helps us remember them better than just reading them by ourselves.
These activities also have a deeper purpose in helping to build a feeling of community. When people do activities together they feel more kinship with each other. When we chant we do other things like hit a wooden fish to keep time, burn incense, bow, and so forth. This active stuff, with all its movements and coordination, helps bond the group.
This is one of the reasons some people involved in Zen don’t like to translate the sutras into English or whatever language they happen to speak. Even in Japan, they chant things like the Heart Sutra, Enmei Juku Kanon Gyo, and Daihi Shin Darani in very old forms of Japanese that are largely unintelligible to most people these days.
We also chant the names of dead people who were important to the history of Zen. We do this in order to further emphasize that our community is larger than the immediate group of people who happen to show up that day. It extends back thousands of years and will, we hope, extend into the future as well.
For that matter, the hierarchies present in Zen temples that people so struggle with in my country are also intended just to maintain the atmosphere necessary for practice. People get upset when some random guy at the library says shush to them, but if the librarian does it we understand that he or she is empowered to shush us. Same deal in a temple.
You may also take the further step of not just chanting with the monks but becoming one yourself. You become a monk because you think there’s no better choice for you. No other reason could make any sense. You submit to the censure of other monks because you think it will help you stay on track in your aim to stay true to your commitment. You submit to the authority of your elders and of the temple because it helps you, and not for any other reason. If some among those elders start to actually believe they dominate you when really they serve you, that’s their problem. There’s no need to be concerned about that.
As groups grow, this gets more complex and jobs are more specialized. Still, I think we should always remember what the bottom line is. And to me, the bottom line is that we are trying to establish a space for personal inquiry.
An interesting thing happens when we do this together. Without ever getting indoctrinated into a common set of beliefs, we find that we start to align with each other, sort of like magnetized pieces of metal do when they’re put together in the same space. You begin to discover that all human beings are very, very similar. You discover that your most fondly held belief systems are actually very superficial, no matter how deep they appear to be. You discover that what is truly important is shared with everyone and everything you encounter.
I think Dōgen understood this very clearly and tried to express it in his writing. He did not leave us a set of doctrines and beliefs he thought we should hold. Rather, he left us a body of writings that try to capture what is essential to all human beings, regardless of what they believe or where they come from or what their personal story might be. He asks us to focus on that instead of focusing on things of lesser value and importance.
For us in the twenty-first century, far removed in time and space from Dōgen’s environment, this means we too need to work on finding what is truly valuable to us. To be a follower of Dōgen’s style of Zen simply means to come together in this spirit and learn how best to allow each other the proper space to find it for ourselves.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Complete English Translations of Shōbōgenzō (in Order of Personal Preference)
Nishijima, Gudo, and Chodo Cross, Master Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō, 4 vols. Guildford, Eng.: Windbell, 2006 (now available as print on demand from Book Surge). This is the translation done by my ordaining teacher and his student Mike Cross (Chodo is his dharma name). It is the closest you’ll find in English to a literal translation of the original. Also available for free online.
Tanahashi, Kazuaki, and the San Francisco Zen Center. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dōgen’s Shōbō Genzō, 2 vols. Boston: Shambhala, 2013. Kaz Tanahashi translated Shōbōgenzō, with a group of teachers from San Francisco Zen Center acting as cotranslators. A different person worked on each chapter.
Nishiyama, Kosen, and John Stevens. Shōbōgenzō: The Eye and Treasury of the True Law, 4 vols. Tokyo: Japan Publications, 1983. This was the standard English edition for a long time but has since gone out of print and can be hard to find. It’s more of a paraphrase than a translation but is closer to the original than this book.
Nearman, the Reverend Master Hubert. Shōbōgenzō: The Treasure House of the Eye of the True Teaching, 4 vols. Mount Shasta, CA: Shasta Abbey Press, 1996. This is the official edition used by Shasta Abbey, which was founded by Reverend Master Jiyu-Kinnett. It’s a reliable translation if you can get past the author’s habit of trying to make it sound like the King James Bible. Also available for free online.
Shōbōgenzō in Japanese
Nishijima, Wafu. Gendaigo-yaku Shōbōgenzō, 12 vols. Yokohama, Jap.: Kanazawa Bunko, 1978. This is Nishijima Roshi’s complete translation of Shōbōgenzō into contemporary Japanese, which also contains the entire original thirteenth-century text, based on the 1815 edition compiled by Hangyo Kozen (which was reprinted in 1906, with previously missing chapters added). Wafu is the alternate pronunciation of Nishijima Roshi’s given name, Kazuo, and is part of his dharma name. When writing in English he went by Gudo, the other part of his dharma name, meaning “the Way of Stupidity.”
There are many other translations of Shōbōgenzō into modern Japanese, and the thirteenth-century text in Japanese is pretty easy to find too.
Partial Translations of Shōbōgenzō
Cleary, Thomas, trans. Shōbōgenzō: Zen Essays by Dōgen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. Contains thirteen chapters of Shōbōgenzō.
Cook, Francis Dojun, with a foreword by Taizen Maezumi. How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Master Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 1999. Contains ten translated chapters of Shōbōgenzō, along with other material.
Soto Zen Text Translation Project. Shōbōgenzō: Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. Several translated chapters are available online from Stanford University.
Tanahashi, Kazuaki, ed. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen. New York: North Point Press, 1995.
———. Enlightenment Unfolds: The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Dōgen. Boston: Shambhala, 2000.
———. The Essential Dōgen: Writings of the Great Zen Master. Boston: Shambhala, 2013. The various chapters and excerpts from Shōbōgenzō in these books by Tanahashi were gathered into the complete translation listed above.
Waddell, Norman, and Masao Abe, trans. The Heart of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Contains nine chapters.
Books about Dōgen and/or Shōbōgenzō
Bein, Steve. Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Shamon Dōgen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011.
Bielefeldt, Carl. Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990.
Bodiford, William. Soto Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008.
Bokusan, Nishiari, Shohaku Okumura, Shunryu Suzuki, and Mel Weitsman. Dōgen’s Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2013.
Cook, Francis. Sounds of Valley Streams: Enlightenment in Dōgen’s Zen. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.
Heine, Steven. Did Dōgen Go to China?: What He Wrote and When He Wrote It. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
———. Dōgen and Soto Zen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
———, ed. Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Kim, Hee-Jin. Eihei Dōgen: Mystical Realist. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Kodera, Takashi James. Dōgen’s Formative Years in China: An Historical Study and Annotated Translation of the Hōkyō-ki. Boulder, CO: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
LeFleur, William R. Dōgen Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.
Leighton, Taigen Dan. Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Nishijima, Gudo Wafu, trans. Master Dōgen’s Shinji Shobogenzo. Guildford, Eng.: Windbell, 2003.
Okumura, Shohaku, ed. Dōgen Zen and Its Relevance for Our Time. San Francisco: Soto Zen Buddhism International Center, 2003.
———. Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2010.
———. Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2012.
———, trans. The Wholehearted Way: Translation of Eihei Dōgen’s Bendowa, with Commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle, 2011.
Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Boston: Shambhala, 2011.
Yokoi, Yuho. Zen Master Dōgen: An Introduction with Selected Writings. Boston: Weatherhill, 1976.
Special thanks to Charles Pokorny, whose many unpublished papers in the library at Tassajara proved to be very valuable in my research for this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRAD WARNER WAS born in Ohio, grew up in Africa, and lived in Japan for eleven years, where he got ordained as a Zen monk. He now resides in the Hipsterville part of Los Angeles. He began sitting zazen when he was eighteen years old under the instruction of Tim McCarthy and was made a dharma heir of Gudo Nishijima Roshi in the futuristic year 2000. He used to work for a company that made movies about giant radioactive lizards eating Tokyo, and now he writes books like this one.
He also travels the world showing people how to sit down and shut up. He has given talks and led Zen meditation retreats in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, Israel, Belgium, Spain, and Japan. His books have been translated into fewer languages than those of anyone you’ve ever seen on the cover of a meditation magazine, but there are editions in Finnish, Polish, German, and Greek. And supposedly there’s one in Hebrew, but he’s never seen a copy. Or maybe he has but doesn’t know it because he can’t read Hebrew. He wishes someone would point it out to him somewhere if the book actually exists.
He plays bass guitar in the hardcore punk band Zero Defex (0DFx).* He has had major roles in several movies, including Zombie Bounty Hunter M.D. and Shoplifting from American Apparel. He also wrote, produced, and directed his own film, Cleveland’s Screaming. Plus, he made five albums for Midnight Records under the semifictional band name Dimentia 13.
When he’s not doing zazen, Brad can be found at record stores all over the world searching for obscure psychedelia and songs to add to his incredible cheesy seventies playlist. He enjoys bad science fiction movies and cats, though dogs are okay too. He’s a vegetarian but tries not to be a total pain in the ass about it.
*Did you ever wonder where NOFX got their name? We were around well before them.
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