the ocean are inexhaustible. . . .
As a fish travels through water, there is no bound to the water no matter how far it goes; as a bird flies through the sky, there’s no bound to the sky no matter how far it flies. While this is so, the fish and birds have never been apart from the water and the sky—it’s just that when the need is large the use is large, and when the requirement is small the use is small. In this way, though the bounds are unfailingly reached everywhere and tread upon in every single place, the bird would instantly die if it left the sky and the fish would instantly die if it left the water. Obviously, water is life; obviously, the sky is life. There is bird being life. There is fish being life. There is life being bird, there is life being fish. There must be progress beyond this—there is cultivation and realization, the existence of the living one being like this. . . . In this way, if someone cultivates and realizes the Buddha Way, it is attaining a principle, mastering the principle; it is encountering a practice, cultivating the practice. (8)
As he became older, Dogen became more critical of the Rinzai School and its use of koans, and yet several of the essays in the Shobogenzo are based on classic koans. Dogen’s criticism may have been based in part on his irritation over increased government support for the Rinzai School, or because Rinzai students could at times show more concern about passing koans than they were in understanding the teachings of Buddhism. On the other hand, he acknowledged his primary Dharma Heir, Koun Ejo, after Koun had resolved the koan “one thread [hair] passes through many holes.”
For Dogen, zazen was shikan taza, just sitting rather than reflecting on koans. He had discovered in China that there were monks who had developed the ability to answer koans without actually attaining real insight; Dogen did not want this empty practice to emerge in Japan as well.
Dogen’s health had never been robust, and while still in his early fifties he became seriously ill. He determined to go to Kyoto to seek medical treatment, and, suspecting he might not return, he first appointed Koun Ejo Abbot of Eiheiji in his place. Ejo then accompanied his master to Kyoto. On August 15, Dogen composed his death poem:
Although I hope to see it once more in the autumn
How can I sleep with such a moon this evening?
He died in Kyoto thirteen days later, at the age of 53.
Dogen, along with Hakuin Ekaku (born more than 400 years later), was one of the most significant figures in the history of Japanese Zen. The prominence of the Soto tradition both in Japan and North America is his legacy. But he was not always an easy man to deal with. He was subject to depression and could hold long resentments.
Whereas Eisai had sought to form alliances with influential figures in Kyoto and Kamakura, Dogen chose instead to stand aloof from such contacts. He preferred solitude and shunned the powerful. It was at least in part due to the prominence he acquired as a teacher that he left Kannon-dori and moved to the more isolated Eiheiji when the opportunity presented itself.
He was also a man who was aware of his own shortcomings. And when a group of students asked Dogen to tell them something about his life, he made this brief assessment: “Just one mistake after another.”
|
|
| “Circle, Triangle, Square” by Sengai Gibon |
Koun Ejo, Dogen’s close friend and heir, came to the Soto Zen tradition after first spending time in the “Daruma” school of Dainichi Nonin. This school claimed descent from the Chinese Rinzai tradition, although Myoan Eisai and others questioned its validity.
Dainichi Nonin was a contemporary of Eisai’s who developed an interest in Buddhism at an early age. He was raised and trained in the Tendai Sect. He was a voracious reader and made a careful study of the various texts available to him. In particular, he was drawn to the descriptions he found of the meditation school brought to China by Bodhidharma (Daruma in Japanese). Following instructions he was able to glean from his reading, Nonin committed himself to the practice of meditation and achieved what he believed to be a genuine kensho. He set himself up as a teacher at Sanbo Temple (Sanboji), attached to the Tendai center in Settsu, and called his new school the “Daruma School” in honor of the first patriarch of Chinese Zen.
Although he was able to gather students who were interested in learning the practice of meditation, Nonin was conscious that he lacked official recognition of his enlightenment. So in the year 1189 he sent two of his disciples to visit the Rinzai master, Zhuo an Deguang, in China taking with them a letter in which Nonin asked the master to authorize his right to teach. Surprisingly, Zhuoan sent back a letter affirming the validity of Nonin’s awakening and presenting him with a “Dharma robe,” a traditional symbol of transmission.
Myoan Eisai did not receive transmission from Kian Esho until two years later, 1191, and when he returned to Japan, Eisai was dismissive of the Daruma School. Zen tradition in China insisted on mind-to-mind transmission between teacher and student, therefore the written authorization Nonin had received from Zhuoan was questionable.
Nonin was unfazed by his critics and continued to teach. Following the traditions he had read about, he even named a Dharma successor, Bucchi Kakuan. Kakuan left Sanboji to establish his own meditation center at Tonomine. In spite of the controversy over Nonin’s status, and thus that of his heirs, the Daruma School acquired some fame, and a number of individuals important in the history of Japanese Buddhism became Kakuan’s disciples. Among these were the monks Gien, Tettsu Gikai, and Koun Ejo.
KOUN EJO
Ejo was born into an aristocratic family and received a Buddhist education in the Tendai tradition as a matter of course. He may have been an over-sensitive child and was drawn to enter religious life at an early age, driven by a sense of his personal shortcomings. This sense of unworthiness was something with which Ejo would struggle throughout his entire life. Years later, while an Abbot and heir of Dogen, he would describe himself in a poem as:
Weighted down with karma and a despicable character,
By far the first among humans in sinfulness.
Barefoot he learned to walk.
Before he wore out his sandals, he saw his original self. (9)
In 1218, at the age of 20, he received the precepts from Master Enno of the Yokawa Tendai temple on Mount Hiei. He also studied the Shingon tradition. The monks on Mount Hiei lived comfortably and were held in high esteem. There was a hierarchy within which the monks sought to rise, accumulating social status as they did so. Ejo found himself gaining stature in this milieu and did not question it until his mother challenged him. She asked him pointedly: “Did you become a monk in order to be able to hobnob with the well-to-do? That’s not why I supported your desire to enter the monastery. You should not pursue these studies for the wealth or status they can bring you. My desire is that you commit yourself sincerely, practicing in poverty, without worldly ambition.”
Ejo realized he had strayed from his original intentions, and he left Mount Hiei, turning his back on both the Tendai and Shingon communities. He worked with a teacher in the Pure Land tradition for a while, practicing the nembutsu, then went to Tonomine and asked Kakuan to accept him as a student. Working with Kakuan, Ejo resolved some of his personal problems and achieved an initial awakening. Then sectarian rivals burned down Tonomine and its students scattered. Ejo was one of several who sought out Dogen at Kenninji.