Nomon Tim continues his exploration of the teachings of Eihei Dogen, and offers a reflection on the Fukanzazengi in this first post-practice period talk. Part 1 of 2.

You can read part 2 here.

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Tim's talk notes:

One of the chants by Eihei Dōgen in our chant book is his instruction manual on how to sit zazen, called in Japanese Fukan-zazen-gi. You can hear the "zazen" in the middle - it means a "universal recommendation to do zazen."

This seems like a pretty sensible thing to write down but actually in the Chinese Chan tradition there are almost no writings like this. As you may recall the word we call "Zen" from our Japanese ancestors is pronounced "Chan" in Chinese. I'll use the two a bit interchangeably here.

There's a famous set of rules and procedures for life in the monastery attributed to one of the Tang dynasty greats the 8th century teacher Baizhang Huaihai. Although as is common modern scholars now feel doubt about whether he wrote them - they might have been written later and attributed to Baizhang because his name had a lot of street cred. That set of monastic rules was very wide spread and every monk knew about it. But Bhaizhang only kind of mentions meditation, no real instructions there.

And then we have in the 11th century the first known detailed directions on meditation by a Chinese Chan teacher named Tsung-tse. We know for sure Dōgen read that because he copied whole sections of it for his Fukanzazengi. And scholars say Tsung-tse's text opened the flood gates a bit and in both Japan and China teachers started writing essays on how to sit.

Why no manuals for hundreds of years? It's hard to say. Probably all instruction about zazen was given orally in talks and mostly one on one and it just wasn't written down. There are TONS of books from that era about the biographies of important monks and teachers and their sayings and doings - many of which became koans, but very little practical material about how to sit or do the rituals.

It's also possible that in the 11th and 12th centuries there was a growing interest in making meditation more available to people beyond the monasteries - and here this would mean the upper classes only who were literate. And probably there were some political and economic angles there: the Zen establishments seeking favor and funding from the governments and warlord families that had the clout and the money. Check out the cool thing we do, you can do it to, especially if you follow our great teacher's instructions.

So Dōgen's wasn't the only such text, there were many more but only starting about then.

So soon after Dōgen returned from China he wrote the first version of his own meditation manual. But it turns out that what we have in our chant books isn't that text, it's a version that he revised towards the end of his teaching career. I have a fun dense scholarly book telling the whole complex story of the different versions of Fukanzazengi called Dōgen's Manuals of Zen Meditation by Carl Bielefeldt if your interested in a deep dive. It gets a little confusing.

Everything we have from those days was written by hand and copied by hand and there weren't very many copies. There were wood block letter presses in Dōgen's day but I assume they were few and only used for a limited array of texts. So anyway one version gets stuck in the back cabinet of a remote monastery and doesn't surface again for 500 years while meanwhile another version is being copied over and over again and each time it's copied there might be accidental errors or the monk doing the copying thinks he knows better what the teacher meant or maybe he assumes the last copyist made a mistake and he tried to correct it. Thus we never really know for sure what the original looked like.

In this case we actually do have a copy of the first version of Fukanzazengi that appears to be in Dōgen's handwriting - that's a rare thing. But the later version that became the most popular and made it to us here today has a murkier history. As we go along I'll call out a few of the differences between the two versions when they seem interesting.

Anyway - scholarly intro out - let's dive in.

The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?

The Way here means the teachings and the true reality they point to. The Way is deeply how-it-is and if we live in accord with the Way, the tradition says, we are free. And being free we don't need to suffer and we have an amazing capacity to be of service to others. There's no burn out when we're fully in the Way. And that Way is just as it is, it doesn't need us to improve it or fix it or even figure it out.

So why would we have to work or improve "What need is there for concentrated effort?". It's important to feel into Dōgen's permission here for us to relax! What is there to grasp at after all?

Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean?

Body here means body and mind - all of the aspects of our existence. Dust means the suffering that we kick up by banging around the relative world. The so-called regular world that we see and talk about. Dust is suffering and confusion.

Since our true reality is beyond that. You might say dust can't stick to us, or even better that there is no dust, or that dust is empty of any substantial anyway. Since the dust is like that why would be try brushing it off. What's to brush off?

 It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?

The "it" here is the Way. It's right here. It's us. It's not some separate thing, so why run around and try to find it or do it or figure it out?

And you can see the irony here of Dōgen writing "What is the use of going off here and there to practice?" when he himself just undertook a perilous journey across the sea to China in order to practice.

So this first paragraph is reminding us of the true reality. The deep reality that we're okay. We're really okay. And reality is just so. No other way it could be. This isn't denying the mess relative world but without being grounded in the absolute we're all running around like the proverbial headless chickens.

But it is a funny way to start a manual on meditation isn't it? The first point I want to make is there no reason whatsoever to do meditation. You're already complete just as you are.

And then the powerful pivot of the whole text is "and yet."

And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is lost in confusion. Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the Way and clarifying the Mind, raising an aspiration to escalade the very sky. One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.

If you don't deeply feel this interpenetration of the experience you call "me" and the Way you've lost it. You're stuck in the saha world - the relative world of suffering. And the most powerful mental engine for losing the Way and being stuck in the saha world? Preferences! If the least like or dislike arises you're falling into deep confusion about who and what you are, what all of this is. This is really important point in practice. Softening the hold of preference is the path to freedom. It doesn't mean you won't have values and things that matter but not in that way that divides the world into "I like it" and "I don't like it." According to Buddhist psychology this happens very powerfully as a low level of consciousness, so it's a deep work to examine and heal our preferencing.

Probably the English should have a paragraph break after "confusion" because then we're on a new topic.

Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the Way and clarifying the Mind, raising an aspiration to escalade the very sky. One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.

Now we're talking about someone, like us!, who plunges deeply into the practice but does so from this basis of not being fully integrated in right understanding of the Way. It can feel good, it can feel exciting. There are insights. There are things that shift. For some there are impressive experiences like visions and powerful feelings of openness and wellness. You get really psyched. Maybe you write a book about your enlightenment experience and get on Oprah.

But, he says, don't be fooled that's not it either.

One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.

Next he brings up some famous examples of great practitioners and points out that they didn't just pop into existence, they too had to practice.

Need I mention the Buddha, who was possessed of inborn knowledge? The influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still. Or Bodhidharma's transmission of the mind-seal?  The fame of his nine years of wall-sitting is celebrated to this day. Since this was the case with the saints of old, how can we today dispense with negotiation of the Way?

That's good I think, really skillful, to focus on role models. To be inspired by people who've practiced deeply. That was a big part of what kept me interested when I first went to Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in the 1980's. There was something about those people. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but there was something impressive. Something deep. Something really interesting in their bearing - their energy if you will.

I also learned early on not to idealize senior practitioners. I was shocked one day, I think during my second stay at Green Gulch when a senior person admitted she didn't like zazen all that much. Shocking! And also I witnessed some really viscous arguments between residents that was a bit of a surprise. They get mad and confused and argue too!

So that was the introduction: you're perfect as you are but could use a little improvement basically. And when you get fired up by this whole thing don't think you've got it - be humble and curious, wonder about your blind spots. Think of those who've gone further on the path than you and learn from them. Asking for help is implied here too I think.

And now we pivot to how to do it and especially how not to do it.

You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.

If you don't consider yourself that "smart" in an intellectual way I hope you feel reassured. And if you do feel like you have  a lot of smarts here's an encouragement to get go and be humble.

And don't be limited by what you can talk about and what you can think. Words and speech can only describe the shapes of things using concepts, they can't penetrate into the true reality.

Zen has a funny relationship with words. There's a famous 4 line poem that describes what makes Zen different from the rest of Buddhism. It's a saying attributed to Bodhidharma but it's another one of those were scholars tell us he probably never said that. One line of this poem is "not dependent on words and letters" and this written down in an enormous literature as I mentioned earlier. Zen has a lot to say about there being nothing to say!

So what to do instead of talking, discussing, thinking, and figuring it all out?

learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self.

Here I am with only words to try to talk with out about this move that's beyond words. What does it feel like to you to hear that encouragement from Dōgen? What would it be to take the backward step. How might it feel to turn you light inwardly?

If you do, good things happen:

Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.

Again, what might that be: body and mind dropping away. Dropping away! Your original face meaning your true self, your true nature, who you deeply are beyond all those ideas you hold about who you are.

And then another encouragement to keep at it:

If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.

Suchness, sometimes translated as thusness, is another term for the interpenetration of the Way and everything. Of the non-separateness of the absolute and the relative. It's a translation of the Sanskrit term "tatha" which is one of the names for the Buddha that shows up in our chants: the Tathagatha. The one who is such, the "thus come one". It's the awakened nature of everything.

And to know it we must practice it. I don't know about "attain" there. What is there to attain. Another translation of that line in Dōgen's revised Fukanzazengi has, "If you want such a state, urgently work at such a state." Interestingly his early Fukanzazengi says, "If you want such, urgently work at zazen."

So far it appears these word appear to be all Dōgen's original thoughts.

The next part is largely copied from this 11th century manual by Tsung-tse and we'll look into it next week.

Dialogue questions:

What does taking the backward step and turning your light inwardly mean to you

What does body and mind dropping away feel like? Can you show something about that?