The Koan/Shikantaza Issue: Was Dogen Misguided?

I guess there’s always more than one opinion.

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“k” has made several comments to a post that appeared here in October about a Dogen passage that I read as giving clear directions for doing koan introspection that featured the Boundless Way Zen teachers’ perspectives. Click here for that.

The jist of “k’s” criticism – as I understand it – is that koan introspection (particularly the “head word” technique, focusing on a single word or phrase in zazen) is a “misguided practice.” k quotes Jundo from a post at the Zen Forum International as saying that he and a couple other people Jundo respects think that Dogen viewed koan introspection in zazen to be misguided.

First, of course, I’d like to agree. On one hand, koan introspection, shikantaza, and following the breath are all quite misguided, gouging healthy flesh, wiping a perfectly clean butt.

Second and with the same hand, these practices all actualize that truth and set up the accident of awakening.

Third, I’d like to appeal for a suspension of judgments about others’ practices being “misguided.” There are, after all, many fine practitioners and Zen masters who’ve engaged in koan introspection, shikantaza and breath practice and found one or the other or all three and more to be the quintessential practice-verification of the buddhadharma.

We’re in a period now in the global culture of digesting many wonderful aspects of our human inheritance and some of us are trying to find a way for Zen to have a clear voice in choir. I don’t think anybody can see yet exactly what approach – or combination – will be the most important.

In this spirit, Dogen encouraged us not to argue about philosophical points but only inquire to see if the practice was actual (Bendowa, question 4) – especially, our own practice, of course. Awakening is the important point, not intra-sect conflict.

And what does it really matter if Dogen had the opinion that koan introspection was misguided? Despite Dogen and God having the same first three letters backwards, Zen is a path of realization, not a revealed religion. Certainly, Dogen was a brilliant, enlightened, profound practitioner and teacher. I’ve spent thousands of hours studying his teaching (really – starting with a couple thousand with Shobogenzo with Katagiri) from the time I was a young pup.

Like everybody else, he said a lot of stuff, sometimes contradictory, and was probably misguided in some ways or at least his guidance for us today, if taken literally, would be to guide us off course. Like sometimes saying that only monks could be enlightened (and by his definition of “monk” there’s only a few left). Sometimes saying lay people can too. And yes, like wiping our butts with clay balls – a Dogen endorsed practice. And to further justify the use of the visual above, I’m confident that His poop stank too, at least from time to time.

In order to be authentic dharma students and teachers, we need to devote ourselves to the way as our teachers offer(ed) it while being lanterns unto ourselves and taking responsibility without depending on others – Buddha, Dogen, Katagiri, whoever.

As for Dogen, in my view, his view was much more complex than a simple “Yes to koan introspection” or “No to koan introspection.” When he was critical of koans he was probably speaking to specific abuses he observed, maybe in his students, maybe they were doing koan introspection. He may have been giving his students guidance in what he believed was the correct way to work with koans.

He does specifically recommend taking up koan introspection in The Extensive Record of Dogen (p. 529). He sometimes says things that are precisely the “answers” to koans in the present Harada-Yasutani system, so much so that I wonder if he had access to the same material. He describes the experience of kensho in vivid and compelling ways. He often gives advice that rings true to all those I know who are engaged in koan introspection. He seems to advocate for the mu koan, for example, “Hearing Joshu’s mu the course of practice to be pursued opens up” (see Bussho, “Buddha Nature” and “Guidelines for Practicing the Way” part 8). He models the process of digesting a koan throughout the Shobogenzo. His own teacher spoke glowingly of the mu koan (see Heine’s Dogen and the Koan Tradition, p. 235). Then there are his immediate successors … and on and on.

These examples can be interpreted differently, I suppose, although it takes quite a lot of thinking. Ockham’s Razor (“the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable”) would slice in favor of some form of koan introspection, imv.

Then there’s the unclear business of what “koan introspection” meant then and now. Dogen lived about 500 years before Hakuin cleaned up and codified the basics of the present koan system so he couldn’t have been talking exactly about what we now consider “koan introspection.”

Dogen was sometimes critical of Ta-hui, one of the key developers of the head word system, but mostly not for the system – for not breaking through himself (see Jisho-zanmai, Samadhi of the Self, Shobogenzo4, p. 41). On the other hand, he praised Ta-hui for sitting zazen even when his hemorrhoids were really severe.

When Dogen talks about shikantaza, for that matter, he doesn’t sound like most people who talk about shikantaza these days. When he talks about koans, which is about 90% of the time, he doesn’t seem to distinguish them from shikantaza. For example, in his chapter “The Healing Point of Zazen,” he uses the thinking, not-thinking, non-thinking koan to present the verified practice of zazen. He could be seen here as assigning a life koan.

In my own koan work, I sometimes focus on the key parts of a koan in zazen, the so-called head word method. I sometimes let the koan just bubble up from my belly. I sometimes call the koan to heart just as I’m falling to sleep (in bed, that is) – this is my favorite way. Sometimes the koan arises in the midst of daily life.

Like the Boundless Way teachers say in the original post, I don’t recommend any special technique to students. One of the virtues of koan introspection is how it calls for us to be creative and free – one of the central compelling characteristics of Dogen’s writing.

As both Soto master Katagiri Roshi and Rinzai master Harada Shodo Roshi taught me, “Zen practice is not something particular.”