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<\/a><\/div>\nI guess there\u2019s always more than one opinion.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201ck\u201d 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\u2019 perspectives. Click here for that<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The jist of \u201ck\u2019s\u201d criticism \u2013 as I understand it \u2013 is that koan introspection (particularly the \u201chead word\u201d technique, focusing on a single word or phrase in zazen) is a \u201cmisguided practice.\u201d 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.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
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First, of course, I\u2019d 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.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Second and with the same hand, these practices all actualize that truth and set up the accident of awakening. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Third, I\u2019d like to appeal for a suspension of judgments about others\u2019 practices being \u201cmisguided.\u201d There are, after all, many fine practitioners and Zen masters who\u2019ve 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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We\u2019re 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\u2019t think anybody can see yet exactly what approach \u2013 or combination \u2013 will be the most important. <\/span><\/div>\n
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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) \u2013 especially, our own practice, of course. Awakening is the important point, not intra-sect conflict.<\/span><\/div>\n
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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\u2019ve spent thousands of hours studying his teaching (really \u2013 starting with a couple thousand with Shobogenzo<\/i> with Katagiri) from the time I was a young pup. <\/span><\/div>\n
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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 \u201cmonk\u201d there\u2019s only a few left). Sometimes saying lay people can too. And yes, like wiping our butts with clay balls \u2013 a Dogen endorsed practice. And to further justify the use of the visual above, I\u2019m confident that His poop stank too, at least from time to time.<\/span><\/div>\n
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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 \u2013 Buddha, Dogen, Katagiri, whoever.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
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As for Dogen, in my view, his view was much more complex than a simple \u201cYes to koan introspection\u201d or \u201cNo to koan introspection.\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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He does specifically recommend taking up koan introspection in The Extensive Record of Dogen<\/i> (p. 529). He sometimes says things that are precisely the \u201canswers\u201d 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, \u201cHearing Joshu\u2019s mu the course of practice to be pursued opens up\u201d (see Bussho<\/i><\/a>, \u201cBuddha Nature\u201d and \u201cGuidelines for Practicing the Way\u201d part 8). He models the process of digesting a koan throughout the Shobogenzo<\/i>. His own teacher spoke glowingly of the mu koan (see Heine\u2019s Dogen and the Koan Tradition<\/i>, p. 235). Then there are his immediate successors \u2026 and on and on.<\/span><\/div>\n
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These examples can be interpreted differently, I suppose, although it takes quite a lot of thinking. Ockham\u2019s Razor (\u201c<\/span>the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable\u201d) would slice in favor of some form of koan introspection, imv.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Then there\u2019s the unclear business of what \u201ckoan introspection\u201d 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\u2019t have been talking exactly about what we now consider \u201ckoan introspection.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n
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Dogen was sometimes critical of Ta-hui, one of the key developers of the head word system, but mostly not for the system \u2013 for not breaking through himself (see <\/a><\/span>Jisho-zanmai<\/a>, 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. <\/span><\/div>\n