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 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.

Encountering Fukanzazengi

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Today we began our exploration of Dogen’s Fukanzazengi (Principles of Seated Meditation). As evidenced by our discussion today, some of this “meditation manual” leaps off the page as clear as a bell, across the centuries and the ocean. However, this is a 13th century text from Japan, which incorporates various references and bits of teachings on meditation from hundreds of prior years of Ch’an Buddhist tradition in China. Many of the references are cryptic and need to be deciphered according to an ancient culture and lore that is unfamiliar to us. The Ch’an tradition itself is a product of cultural contact and transformation—the meeting of Indian Buddhism and Taoism in China. To make matters even more complex, we are working in the field of a translated text, which necessarily carries with it the potential for different meanings and misunderstandings.

While one could certainly be forgiven for asking why we should make the effort to penetrate the writings of a medieval Japanese monk, so far from our culture and time, here are just a few reasons to consider. First, this short writing is a distillation of a wisdom tradition that has been passed on from teacher to student for well over a thousand years. There is a good chance that there is something precious to discover here. Second, like with any work of philosophy or great literature, we are required to return again and again to the text, to become accustomed to new concepts, to uncover layers of meaning, to let it sink into our bones and become part of our lived experience. Third, encountering teachings from another culture and another time holds the possibility of illuminating ways of being and understanding that have previously been inaccessible to us given our cultural conditioning and blind spots.

Ultimately we are involved not only in reading a translated text, but also in a process of embodied cultural translation as we practice the Buddhist teachings with others in our own culture. While we may decide that it is important to realize as best we can the actual meaning of Dogen’s teaching and practice, invariably it will in practice be something a bit different. The evolution of human wisdom, and the Buddhist tradition, did not stop in the 13th century. We might ask what sources in our American cultural and spiritual tradition resonate with this teaching, elaborate it, make it more directly meaningful to us and others. If we are Vipassana practitioners, or sometimes practice the mindfulness teachings, how might that practice complement or inform this "just sitting” style? Lastly (only for now), what might our Western psychological tradition have to offer?

Yesterday I came across this passage from the writing of Paul Shepard, a provocative thinker and human ecologist, which seems pertinent to the project of cultural translation:

“Not only the genome and ecosystem but human culture, genetically framed and socially created, is also an integrated and lively conglomerate. Specific art, tools, and beliefs are sometimes gained or lost, moving from culture to culture, carried by people or shared by neighbors. Trailing bits of the context they arrive rough-edged and isolated, but are eventually assimilated as part of the whole. Genetic systems, ecosystems, and cultures are mosaics that share a common mobility. Genes pass from parent to offspring. Life forms move within and between natural communities by their own power or are carried by other organisms, wind and water. Cultural elements are borrowed or transported by the migrations of peoples.”

I hope that this study and practice of Fukanzazengi is enlivening and opens up new horizons of practice-enlightenment for you.