Reflections on Tao/Way/Dharma-Vehicle

By: Armin Baer

I’m writing with some reflections on Bob Zeglovitch’s talk on September 15, a recording of which can be found on the Dharma Talks page of this website.  Bob quoted David Hinton (China Root, Taoism, Ch’an and Original Zen) on the philosophical Taoist meaning of Tao:  “…a generative cosmological process, an ontological pathway by which things come into existence, evolve through their lives, and then go out of existence, only to be transformed and reemerge in a new form.” 

Hearing this again brought back many things I had read in my learning about Taoism years ago and also how much Taoism may have influenced and been a source for the development of Zen in China.  One thing I had been told was that early translators of the Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese had to borrow terms from Taoism to introduce the new concepts.  At first I had assumed that the term “dharma” would use the character for Tao, since both describe an unbounded, universal truth of the nature of things.  But later I learned that the word “dharma” is translated using a different Chinese character meaning “law.”  And the Chinese Buddhists then also used the term “Tao” in its original Taoist meaning, and included it as part of Buddhist concepts, even if it didn’t have a counterpart in the Indian texts.   

So in the version of the Fukanzazengi that we are reading, I am struck by the term in the first paragraph, “dharma-vehicle” used as a synonym for Tao/Way. So what does it mean to say that the Tao/Way is the vehicle for carrying, or perhaps expressing, the Dharma/Law?  In philosophical Taoism, the Tao is not only the cosmological source, it is beyond our knowing and describing, and it is endlessly dynamic, like a river that in which we are ever swept along.  One either flows with it and live/dies/re-emerges in harmony with that movement, or one resists the constant movement and suffers.  Hinton writes that Zen followers were often called “those who flow along with Tao.”  Perhaps as we embrace the Buddha’s instruction on the nature of karma, ignorance and liberation from suffering, we are enabled to stop resisting and begin to live in harmony with the dynamic flow of the Way.

One other reaction I had to Bob’s talk had to do with the contrast that he played with between the Christian idea of original sin and the Dogen’s portrayal of the Way/Tao in Fukanzazengi as “perfect and all-pervading” and “the whole body is far beyond the world’s dust.  Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, I can understand what he was pointing to. 

My thoughts were drawn to a different pair of Christian theological concepts that I think are very apt in this discussion of the Tao: immanence and transcendence.  In Christian monotheism, God the Creator is the sole and boundless source of all that is, and the concept of immanence includes the idea that the Creator’s divine love expresses itself in the existence of everything and everything that is created is not separate from that divine love.  That existence by its very nature might then be called perfect and all-pervading.  Transcendence describes, in part, the impulse of the divine nature that exists in everything that is created to become one with the Creator through the act of existing and at the cessation of existence (return to the divine Source?)  I’m using words here that are probably not theologically accurate in terms of Christian texts, but I believe they roughly express the basic concepts.  If we take the anthropomorphized aspects of the divine out of the Christian concepts, there is some overlap with the Tao as creative source of existence and the cycles of return and transformation.   Ever since I first learned about philosophical Taoism, I’ve been intrigued by the resonances between these ideas.  Of course, there are many and fundamental differences, but how wonderfully rich this all is!  

Fukanzazengi: The "Perfect" Way

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Returning again to the first line of the Fukanzazengi, Dogen describes the Way as “perfect and all- pervading.”  How does “perfect” land for you?  There is something about “perfect” that might seem off somehow.  Things often seem less than perfect in our world, both outer and inner.  But of course, the point of this sentence is not that the universe is always arranged just to our liking!  In Maezumi Roshi’s commentary on this sentence, he points out that the Japanese word that means “perfectly pervasive” can also mean “unhindered functioning.”    This has a slightly different feel to it.  Elsewhere, he says the word “perfect” is not quite adequate and suggests adding the word “complete,” as in: “Nothing is lacking; nothing is in excess.  No two things are identical.  Each of us is distinctly different, perfect, and complete.” (Quotes are from On Zen Practice: Body, Breath and Mind, Taizan Maezumi and Bernie Glassman)

I appreciate how Maezumi includes each of us, with all of our flaws and quirks, in the perfect and complete Way.  My take on this phrase is that it expresses how in each moment, the things of the world and our being and experience in the world cannot be other than they are, having been brought about by the karma of innumerable causes and conditions—and that the underlying reality far beyond our understanding is complete.  Of course we can take actions designed to bring about certain different future results, including in the very short term.  But this phrase, for me, reminds me that I am enmeshed in the complexities and mystery of the Tao, that it is good to have humility and perspective about my actions, and that the wise course is often to let things unfold without interference.     

Fukanzazengi: The Way

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Yesterday we examined the first paragraph of the Fukanzazengi, paying particular attention to the term “Way.” The first line of the Fukanzazengi reads: “The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading.” Way is an English translation of Tao. Thus, we can immediately begin to see the connection between Taoism and the Zen tradition that Dogen brought to Japan.

Tao originally meant “way” as in “pathway” or “roadway.” It still has this meaning, and one, somewhat limited but practical understanding of way is the Buddhist path that we are walking along. But, it seems apparent from the first sentence of Fukanzazengi that “way” must be more than this. The Chinese translator/poet David Hinton tells us that Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the great Taoist writers, redefined it as a generative cosmological process, an ontological pathWay by which things come into existence, evolve through their lives, and then go out of existence, only to be transformed and reemerge in a new form. In China, practitioners of Ch’an were often called “those who follow Tao”, or more literally, “those who flow along with Tao.” This brings together “pathway”, or practice, and the ultimate reality that is beyond intellectual understanding that Hinton points to as the deeper meaning of the term.

Kaz Tanahashi says, “Tao is a secret of the universe, the ultimate reality, which cannot be expressed, spoken about, understood intellectually; it has to be experienced through practice…”. This non-intellectual experiencing of the Way through practice, of flowing along with the Way, is the essence of the “just sitting” practice expressed in the Fukanzazengi.

Here is a great quote from Maezumi Roshi, providing yet another vantage point on “Way”:

What is the Way?  In technical terms it’s anuttara samyak sambodhi, unsurpassable supreme enlightenment.  This Sanskrit phrase can also be translated as the “Supreme Way”, the “very best Way”, the “unsurpassable Way,” or as “Perfect Wisdom,” which is what enlightenment actually is.  Enlightenment is synonymous with the Way.  The Supreme Way, complete realization, is perfect in itself, by itself.

What is wisdom? What is anuttara samyak sambodhi?  It is our life itself.  We not only have that wisdom, we are constantly using it.  When it’s cold, we put on more clothing.  When it’s hot we take some clothes off.  When hungry, we eat.  When sad, we cry.  Being happy, we laugh.  That’s perfect wisdom.

And this perfect wisdom doesn’t only pertain to humans, but to anyone and everything.  Birds chirp, dogs run, mountains are high, valley’s are low.  It’s all perfect wisdom!  The season’s change, the stars shine in the heavens, its perfect wisdom.  Regardless of whether we realize it or not, we are always in the midst of the Way.  More strictly speaking, we are nothing but the Way itself

This points us toward a central point of Fukanzazengi—that practice and enlightenment are not separate.