By: Josho Pat Phelan
In everyday language, it sounds like Dogen is saying to stop thinking. We all know what thinking is, and not-thinking is its opposite. But trying to stop thought by using discriminating consciousness to control consciousness creates a narrow, controlled experience. Both thinking and stopping thinking are found in the realm of duality; they are relative to one another. One can’t exist without the other because they mutually define each other like hot and cold, light and dark, forward and backward. But Dogen’s nonthinking is outside duality. Actually, the character translated as “non” in “non-thinking” includes the aspects of beyond, transcendent or emancipated. Kaz Tanahashi translated “nonthinking” both as “beyond thinking” and as “before thinking”. So, “nonthinking” is considered emancipated thinking which transcends and is free from both thinking and stopping thought.
Dogen was critical of meditation methods that involved stopping thought and controlling the mind in order to become absorbed completely in the object of meditation. This type of absorption usually removes awareness from the immediate environment and from one’s bodily presence.
Note: Josho Pat Phalen is the Guiding Teacher of the Chapel Hill Zen Center and is the dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi. This quote is taken from one of a series of dharma talks that she gave on the Fukanzazengi, and which can be found here.