Part 34 (1/2)
Such were the exchanges between j.a.panese Buddhist scholars and Ch'an monastery cooks in the early thirteenth century.
In midsummer of 1223, Dogen finally moved ash.o.r.e and entered the temple on Mt. T'ien-t'ung called Ching-te-ssu. His intense study brought no seal of enlightenment, but it did engender severe disappointment with the standards of Ch'an monasteries in China. Although the school that Dogen found was a branch of Lin-chi traceable back to the koan master Ta-hui, different from the fading school Eisai had encountered, Dogen later would denounce impartially the general run of all Ch'an masters he met in China.
_Although there are in China a great number of those who profess themselves to be the descendants of the Buddhas and patriarchs, there are few who study truth and accordingly there are few who teach truth.
. . . Thus those people who have not the slightest idea of what the great Way of the Buddhas and patriarchs is now become the masters of monks. . . . Reciting a few words of Lin-chi and Yun-men they take them for the whole truth of Buddhism. If Buddhism had been exhausted by a few words of Lin-chi and Yun-men, it could not have survived till today.7
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After studying for two years while simultaneously nosing about other nearby monasteries, Dogen finally decided to travel, hoping others of the ”five houses” had maintained discipline. (He also seems to have experienced some discrimination as a foreigner in China.) But the farther he went, the more despondent he became; nowhere in China could he find a teacher worthy to succeed the ancient masters. He finally resolved to abandon China and return to j.a.pan.
But at this moment fate took a turn that--in retrospect--had enormous importance for the future of j.a.panese Buddhism. A monk he met on the road told him that T'ien-t'ung now had a new
abbot, a truly enlightened master namd Ju-ching (1163-1228). Dogen returned to see and was received warmly, being invited by Ju-ching to ignore ceremony and approach him as an equal. The twenty-five-year-old j.a.panese monk was elated, and settled down at last to undertake the study he had come to China for. The master Ju-ching became Dogen's ideal of what a Zen teacher should be, and the habits--perhaps even the eccentricities--of this aging teacher were translated by Dogen into the model for monks in j.a.pan.
Ju-ching was, above all things, uncompromising in his advocacy of meditation or _zazen_. He might even have challenged Bodhidharma for the t.i.tle of its all-time pract.i.tioner, and it was from Ju-ching's Ch'an (which may also have included koan study) that Dogen took his cue. Although Ch'an was still widespread, Ju-ching seems to have been the only remaining advocate of intensive meditation in China, and a chance intersection of history brought this teaching to j.a.pan.
Significantly, he was one of the few Ts'ao-tung masters ever to lead the important T'ien-t'ung monastery, traditionally headed by a member of the Lin-chi school. Ju-ching was a model master: strict but kindly; simple in habits, diet, dress; immune to the attractions of court recognition; and an uncompromising advocate of virtually round-the- clock meditation.
But he never asked anything of his monks he did not also demand of himself, even when advanced in years. He would strike nodding monks to refresh their attention, while lamenting that age had so diminished the strength in his arm it was eroding his ability to create good monks.
Ju-ching would meditate until eleven in the evening and then be up again by two-thirty or three the next morning, back at _zazen_. He frequently developed sores on his backside from such perpetual sitting, but nothing deterred him. He even declared the pain made him love _zazen _all the more.
The story of Dogen's final enlightenment at the hands of Ju-ching is a cla.s.sic of j.a.panese Zen. In the meditation hall one early morning all the monks were sitting in meditation when the man next to Dogen dozed off--a common enough occurrence in early-morning sessions. But when Ju- ching came by on a routine inspection and saw the sleeping monk, he was for some reason particularly rankled and roared out, ”_Zazen _means the dropping away of mind and body! What will you get by sleeping?” Dogen, sitting nearby, was at first startled, but then an indescribable calm, an ecstatic joy washed over him. Could it be that this was the moment he had been hoping for? Could it be that the fruit had been ready to fall from the tree, with this just the shake needed?
Dogen rushed to Ju-ching's room afterward and burned incense, to signify his enlightenment experience. Throwing himself at the master's feet, he declared, ”I have experienced the dropping away of mind and body.”
Ju-ching immediately recognized his enlightenment to be genuine (modern masters reportedly can discern a novice's state merely by the way he rings a gong) and he replied, ”You have indeed dropped body and mind.”
”But wait a minute,” Dogen cautioned. ”Don't sanction me so easily. How do you really know I've achieved enlightenment?”
To which Ju-ching replied simply, ”Body and mind have dropped away.”
Dogen bowed in acknowledgment of his acknowledgment. And thus, in May 1225, was the greatest Zen teacher in j.a.pan enlightened. In the fall Ju-ching conferred upon Dogen the seal of patriarchal succession of his line of the Ts'ao-tung sect.8
Dogen stayed on for two more years studying under Ju-ching, but finally he decided to return again to j.a.pan. When they parted, Ju-ching gave his j.a.panese protege the patriarchal robe, his own portrait (called _chinso_, a symbol of transmission), and bade him farewell. So did Dogen return to j.a.pan in the fall of 1227, taking with him the koan collection _Blue Cliff Record_, which he copied his last night in China. But he also brought the fire of a powerful idea, pure meditation, that formed the basis for the j.a.panese Soto school of Zen.
Dogen returned to Eisai's old temple of Kennin-ji, where he proceeded to write the minor cla.s.sic _A Universal Recommendation for Zazen_, introducing the idea of intense meditation to his countrymen.
_You should pay attention to the fact that even the Buddha Sakyamuni had to practice_ zazen _for six years. It is also said that Bodhidharma had to do _zazen _at Shao-lin temple for nine years in order to transmit the Buddha-mind. Since these ancient sages were so diligent, how can present-day trainees do without the practice of _zazen_? You should stop pursuing words and letters and learn to withdraw and reflect on yourself. When you do so, your body and mind will naturally fall away, and your original Buddha-nature will appear.9
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