Dogen's Dropping off Body-Mind in China

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Dogen traveled to China in 1223 and practiced in various monasteries there for about four years, returning to Japan in 1227. His enlightenment experience took place at Tiantong Mountain in 1225, practicing under the direction of the Caodong (Soto) Zen master Rujing. According to one biographical source, Rujing chided a monk sitting next to Dogen who had fallen asleep during an intensive meditation session: “To study Zen is to cast off body-mind. Why are you engaged in single-minded seated slumber rather than single-minded seated meditation.” Upon hearing this reprimand, Dogen attained a "great awakening”. He later entered Rujing’s quarters and reported that he had come “because body-mind is cast off.” Rujing responded approvingly, “Body-mind is cast-off (shinjin datsuraku); cast off body mind (datsuraku shinjin).” Dogen responded by telling Rujing, “Do not grant the Seal [of transmission] indiscriminately.” Rujing replied, “Cast off casting off.”

Keizan Jokin, an important Soto master two generations after Dogen, tells a similar story about the exchange with Rujing (with some extra elements) in his collection The Transmission of Light, although he leaves out the triggering incident of the sleeping monk (he does in another place state that Rujing scolded the entire assembly for sleeping). Keizan says that one night during meditation, Rujing said to the assembly that “Zen study is the shedding of mind and body.” Upon hearing this, according to Keizan, Dogen was suddenly and greatly enlightened.

I believe that the consensus among modern scholars is that the reprimand of the sleeping monk is a later fiction. I think that the account of his exchange with Rujing is similarly suspect. Interestingly, I’m pretty sure that Dogen does not include in any of his writings any description of the sleeping monk, of any great awakening experience that he experienced at Tiantong, or of the exchange with Rujing in his quarters. We can imagine that he perhaps did have a dramatic breakthrough of some sort that resolved his earlier doubts about the dharma but that he did not write about it—perhaps because his dharma (way) was one of continuous practice-enlightenment that did not stress the before and after experience of kensho (great sudden awakening). Or, perhaps his enlightenment was a deep but gradual unfolding. While the stories above may or may not be accurate, they have been carried forward in the tradition in the spirit of legend and practice instruction.

Dogen did write about his experience in China, in a text titled Hõkyõ-ki. It is an interesting read and is hyperlinked here. Dogen wrote to Rujing at or near the beginning of his time at the monastery, requesting permission to come to Rujing’s quarters so he could ask questions about the Dharma. He records Rujing’s response as follows: “From this time hence, day or night without regard to the hour, whether you are wearing your surplice (formal monk’s clothes) or not, you are free to come to my quarters and ask about the Way. I shall be just like a father allowing lack of ceremony in his son.”

Dogen wrote that Rujing taught: “Zen practice is body and mind dropping off. You have no need for incense-burning, homage paying, doing nembutsu (chanting Buddha’s name), performing penances, or reading sutras. Just single-minded sitting (shikantaza) alone.” Dogen says that he then asked Rujing, “What is ‘body and mind dropping off’?” Rujing responded: “Body and mind dropping off is zazen. When you do zazen singlemindedly, you are freed from the five desires [appetites for property, sexual love, food, fame and sleep] and eliminate the five restraints [hindrances].” Dogen challenged Rujing here, stating that the five desires and five hindrances were spoken of in the so-called doctrinal schools (the “Greater and Lesser Vehicles” based on various Buddhist sutras as opposed to Zen. Rujing rebuked him, stating, “Descendants of the patriarch Bodhidharma [meaning Zen followers] should not shun arbitrarily teachings of either Greater or Lesser Vehicle. Should a student betray the holy teachings of the Tathagata, how could he dare call himself a descendant of the buddhas and ancestors!”

Undettered, Dogen pressed on and commented that “doubters” nevertheless said that the three poisons (greed, anger and ignorance) as such are the Buddha Dharma and that the five desires are the way of the ancestors, and that “if you eliminate them you are in effect choosing the good and rejecting the bad just like followers of the Lesser Vehicle [i.e., followers of the early Buddhist sutras akin to our our modern vipassana tradition]. What about that?” The translator of this text (Waddell) comments that Dogen’s question reflected a tendency in certain Zen circles of the time to superficially express the absolute unity between passions and enlightenment, “equating passions and enlightenment in an easy formula that would downgrade the role of practice and realization.” Rujing answered Dogen’s question: “If you don’t rid yourself of the three poisons and five desires, you’re no different from …[various] non-Buddhist groups that were found [at the time of the Buddha]. If a follower of the buddhas and ancestors rids himself [or herself] of even one hindrance or desire, it will bring immense benefit. It’s the time he [or she] meets and buddhas and ancestors face to face.”

In another portion of the text, Dogen recounts Rujing stating that “descendants of buddhas and ancestors”hr begin by ridding themselves of the five hindrances and then rid themselves of the sixth.” Rujing explained that the six hindrances are made up of the five traditional hindrances and the restraint of basic ignorance. Dogen asked Rujing, “is there some secret method for removing the five hindrances and the six hindrances? Rujing smiled and asked him, “What is the practice you have been working on all this time? That in itself is the way to eliminate the six hindrances…When buddha after buddha and ancestor after ancestor divorced themselves of the five hindrances and six hindrances….they did so without any recourse to gradual stages but by pointing straight to the mind and transmitting the Dharma personally. You work singlemindedly on just sitting alone and arrive at dropping off of your body and mind—that is the way to break free of the five hindrances and five desires.”

According to Dogen’s account, Rujing was singularly focused on just sitting as the key practice, and that he emphasized that just sitting was dropping off body and mind. There is some scholarly doubt as to whether Rujing actually used the expression “body-mind”, or even “body and mind.” Perhaps I’ll take up this additional layer of complexity in another post. For now, the key point is that whatever happened at Tiantong Mountain, and whatever Rujing actually said, what Dogen carried forward to Japan (and beyond) was that the dropping off of body-mind through just sitting was the essential practice, not separate from enlightenment itself.

Aspects of Just Sitting: Introduction

By Bob Zeglovitch

I’ve begun working with some of the members of our sangha who are newer to Zen, giving some guidance on traditional Soto Zen meditation practice.  In connection with this effort, I’m going to write a series of posts to capture some of the unique elements of this style.  I’m hoping these posts will be of interest to others as well.  My goal is to highlight one aspect of the practice in each post, although it may turn out that certain aspects deserve more than one post.  I’ll do my best to keep the posts relatively short.  This practice is subtle and deep. I don’t pretend that my entries will be fully comprehensive or an “authoritative word” on the matter!  This posting is an introduction--I’ll move into the details of the practice in future entries. 

There are many varieties of Buddhist meditation.  It is perhaps an obvious point but it is worth saying anyway--they are not all the same practice!  The core meditation practice in Soto Zen is shikantaza, or “just sitting.”  This is sometimes referred to as a “methodless method.”  The classic Zen texts on just sitting contain much commentary, with a lot of beautiful poetic language, but not too much detail on how the practice should be done.  This is likely purposeful, because just sitting is not a step-by-step practice where you “get better.”  You might say that it is more direct, more “immediate”.  You are not concentrating or focusing on a particular object of your awareness, blocking out thoughts or the “outside world”, working with images, or reflecting on anything.  You are not engaging in thinking (and yet thoughts may come and go).  You are not trying to make anything happen or go away.  But you are not indifferent or drifting off.  You are “just sitting” with vital awareness of the totality of the ever unfolding present moment, together with the universe. 

Of course, most of us come to meditation for a reason, trying to improve or to get something for ourselves.  Our current cultural milieu supports this—I’m thinking in particular of the mindfulness movement and its emphasis on the clinical benefits of meditation.  And we invariably want to know, “am I doing it right?”  So the practice of just sitting presents us with some challenges and requires a major shift in perspective.  Further, while this is not a goal oriented practice, we take care to avoid complacency or an attitude of “anything goes.”  

For starters, you might just allow yourself to be curious about what it means to “just sit”.  In Dogen’s seminal text Fukanzazengi (Universal Instructions for Zazen), he states: “This zazen [meditation] I speak of is not learning meditation.  It is simply the dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment.”  Can you allow yourself to sit like this right now, without trying to figure the meaning out or trying to achieve anything and regardless of what feelings of deficiency or lack you may have?  Going forward we’ll try to flesh this out a bit. The complete text of Fukanzazengi is found on the Chants/Foundational Texts page of this website.  

A historical note:  The founder of the Soto lineage in Japan (referred to as Caodong in China, where it originated) was Eihei Dogen (1200-1253).  Dogen’s great awakening, realized while practicing just sitting, took place in China, where he was studying under Tiantong Rujing (1163-1228).  Another key figure in the lineage is Hongzhi Zhengue (1091-1157), a prior abbott at Rujing’s temple.  Hongzhi taught the practice of “silent illumination”, which is essentially another name for shikantaza/just sitting.  The just sitting practice has roots that go way back in the tradition of Chan (Zen) Buddhism in China.  Elements can be found in the writings of the eighth-century Chinese master Shitou Xiqiang (700-790) (the author of the Harmony of Difference and Equality) and his successor, Yaoshan Weiyan (745-820).  (The text of the Harmony of Difference and Equality is found on the Chants/Foundational Texts page of this website). And the origins go back even further.  We may return to some of these masters and their writing in future posts.