_No monk shall be admitted to this meditation hall unless he has an
earnest desire for the Way and a strong determination not to seek fame
and profit. . . . All monks in this hall should try to live in harmony
with one another, just as milk blends well with water. . . . You should
not walk about in the outside world; but if unavoidable, it is
permissible to do so once a month. . . . Keep the supervisor of this
hall informed of your whereabouts at all times. . . .Never speak ill of
others nor find fault with them. . . . Never loiter in the hall. . . .
Wear only robes of plain material. . . . Never enter the hall drunk
with wine. . . . Never disturb the training of other monks by inviting
outsiders, lay or clerical, into the hall. . . .15
_Dogen maintained this first pure Zen monastery for a decade, during
which time he composed forty more sections of his classic Shobogenzo.
And during this time the tree of Zen took root in Japanese soil firmly
and surely.
But things could not go smoothly forever. Dogen's powerful friends at
court protected him as long as they could, but eventually his
popularity became too much for the jealous Tendai monks on Mt. Hiei to
bear. To fight their censure he appealed to the emperor, claiming (as
had Eisai before him) that Zen was good for Japan. But the other
schools immediately filed opposing briefs with the emperor and the
court, culminating in a judiciary proceeding with distinguished clerics
being convened to hear both sides. As might have been expected they
ruled against Dogen, criticizing him for being obsessed with _zazen
_and ignoring the sutras, etc. It probably was this political setback
that persuaded him to quit the Kyoto vicinity in 1243 and move to the
provinces, where he could teach in peace.16
He camped out in various small Tendai monasteries (where he wrote
another twenty-nine chapters of the _Shobogenzo_) until his final
temple, called Eihei-ji, or Eternal Peace, was completed in the
mountains of present-day Fukui prefecture. This site became the center
of Soto Zen in Japan, the principal monastery of the sect. Dogen
himself was approaching elder statesmanhood, and in 1247 he was
summoned to the warrior headquarters of Kamakura by none other than the
most powerful man in Japan, the warrior Hojo Tokiyori. The ruler wanted
to learn about Zen, and Dogen correctly perceived it would be unhealthy
to refuse the invitation.
The warriors in Kamakura would most likely have been familiar with the
syncretic Rinzai Zen of Eisai, which focused on the use of the koan.
For his own part, Dogen did not reject the koan out of hand (he left a
collection of three hundred); rather he judged it a device intended to
create a momentary glimpse of satori, or enlightenment, whose real
value was mainly as a metaphor for the enlightenment experience--an
experience he believed could be realized in full only through gradual
practice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account