GENJO KOAN
As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, birth and 
death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings. As the myriad things are without an 
abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth 
and death. The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus 
there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. Yet, 
in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That
myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. Those who have 
great realization of delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about 
realization are sentient beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion. When buddhas are truly buddhas they do not necessarily notice that they are buddhas. However, they are actualized buddhas, who go on actualizing buddhas.


          All things are Buddha-dharma.  This is the essence of Buddhism right here.  The Zen Master Guite never gave a long dharma talk.  He just held up one finger.  All things are buddha-dharma.  As the myriad things are without an abiding self all things are buddha-dharma.  Why say more?  Why even say this much? We can see the world as one and we can see the world as many, this is knowing that all things are buddha-dharma.  Know that the one and the many are not separate   It may seem that Dogen is making a distinction but these two ways of seeing things are just differing expressions of the single way of seeing things, all things are buddha-dharma.
          In Mahayana Buddhism there are two essential strains of thought, oneness and emptiness.  Such Sutras as the Avatamsaka and Surangama express a philosophy of Oneness, of non-duality.  All things are buddha dharma.  The other strain of thought, sunyata translated from the Sanscrit as emptiness, is the subject of a whole family of Sutras called the Prajnaparamita Sutras which includes the popular Heart Sutra.  As all things are without an abiding self everything is empty of true existence   I don't see these two philosophic positions as essentially different but rather as complementary.  They must be understood together for there to be a deep understanding of either idea.  It is because all things are One that all things are empty and it is because all things are empty that all things are One.
          But as Zen practitioners we need not involve our selves in philosophic discussion but rather we go for the experiential root of both of these ideas, the place, the state of mind, where these ideas arise as obvious and we need not even talk about them.  This is what meditation is about.  Dogen says that the Buddha way is to leap clear of both these ideas.  This does not mean that it is not important for the practitioner to understand Oneness and Emptiness, these are important mileposts in Zen training, but that he/she should not carry these ideas around as attachments as they function in life.  One might say that Zen training is learning how to function with a clear mind, not pushed around by aversions and attachments.  Yet we need to have passed through the gate of Oneness and Emptiness to more then just briefly experience this clear mind in daily life

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That
myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

          Every line of the Genjo Koan is packed with meaning.  This is why people have written whole books on this three page essay.  In this blog it is impossible for me to do a line by line commentary as is customary in Zen.  On the other hand all of Zen comes from one basic experience.  Here in these two contrasting lines Dogen tells us about this experience in contrast to the experience of most people.  The root of delusion is our persistent idea of an individual self.  We experience through this idea.  We develop attachments and aversions because of this idea.  How do we experience the world if we forget our delusional idea of self?  We experience the self as the other.  But then the other has no self either.  Everything is ephemeral ever changing impermanent phenomena bound as One and I am included.  And in this knowledge we relax into an abiding intimacy where the self becomes the other.  Maybe saying, the self becomes the other, is too much.   Leaping clear of the many and the one, returning to life as a human being, we find ourselves experiencing and functioning with an ever present intimacy.

          


          

          Hi to all my readers.  In one of the sitting groups I lead we have been reading Dogen Zenji's Mountains and Rivers Sutra.  Some people in the group love reading Dogen others resist Dogen because he is so obscure.  The Sutra talks about mountains walking, how can mountains walk?  Dogen's writings are filled with images like this which seem to make no sense.  Whether loving or hating Dogen few people understand him.  
          I have been thinking it would be fun to do a commentary on something of Dogen's.  The Mountains and Rivers Sutra is too long for a blog commentary.  I have chosen the Genjo Koan more properly titled Actualizing the Fundamental Point. not only because it is shorter but also  because it is one of the most beautiful and profound pieces in all of Zen literature.  The translation I am using is from the San Francisco Zen Center. This translation is from a collaboration of Kazuaki Tanahashi, Robert Aitkin and others
          If you don't know Dogen, he was the man who brought Soto Zen from China to Japan, establishing the Soto Zen sect in Japan.  This was in the 13th Century, a long tme ago, but his writings are timeless.  His thought still has tremendous influence in Soto Zen.   
          In this blog I am just going to present the Genjo Koan without commentary. Soak it up.


GENJO KOAN
As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, birth and 
death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings. As the myriad things are without an 
abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth 
and death. The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus 
there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. Yet, 
in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.
To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That
myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. Those who have 
great realization of delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about 
realization are sentient beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond 
realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion. When buddhas are truly buddhas 
they do not necessarily notice that they are buddhas. However, they are actualized 
buddhas, who go on actualizing buddhas.
When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp 
things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon 
and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated the other side is dark.
To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the 
self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by 
myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop 
away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
When you first seek dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. 
But dharma is already correctly transmitted; you are immediately your original self.
When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore 
is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat 
moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you 
might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice 
intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has 
unchanging self.
Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not 
suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that 
firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood which fully includes past 
and future, and is independent of past and future.
Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash which fully includes future and 
past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return 
to birth after death. This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny 
that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an 
unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. 
Accordingly, death is understood as no-death. Birth is an expression complete this 
moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and 
spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon does not get 
wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is 
reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are 
reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does 
not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder 
enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth 
of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its 
duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the 
moonlight in the sky.
When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already 
sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is 
missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of ·an ocean where no 
land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not 
look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite 
in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can 
see at that time. All things are like this. Though there are many features in the dusty 
world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of 
practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know 
that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and 
mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, 
but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.
A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the 
water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air. 
However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is 
large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of 
them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its· realm. If 
the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once. 
Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be 
the bird and life must be the fish. It is possible to illustrate this with more analogies.
Practice, enlightenment, and people are like this.
Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, 
this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where 
you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way 
at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the 
way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not 
carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now. Accordingly, in the 
practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it; doing 
one practice is practicing completely.
Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not 
distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddhadharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is 
grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable 
may not be distinctly apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.
Zen master Baoche of Mount Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached 
and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not 
reach. Why, then do you fan yourself?" "Although you understand that the nature of 
wind is permanent;" Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its 
reaching everywhere." "What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the 
monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply. The 
actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like 
this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is 
permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither 
permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, 
the wind of the Buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant 
the cream of the long river.

          A friend recently sent me an essay by Ken Wilber on Integral Spirituality.  At first I was a little put off by the language and his obvious attempt to capture the uncapturable in language.  Also he was not coming from an inside view of the Zen mind.  On the other hand I could also be charged as guilty of trying to capture the uncapturable.  I also found his references to developmental psychology as interesting. reminded me of the many psychology courses I had taken for teacher training.  I was a High School teacher.  In the end I found the essay very interesting and it seemed to pose one basic question for us Zen practitioners.  Though we develop in our meditation through practice, does our development in meditation help us develop as complete humans in the many other aspects of our humanity, morally, cognitively, artistically, etc?  Wilber even suggests that Enlightenment may fix the individual at whatever stage they are in before the experience.
          Those of us who know something about the history of Zen and Buddhism in America are quite aware of the moral failings of many of the teachers of Zen and Buddhism who have come here from Asia, as well as some of our native born.  For the Asian born we give as an excuse  the differing morality of the various cultures and I think there is something to be said for this excuse.  For the native born I will not give an excuse.  
          I don't really want to go into Ken Wilber's philosophy accept to say it is based on a developmental model laying out hierarchies of development in the many aspects of being an individual.  We can also think of meditation practice in terms of hierarchies of development but I resist teaching it this way because the judgement of hierarchy is an impediment to practice where learning to not judge is an important aspect of practice.  And here we come to the crux of the issue.  If we don't judge how can we develop morally?  Is not moral development a type of cognitive development?  I remember studying Colberg's hierarchy of moral development which Wilber references.  At Colberg's highest level of moral development the individual has gone beyond adopting a moral system that the culture or a religion presents and develops personal criteria for making moral judgments.  On the other hand Zen students are often asked the question/koan, "Not making judgments of good or  bad who are you right this moment?"  If we want to see with the Zen eye, the eye of non-duality then we have  to drop all discrimination, especially the discrimination of good and bad.
           I don't think Ken Wilber is correct, though meditation is not an intellectual or emotional pursuit it has intellectual and emotional ramifications.  Wilber seems to think that you can meditate right past deep emotional issues and never have to deal with them.  Though I won't say that this is not possible, my experience is that it is not likely.  Deep emotional problems are barriers to deepening meditation.  Meditation as a process uncovers the unconscious, bringing the unconscious into the light of consciousness.  It is impossible to not encounter one's deep problems as meditation deepens and some how these problems must resolve before meditation continues to deepen, otherwise they cycle through our meditation preventing us from quieting our mind.  Sometimes the tools for resolving these issues are not to be found in meditation and one will need to go outside for help.  But often we can resolve many problems from within meditation. Being fully aware of the problem is the first step towards resolution.  Then understanding that most problems are the result of attachments and that if we can see what these attachments are and drop these attachments then the problem will be resolved.  The problem is dropping attachments.  Many of our attachments we can see as small minded and silly, but how do we drop, for example, the attachment we have to our life, or the lives of others?  How can we not be angry when we think of the events of this world?  How can we drop attachment to our moral convictions?  As long as we maintain our normal dualistic world view we are caught in the world of attachments. As long as we still view the world with dualistic eyes we may work on ending attachments that cause problems but we will still be living in the world of attachment.
          I had a friend and long time practitioner of Zen tell me that he thought it was impossible to end attachments, that even the idea that we should end attachments was an attachment.  Like a cat chasing its tail.  And he is right as long as we live with that dualistic view.  But,  Zen is about making a leap, it is not a gradual transformation but, a leap into the non-dual.  This leap happens on several levels.  It happens experientially in meditation and it also happens cognitively, emotionally and morally.  Experientially it happens in meditation by dropping all dualistic thought, and emotions.  And here we do have to meditate right past or through, by pure effort, our attachments and all our extraneous thought.  But if our attachments are too strong and we are not ready cognitively then when the meditative experience ends we will return to our normal dualistic way of thinking.  To be ready cognitively does not mean that we have to be ready to do calculus or any such difficult subject but rather just open minded and thoughtful. The cognitive leap that Shakyamuni Buddha made was expressed most specifically by three of his teachings.  One: everything is transitory, ever changing, impermanent, and transitory.  Two: everything that we experience is the result of causes and conditions.  Three: the previous two teachings are true for our experience of our selves and consequently there is no permanent self or soul. This is the way the Buddha expressed  his cognitive leap, but this is not the only way it can be expressed.  Each individual makes the cognitive leap in his own way, but the essence of the leap is the same.  It is a leap from duality into non-duality
            Getting to the point where we can make this leap takes a lot of work on many levels, not just meditation, but also in self examination, emotionally, morally and cognitively. This is what the Eight Fold Path of Buddhism is all about.  One might think of the eight Fold Path as an integral approach just without the benefits of modern psychology  In this sense our practice is gradual but at some point we have to make the leap and that leap in not gradual.   Then once we have made the leap then again the path is gradual but it has completely changed and changed us

          

    

How vast and wide the unobstructed sky of samadhi! 
How bright and clear the perfect moonlight of the Four-fold Wisdom! 
At this moment what more need we seek? 
As the eternal tranquility of Truth reveals itself to us, this very place is 
the Land of Lotuses and this very body is the body of the Buddha.


          Sitting in samadhi.  Our mind, a clear blue sky.  Nothing obstructing our vision.  A thought appears, a little puff of cloud that quickly passes.  Tranquility so deep that discrimination stops and becomes equanimity.  Everything just as it is, nothing added nothing subtracted.  At the same time, everything beautiful, everything perfect. But also everything empty, everything One. Nothing more, svaha.
          I have tried to look up the Four-fold Wisdom on the internet and not found anything.
Harada's comentary on the Song of Zazen also doesn't spell out what the four wisdoms are.
          One day I was in sanzen with Harada Roshi and he starts talking about the Four-fold Wisdom.  He tells me that I have become skilled at Absolute Samadhi, the type of samadhi in which thought stops, discrimination ends, and even memory is shut down, so that in retrospect this samadhi is black.  We only know we have been in Absolute Samadhi because the sitting period goes by so quickly and we can't even remember having thoughts or dreams, yet some how it changes us and we emerge absolutely clear and awake.  Harada tells me that this dark samadhi is the first wisdom and he wants me to show him that I am skilled in the other three wisdoms. I think he was just needling me so that I will put effort into the sesshin.  So what are the four wisdoms?
          This first wisdom is the wisdom of Emptiness.  This is the wisdom where nothing exists including the self, especially the self.  This is the wisdom of the Heart Sutra.  This wisdom realized in the experience of Absolute Samadh is the foundation wisdom from which all the rest of the wisdom that Zen and Buddhism has to offer derives.  Often, for a time, practitioners get stuck with this wisdom.  They don't move on and are caught in a sort of nihilism where nothing has any meaning or importance.  They just want to continue to sit in Emptiness.  It is quite blissful, but eventually life or a good teacher pulls them out.
          With a little growth in insight the Wisdom of Emptiness transforms into the Wisdom of Oneness.  This wisdom is found not in the dark of Absolute Samadhi but in the clear bright samadhi that emerges after we pass through Absolute Samadhi.  We have to let our intellegence work and recognize how the world emerges after all discrimination stops. My recognition of Oneness has taken many forms.  Many years ago I was sitting a sesshin deep in zazen listening to the birds make their early morning calls.  With one particularly loud call I disappeared, went into a dark samadhi that lasted only a moment.  When I came out of that samadhi it struck me that for that moment I had completely become that sound, that I could no longer identify an I that was separate from that sound.  This might seem a small and limited insight about a temporary phenomena but I understood it to be a much more important insight into the fundamental nature of things.  Without a conception of an individual "I" the conceptual boundaries between perceptions breaks down.  Sitting there with a quiet mind I stopped looking through space at the various things of this world but started  to see space as having a sort of substance and seeing things as embedded within space.  I understood that to see space as dividing one thing from another is not quite correct and that a better understanding is that space is the medium of connection, or maybe better said is that space is the connection between apparently separate things.  In a certain way I was seeing everything as a single entity, as one thing.  
            I remember that a couple weeks later, after I had returned home and had reentered my "normal life" and my normally active mind this vision of the world was gone but the experience was working on me in other ways.  My conception of my self had changed.  I understood that the greater truth was that I was not a separate individual but a small part of the larger Universe and I had started to identify myself as the larger Universe.  Also I started to identify myself as everything and everybody that exists within that larger Universe.  I would actually walk around and say to myself, as I looked at the many things and beings, "that's me, that's me."  These are only a few of the ways that I have and continue to experience Oneness  over the years both the experientially and intellectually.
          In Oneness all aspects of the world take on a sort of Holiness.   In Oneness the Universe and everything in it is seen as perfect, just not a perfection to satisfy human desires. this very place is the Land of Lotuses. In Oneness we come to identify ourselves with the Buddha, this very body is the body of the Buddha, but this body now is not just our limited human body  but a body without limits containing the whole Universe.
          All these highfalutin experiences and thoughts, what does this have to do with how  we function as human beings in this world?  With the first two wisdoms we have resolved the question of birth and death, we have resolved our fears and anxieties, our history, our karma.  This resolution has a certain effect, it settles the mind.  We see with a clarity which was previously obscured and a freedom of thought which was previously restrained.  Many practitioners of Zen seem to disdain dualistic thought, though this disdain is dualistic.  There is a place in our practice where we are trying to overcome our dualistic way of of thinking.  But there is also a place where we have to acknowledge the practicality of dualistic thought.  Dualism exists within the non-dual.  If we understand this then dualistic thought becomes a tool to freely use.  This third wisdom is to clearly discriminate without confusion.  I studied philosophy in college and I had a professor who would tare into my use of language, teaching me to use language and think clearly.  I think that this was an important discipline.  Extending this discipline is insight into non-duality because now when we come back to dualistic thinking we clearly see our dualistic assumptions that riddle out thoughts.  With this insight we loose our attachment to these dualistic thoughts,  but instead of purging ourselves from dualistic thinking we can use it freely.  
          Now comes the fourth wisdom, how do we use, out there in the everyday world,  our ability to discriminate and use dualistic thought?  Most of us are caught in a very limited world view.  We obsess over what we want, how we feel, maybe we think a lot about our family, maybe we extend our thoughts to the larger world but usually we do this with judgments based upon our own personal attachments and limited world view.  We Buddhists call this Samsara.  But through our practice we learn to look out at the world without all these I centered attachments and judgments and what we see and feel and think is our unity with all things and it is through this understanding and feeling that we now act.  I might say something so absurd as, we become conduits for the Universe's love, compassion and self realization This last wisdom is just the skill in which we function as conduits of the this love, compassion, and self realization.
          Hakuin, at least in translation, places a singular emphasis an the four fold wisdom, as not being four separate wisdoms plural but rather as four aspects of a single wisdom.  If we review we will see that all four aspects cannot be separated from our practice of zazen.  The Sixth Patriarch of Zen Hui Neng refused to separate wisdom from Zazen.  He said, "Good friends what is zazen and wisdom like?  They are like a lamp and it's light. ...  The names may be two but in essence they are basically one and the same"* In time and place wisdom may manifest differently.  Insight may grow in time but the root is in our practice of Zazen.
          So ends my commentary on The Song of Zazen by Hakuin Zenji.  If you have any comments please add them to the Blog.

* This quote if from Thomas Cleary's translation of The Sutra of Hui Neng. I changed the words stabilization to zazen and insight to wisdom to make the language more in line with my commentary.