What Buddhism Teaches Us in Times of Uncertainty — Practice as Social Engagement
Previously on What Buddhism Teaches Us in Times of Uncertainty, I talked about master Dōgen’s teachings on realising our true nature in practice. Then, on the second article, I talked about how to practice, by realising the principles of the non-duality and authentic. In the coming paragraphs, I would like to further talk on what and how to practice, and how practice is related to social actions.
Practice all the time
Practice and enlightenment is beyond oneness and difference, and is beyond repetition and division, said Dōgen. Beyond repetition and division means practice and enlightenment always happen in the same time and in all the time, it is endless and throughout lifetime.
Practice and enlightenment does not have an end, since it can be realised in any time any act, it is beyond division. When it is beyond division, it is beyond repetition, because one has to separate one thing from another first, and determines whether one thing is identical to the other thing or not.
When practice and enlightenment takes any form in any time, it is beyond repetition, because every moment is not the same. Practice and enlightenment is not always the same, sometimes it makes progress, the other time it makes stagnation.
“You may seek for an enlightenment which is some special experience, where you will have no problems, where you will get rid of all your vicious habits. Things will still happen to you even though you attain enlightenment”. Thus, practice and enlightenment is not just a one-off “aha” moment, it has ups and downs like a journey, and requires continuous efforts to carry out and carry on.
Practice at this time
Practice diligently is important, but more importantly, is to start practice.
Having a preference for certainty, not knowing how and what enlightenment is may hold us back from practice. However, Dōgen told us in Fukan zazengi, enlightenment “cannot be fully comprehended by human discrimination”. Yet, once we start practice, we will experience enlightenment, and understand enlightenment.
Dōgen encouraged us that in enlightenment, “intelligence, or lack of it, does not matter. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, you are thereby negotiating the Way with your practice-realization undefiled. As you proceed along the Way, you will attain a state of everydayness”.
Since enlightenment is “brought on by the opportunity provided by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, the realization effected by the aid of a fly whisk, a fist, a staff, or a shout”, it can be manifested in all daily occasions, realised by we practitioners of the Way. This is the meaning of “state of everydayness”, that we practice, experience, realise and understand enlightenment.
“True practice should be established before we attain enlightenment, before we know what enlightenment is”. If we do not practice, we will have no chance to experience and understand enlightenment, no chance to understand and realise ourselves. “Even though you may say your enlightenment is too small, enlightenment is enlightenment”.
On the other hand, enlightenment will inform us what ought to do, inform us about practice, about realization of ourselves. In other words, in action we experience, in experience we realise, in realization we reflect, in reflection we act. This is what we can learn and apply in daily lives the wise words of Dōgen.
Practice can start at any moment, start at this moment, but it has to be started, to be manifested. In Busshō (佛性), Dōgen stated “The true when time has not come has never existed; the buddha-nature in which buddha-nature does not appear does not exist”.
No time is when the buddha-nature does not appear, no time is not the right time to practice and enlighten. By recognising the unity of practice and enlightenment, Dōgen rejected the anticipation of Buddha-nature’s future manifestation, and clarified the presence of the Buddha-nature.
Every moment is present, the present moment is the only true reality — just like when there a kindling, we only see a kindling, neither a forest, nor a tree, nor ash. Even though a kindling may be burnt into ashes later, ash is not its present moment nor its reality; it may or may not be burnt, so ash is not its future as well.
Therefore, instead of anticipating or fearing the future, one should focus on the present. Hence, doing nothing to avoid possible failures is unnecessary. Present is always the right time to practice and act, there is no time that is not the right time.
In the age of uncertainty and unattainability, many doubt the purpose to practice and act. So did people in the time of Dōgen, in the time of civil wars and religious conflicts, under the threat of death, many followers of the Way left temples and dōjō (道場).
In such difficult times, Dōgen did not give up on the Way. He wrote Fukan zazengi, Shobogenzo and other works, and built temples to enlighten people. He was a great thinker who put his thoughts into practice, and a great practitioner who left his legacies descendants across the world. In Bendōwa he answered a question,
Question: Is it possible to attain realization by practicing zazen even in this evil, degenerate age of the latter day?
Answer: In authentic Mahayana teaching there is no differentiation between right, semblance, and final Dharma. It preaches that all who practice attain the Way. Those who practice are themselves aware of their attainment or non-attainment, just as a person knows without any doubt whether the water he is using is warm or cold. (Abe & Waddell, 2002)
There is no time that is not the right time to practice and act, there is no time that we cannot practice or be enlightened. Dōgen acknowledged the value of practice of the Way, he showed what one did, can and should do in hard times.
Practice as Time
Whilst practice occurs all the time and any time is the right moment to practice, practice, by itself, is time.
In Uji (有時), which Dōgen innovatively read it as time-being, indicating time is being, and being is time.
“Every being in the entire world is each time an (independent) time, even as it makes a continuous series. Inasmuch as they are being-time, they are my being-time”. Like life and death, kindling and ash, spring and winter, they have their own time, so does practice and enlightenment, action and outcomes. Practice and enlightenment is time, is time-being, and has its own time.
Having their own time, explained in Genjōkōan and Shōji (生死), was “Kindling becomes ash, and cannot become kindling again. However, we should not see the ash as after and the kindling as before”. “It is a mistake to think that life turns into death. Life is a position at one time with its own before and after”.
Life and death have their own time, they do not become each other. Just like winter and spring, we do not say winter becomes spring, even spring follows winter to come. One time-being does not become another time-being, they are just different manifestations of the truth and reality.
We are troubled by the ultimate concern of death when we perceived death as the destination of life, which is foreseeable but unpredictable. We are disturbed by life and death when we overlook the meanings of life and panicked by death.
“But there is no birth and death for those who welcome birth and settled in death.” “Therefore, when life comes, just live. And when death comes, just die. Neither avoid them nor desire them”, wrote Dōgen inspirationally in Shōji.
Life is time-being, death is time-being, and death have their own being and time. Death is not the endgame of life; life is just life. So do practice and enlightenment, social action and outcome. They all have their own being and time, own past and future, own presence and existence, own reality, own Genjōkōan.
Practice and action are neither destined to success or failure, nor destined to change or stagnation, because practice and action themselves are enlightenment and outcome. Thence, it is pointless to worry about results, or to anticipate preferred outcomes. To realise ourselves is to live with the moment, to practice and act at the moment, to be with time.
Concluding remarks
We may be filled with doubts and confusion, even we know these words are true. Yet, Dōgen told us that being confused and knowing we are confused is the key to practice and enlightenment. In Genjōkōan he wrote, “Those who greatly realize delusion are buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded in realization are living beings”.
We may think that cutting off confusions is good, but we “do not learn that cutting means cutting the complicated with the complicated, and the complicated is entwined with the complicated”.
“If your doubt is big, then your enlightenment is strong and big”. If we have great doubts, we are studying and reflecting on our practices and ourselves, we are learning what we lack.
If we do not have doubts at all, we may not be investigating and experiencing thoroughly, we may be copying what others have said solely, even those words are from buddhas, it is meaningless if we do not contemplate and revise by ourselves. This is what Dōgen did — studying the words of buddhas, examining the truth and untruth, reflecting own experiences.
By practicing and realising the Way, Dōgen left us a word of hope: “Because the nature of wind is eternal, the wind of Buddhism causes the manifestation of the earth’s being gold and by participation develops the long river into butter”.
To manifest the omnipresent nature of soothing wind, just like the nature of other nice things, we have to practice and realise it; when we practice and realise it, we will be able to realise a blissful reality.
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References:
Abe, M. (1992). A study of Dōgen: His philosophy and religion. NY: SUNY Press.
Abe, M., & Waddell, N. A. (Trans). (2002). The Heart of Dōgen’s Shobogenzo. State University of New York Press.
Bein, S. (Trans). (2011). Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Shamon Dōgen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Cleary, T. F. (Trans). (1986). Shōbōgenzō, Zen essays. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Cross, C., & Nishijima, G. (Trans). (2005). Master Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō, Book 3.
Nishiari, B. (2011). Commentary by Nishiari Bokusan. Dōgen (Ed), In Dōgen’s Genjō-kōan: Three Commentaries. CA: Counterpoint.
Okumura, S. (2010). Realizing Genjōkōan: The Key to Dōgen’s Shobogenzo. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Suzuki, S. (2011). Commentary by Shunryu Suzuki. Dōgen (Ed), In Dōgen’s Genjō-kōan: Three Commentaries. CA: Counterpoint.
傅偉勳. (1996). 道元. 臺灣: 東大圖書.
釋星雲. (1997). 佛教叢書4－弟子. 臺灣: 佛光文化. 瀏覽自http://www.masterhsingyun.org/article/article.jsp?index=82&item=100&bookid=2c907d49459794fd0145a64915e801a3&ch=4&se=7&f=1
