2022/08/02

The Philosophy of Zen Master Dōgen: Egoless Perspectivism - The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

 The Philosophy of Zen Master Dōgen: Egoless Perspectivism

Bret W. Davis

The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

Edited by William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield

Print Publication Date: May 2011 Subject: Philosophy, Non-Western Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2011 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328998.003.0030

Abstract and Keywords

DOgen Kigen (1200–1253), founder of the SOtO school of Zen Buddhism, is undoubtedly one of the most original and profound thinkers in Japanese history. This article focuses on DOgen's GenjOkOan, which can be translated as “The Presencing of Truth.” This key text for understanding DOgen's thought is the core fascicle of his major work, ShObOgenzO (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye). It is the “treasury of the true Dharma eye” that Śākyamuni Buddha (ca. 500 BCE) is said to have transmitted to his successor, Mahākāshyapa, by silently holding up a flower. This event is held to mark the beginning of the Zen tradition, which is characterized by Bodhidharma (ca. 500 CE) as “a special transmission outside the scriptures; not depending on words and letters; directly pointing to the human mind; seeing into one's nature and becoming a Buddha”.

Keywords: Japanese philosophy, DOgen Kigen, Bodhidharma, Zen Buddhism, GenjOkOan

Carrying the self forward to verify-in-practice the myriad things is delusion; for the myriad things to come forth and verify-in-practice the self is enlightenment.

...[When] a person verifies-in-practice the Buddha Way, attaining one thing he or she becomes thoroughly familiar with that one thing; encountering one activity he or she [sincerely] practices that one activity. Since this is where the place [of the presencing of truth] is and the Way achieves its circulation, the reason that the limits of what is knowable are not known is that this knowing arises and proceeds together with the exhaustive fathoming of the Buddha Dharma. 1

DOgen Kigen (1200–1253), founder of the SOtO school of Zen Buddhism, is undoubtedly one of the most original and profound thinkers in Japanese history. The focus of this chapter will be on DOgen's GenjOkOan, which can be

2

translated as “The Presencing of Truth.” This key text for understanding DOgen's thought is the core fascicle of his major work, ShObOgenzO (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye). It (p. 349) is the “treasury of the true Dharma eye” that Śākyamuni Buddha (ca. 500 BCE) is said to have transmitted to his successor, Mahākāshyapa, by silently holding up a flower. This event is held to mark the beginning of the Zen tradition, which is characterized by Bodhidharma (ca. 500 CE) as “a special transmission outside the scriptures; not depending on words and letters; directly pointing to the human mind; seeing into one's nature and becoming a Buddha.” Like

Bodhidharma, who is said to have sat in meditation for nine years after bringing Zen (Ch. Chan) from India to China, DOgen too placed great emphasis on the silent practice of “just sitting” (shikantaza).

Yet DOgen's writings are not just expedient means to practice and enlightenment, fingers pointing at the moon; they are also literary and philosophical masterpieces in their own right. Indeed, DOgen is considered by many to be the greatest “philosopher” in the tradition of Zen Buddhism. 3 Rather than merely insist on the limits of language and reason, he poetically and philosophically manifests their expressive potential. The “entangled vines” (kattO) of language are not treated simply as impediments to be cut through with the sword of silent meditation and ineffable insight. Instead, they are understood to have the potential to become “expressive attainments of the Way” (dOtoku) that manifest perspectival aspects of the dynamic Buddha-nature of reality. 4

DOgen accepts the delimited and delimiting nature of language and of thought in general. And yet, he does not think that the perspectival limits of all perception, feeling, and understanding are as such antithetical to enlightenment. Rather than an overcoming of perspectivism, enlightenment for DOgen entails a radical reorientation and qualitative transformation of the process of perspectival delimitation. Nietzsche once wrote, “Egoism is the law of perspective applied to feelings.” 5 DOgen would say that “egoistic perspectivism” well describes a state of delusion. Enlightenment, on the other hand, is precisely a matter of shedding the egoistic will to posit oneself as the fixed center of the world. Nevertheless, according to DOgen, enlightenment does not supplant perspectival knowing with an omniscient “view from nowhere.” Rather, it involves an ongoing nondual engagement in a process of (p. 350) letting the innumerable perspectival aspects of reality illuminate themselves. Enlightenment thus entails an egoless and nondual perspectivism.

DOgen would agree with Heidegger that any manifestation of truth always involves both a revealing and a concealing. 6 As DOgen puts it, “When one side is illuminated, the other side is darkened.” 7 This epistemological principle is one of the central themes of his thought, and it can be found at work already in the famous opening section of the GenjOkOan. Since these programmatic yet laconic first four sentences of the text are often thought to contain the kernel of DOgen's philosophy of Zen, let us begin by quoting and explicating them. As we shall see, these few lines can be read as a compact history of the unfolding of Buddhist thought from its foundational teachings through Mahāyāna philosophies to DOgen's Zen.

Through Buddhism to Zen

When the various things [dharmas] are [seen according to] the Buddha's teaching [Buddha Dharma], there are delusion and enlightenment; there is (transformative) practice; there is birth/life; there is death; there are ordinary sentient beings; and there are Buddhas.

When the myriad things are each [seen as] without self [i.e., as without independent substantiality],

there is neither delusion nor enlightenment; there are neither Buddhas nor ordinary sentient beings; and there is neither birth/life nor death.

Since the Buddha Way originally leaps beyond both plentitude and poverty, there are arising and perishing; there are delusion and enlightenment; and there are ordinary sentient beings and Buddhas.

And yet, although this is how we can say that it is, it is just that flowers fall amid our attachment and regret, and weeds flourish amid our rejecting and loathing.

While the first sentence speaks from the temporal perspective of “when the various things are [seen according to] the Buddha's teaching...,” the second sentence speaks from that of “when the myriad things are each [seen as] without self....” What is affirmed in the first sentence is strikingly negated in the second. What is DOgen doing here in this overturning alteration of perspective? While the first sentence sets forth several fundamental distinctions that constitute the basic teachings of Buddhism—such as that between ordinary sentient beings and their delusion on the one hand and Buddhas and their enlightenment on the other—the second sentence, by focusing now on the central teaching of no-self (anātman), goes on to (p. 351) negate the reification of these oppositional designations. For readers familiar with Mahāyāna Buddhism's Perfection of Wisdom literature, such self-deconstructive negations in a Buddhist text do not come as too much of a surprise. The Heart Sutra, for example, radicalizes the early Buddhist doctrine of no-self into that of the emptiness (śūnyatā; i.e., the lack of independent substantiality) of all phenomenal elements of existence (dharmas) and linguistic conventions, even to the point of a systematic negation of (a reified misunderstanding of) traditional Buddhist teachings themselves, including the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The Heart Sutra also speaks of no-birth, no-death, and

no-attainment, rather than of nirvāna as the attainment of a release from samsāra as the cycle of birth and death. 9


Furthermore, readers familiar with Mādhyamaka philosopher Nāgārjuna's notion of the “emptiness of emptiness” (i.e., the idea that emptiness itself is not an independently substantial entity, but rather is the nature of events of

10

interdependent origination [pratītya-samutpāda]), and with Tiantai (Jap. Tendai) philosopher Zhiyi's development of the Two Truths (i.e., the conventional truth of provisional designations and the ultimate truth of emptiness) into the Three Truths of “the provisional, the empty, and the middle,” 11 will be prepared for the third sentence of the GenjOkOan. No longer qualified by a “when...,” the “middle” perspective expressed here resolves the tension between the first two perspectives so as to make possible the reaffirmation of distinctions, but now without reification. In fact, in its teaching of the ontological middle way of interdependent origination, Buddhism has always rejected nihilism and annihilationism along with substantialism and eternalism. The Buddhist account of the interdependent and dynamic nature of reality and the self is not subject to the “all or nothing” dilemma that plagues an ontology of independent and eternal substances. As DOgen says here, “the Buddha Way originally leaps beyond both plentitude [i.e., substantial being] and poverty [i.e., nihilistic void].” Affirmatively thought, using the language of the Three Truths, the Buddhist middle way embraces the nondual polarity of the provisional “plentitude” of differentiated being and the “poverty” or substantial emptiness of ubiquitous interdependent origination.

It is possible to relate these first three sentences of the GenjOkOan not only to the Three Truths of Tiantai (Tendai) philosophy, but also to Chan Master Weixin's famous three stages on the way to enlightenment, according to which a mountain is first seen as a mountain (i.e., as a conceptual reification), then not as a mountain (i.e., as empty of independent substantiality and linguistic reification), and finally really as a mountain (i.e., in the

12

suchness of its interdependent origination). The path of the Buddha Way ultimately leads one back to the here and now.

(p. 352) Be that as it may, and although we should bear in mind that DOgen was first of all trained as a Tendai monk and was intimately familiar with doctrines such as the Three Truths, it is also important to recall that he was from an early age dissatisfied with the then-prevalent doctrine of “original enlightenment” (hongaku). What concerned the young DOgen was that a premature and blanket affirmation of the self and the world of distinctions

8

as they are tends to deny or at least downplay the importance of transformative practices of cultivation (shugyO). This dissatisfaction and concern finally induced him to come down from Tendai's Mt. Hiei on a path that led him to Zen.

The primary and ultimate standpoint of Dōgen's Zen is most directly expressed in the climactic—and, in a sense, intentionally anticlimactic—fourth sentence of the GenjOkOan. Here Dōgen calls for a return from the heights of reason (ri) to the basis of fact (ji), that is, to the nonidealized here and now of concrete experience, where “flowers fall amid our attachment and regret, and weeds flourish amid our rejecting and loathing.” I would suggest that this crucial sentence, like so many in Dōgen's often polysemous texts, can be read in at least two ways. On the one hand, as the expression of the concrete experiences of enlightened existence, it signifies that nirvāna is not somewhere beyond the trials and tribulations of samsāra (the realm of desire and suffering). Rather, it is a matter of “awakening in the midst of the passions” (bonnO soku bodai). Like the Daoist sage's uninhibited weeping at his wife's funeral, Zen enlightenment is not an escapist dying to, but rather a wholehearted dying into a liberated and liberating engagement in the human life of emotional entanglements.

On the other hand, I think that this fourth sentence can also be read—on a less advanced but certainly no less significant level—as an acknowledgement that no amount of rational explanation of the nonduality of samsāra and nirvāna can bring about an actual realization of this truth. In Fukanzazengi Dōgen writes: “From the beginning the Way circulates everywhere; why the need to verify it in practice? ... And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy,

13

heaven and earth are vastly separated; if the least disorder arises, the heart and mind get lost in confusion.” And he tells us in BendOwa: “Although the truth [Dharma] amply inheres in every person, without practice, it does not

14

presence; if it is not verified, it is not attained.” Religious practice is necessary, which, for Dōgen, involves not just the practice of meditative concentration, but also the practice of thoughtful discrimination. Hence, after the opening section of the GenjOkOan he proceeds to concretely describe—by means of what has been aptly called a “transformative phenomenology” —the

15 conversion from a deluded/deluding to an enlightened/enlightening

comportment to the world.

(p. 353) Verification: The Practice of Enlightenment

A deluding experience of the world, according to Dōgen, occurs when one “carries the self forward to verify-in-practice (shushO) the myriad things.” On the other hand, “for the myriad things to come forth and verify-in-practice the self is enlightenment.” 16 In order to appreciate this explanation of delusion and enlightenment, we need to first discuss Dōgen's peculiar notion of shushO. In this term, Dōgen conjoins two characters to convey the inseparable nonduality of “practice” and “enlightenment (verification).” 17 This key aspect of Dōgen's teaching is poignantly addressed in the concluding section of the GenjOkOan, where the action of the Zen master fanning himself (practice) is demonstrated to be one with the truth that the wind (Buddha-nature) circulates everywhere.

As Chan Master Baoche of Mount Mayu was using his fan, a monk came and asked, “It is the wind's nature to be constantly abiding and there is no place in which it does not circulate. Why then, sir, do you still use a fan?”

The master said, “You only know that it is the nature of the wind to be constantly abiding. You don't yet know the reason [more literally: the principle of the way] that there is no place it does not reach.”

The monk said, “What is the reason for there being no place in which it does not circulate?” At which time the master just used his fan.

The monk bowed reverently.

The verifying experience of the Buddha Dharma and the vital path of its true transmission are like this. To say that if it is constantly abiding one shouldn't use a fan, that even without using a fan one should be able to feel the wind, is to not know [the meaning of] either constantly abiding or the nature of the

wind. 18


Enlightenment, for DOgen, is found not in inactive detachment, nor in a passive acceptance of the way things are, but rather in the midst of a holistic participation—an engaged playing of one's part—in the world.

The character for shô, which is DOgen's favored term for enlightenment, normally means to verify, prove, attest to, confirm, or authenticate something. As a synonym for enlightenment, shô is a matter of verifying (“showing to be true” and literally “making true”) and hence realizing (awakening to and thus actualizing) the fact that one's true self (honbunnin), one's “original part,” is originally part and parcel of the dynamically ubiquitous Buddha-nature. In the Busshô fascicle of the Shôbôgenzô, DOgen famously rereads the Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra's claim that “all

(p. 354) sentient beings have the Buddha-nature” to mean that “Buddha-nature is all that is” (shitsu-u wa busshô nari). 19 Enlightenment is a matter of verifying-in-practice this fundamental fact. It is a matter of authentication, of truly becoming what one in truth is: a unique expression of a universally shared Buddha-nature.

Learning to Forget the Self

The self is a participant in the dynamically interconnected matrix of the world. Delusion occurs when the self egoistically posits itself as the single fixed center—rather than existing as one among infinitely many mutually reflective and expressive focal points—of the whole.20 In delusion the myriad things are seen, not according to the self-expressive aspects through which they show themselves, but rather only as they are forced into the perspectival horizon of the self-fixated and self-assertive ego. To borrow the language of Kant, the deluded and deluding ego willfully projects its own forms of intuition and categories of understanding onto the world. In contrast, through practicing the Buddha Way one comes to realize the empty (i.e., open and interdependent) nature of the true self.

DOgen describes the steps of this process of practice and enlightenment in three of the most frequently cited lines of the Genjôkôan:

To learn the Buddha Way is to learn the self.

To learn the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be verified by the myriad things [of the world].

The study of Buddhism, according to DOgen's Zen, involves more than a cognitive grasp of the truth of the Buddhist teachings (Buddha Dharma; buppô). It involves a holistic practice of a way of life (Buddha Way; butsudô).22 The central practice of the Buddha Way for DOgen, and for the Zen tradition in general, is seated

23

meditation (zazen), rather than the study of scriptures, the performance of esoteric rituals, or calling on the grace

21

of a transcendent savior. According to Zen, “what comes through the gate [i.e., from outside of oneself] is not the treasure of the house”; the truth (p. 355) must be discovered within. Dōgen thus speaks of meditation as a practice

of taking a radical “step back that turns the light around.” 24


The light of our unenlightened minds is generally directed outward, shining its objectifying gaze on things and on a projected image of the ego itself. Things and other persons become objects of attachment (or aversion), possessions (or enemies) of a reified conception of the self as ego-subject. But things and persons change and otherwise refuse to obey one's will, ever slipping from the grasp of the ego, which is itself constantly subject to mutation and otherwise fails to live up to the self-constructed image of itself. Hence, repeatedly disappointed and frustrated, the ego suffers the resistance of the world and, out of greed, hate, and delusion, inflicts suffering on others. Ironically, the Buddha Dharma itself, as with any teaching, can be turned into just another object of dogmatic and even fanatic attachment, diverting us from the root of the problem, namely, a false conception of ourselves and our relation to the world. Therefore, the Buddha Way first of all requires a penetrating examination of the self.

Yet when one turns the light around to reflect on the deepest recesses of the self, what one ultimately finds is— nothing. There is no substantial ego-subject underlying our thoughts, feelings, and desires. But neither is this nothingness—or emptiness—a nihilistic void. Rather, the ungraspable nothingness of the self is the very source of the open-minded, open-hearted, and creatively free activity of the true self. The true self is an open engagement with others. A thoroughgoing “learning the self” thus paradoxically leads to a “forgetting of the self” as an independent and substantial ego-subject.

Dōgen speaks of this “forgetting” most radically in terms of his own enlightenment experience of “dropping off the body-mind” (shinjin-datsuraku). Note that Dōgen does not speak dualistically of freeing the mind from the body. In fact, he explicitly rejects the mind/body dualism of the so-called Senika heresy, and speaks of the “oneness of body-mind” (shinjin ichinyo) along with the nonduality of the “one mind” with the entire cosmos.

Insofar as we have identified ourselves with a dualistic and reified conception of the mind, however, along with the body this too must be shed. Only through a radical experience of letting go of all reifications of and attachments to the mind as well as the body does one become open to the self-presentation of the myriad things. Yet this openness must be realized, and this realization is neither static nor simply passive. When Dōgen says that “things come forth and verify-in-practice the self” (elsewhere he even claims that “original practice inheres in the original face of each and every thing” ),

26 he is countering the willful self-assertion of unenlightened human subjectivity by calling attention to the “objective side” of the “total dynamism” or “undivided activity” (zenki) of a nondual experience of reality. Elsewhere he speaks of the nonduality of this experience as follows: “When you ride in a boat, body-and-mind, self-and-environs, subjectivity-and-objectivity are all together the (p. 356) undivided activity of the boat. The entire earth as well as the entire sky are the undivided activity of the boat.”

For our part, in order to authentically participate in this nondual event—and hence to verify or realize this or that aspect of reality—we must not only liberate ourselves from a self-assertive fixation on our body-mind by letting it drop off; we must also spontaneously pick up the body-mind again in an energetic yet egoless “total exertion” (gūjin) of “rousing the [whole] body-mind to perceive forms, rousing the [whole] body-mind to listen to

sounds.” 28


Let us pause for a moment to review the pivotal paradoxes involved in Dōgen's path of Zen. (1) Turning to and from ourselves: By way of initially turning the light of the mind away from (a deluded view of) external reality and back toward ourselves, we discover an emptiness at the heart of the self that opens us up to an enlightened

25

27

experience of the myriad things of the world. (2) Utter detachment and total involvement: This process of enlightenment entails a radical “dropping off the body-mind” that leads, not to a state of mindless disembodiment, but rather to a holistic integration of the body-mind and its unattached yet wholehearted employment in nondual events of enlightening perception and understanding.

Nondual Perspectivism

The intimately engaged yet egoless perception and understanding that DOgen speaks of are, however, never shadowless illuminations of all aspects of a thing. The epistemology implied in DOgen's understanding of enlightenment is plainly not that of simultaneous omniscience. Enlightenment does not entail the achievement of an instantaneous all-knowing view from nowhere, but rather the realization of being on an endless path of illuminating the innumerable aspects of reality, an ongoing journey of appreciating the “inexhaustible virtues” of things. Enlightenment is not a state of final escape to another world, but rather a never self-satisfied process of enlightening darkness and delusion within this world. Indeed, setting out on this never-ending Way of enlightenment entails awakening to the ineradicable play of knowledge and nescience. And thus, once again paradoxically, DOgen tells us: “When the Dharma does not yet saturate the body-mind, one thinks that it is sufficient. If the Dharma fills the body-mind, one notices an insufficiency.”29 This is DOgen's version of the Socratic wisdom of knowing one's ignorance.

(p. 357) DOgen makes this epistemological point most clearly and forcefully in the section of Genjōkōan where he speaks of the inexhaustible aspects and virtues of the ocean.

For example, if one rides in a boat out into the middle of the ocean where there are no mountains [in sight] and looks in the four directions, one will see only a circle without any other aspects in sight. Nevertheless, the great ocean is not circular, and it is not square; the remaining virtues of the ocean are inexhaustible. It is like a palace [for fish]. It is like a jeweled ornament [to gods]. It is just that, as far as my eyes can see, for a while it looks like a circle. It is also like this with the myriad things. Although things within and beyond this dusty world are replete with a variety of aspects, it is only through a cultivated power of vision that one can [intimately] perceive and apprehend them. In order to hear the household customs of the myriad things, you should know that, besides appearing as round or square, there are unlimited other virtues of the ocean and of the mountains, and there are worlds in all four directions. And you should know that it is not only like this over there, but also right here beneath your feet and even in a single drop [of water].

When DOgen speaks of a human being sitting on a boat in the middle of the ocean, looking out in all four directions and seeing only a vast empty circle, he is perhaps not only speaking literally but also metaphorically of a meditative experience of emptiness. We might refer in this regard to the “empty circle” or “circular shape” (ensō) that appears as the eighth of the Ten Oxherding Pictures,31 which is often interpreted as a symbol for the absolute emptiness of the Dharmakāya (the Truth Body of the Buddha), or the Buddha-nature (Busshō) understood—as DOgen and other Zen masters sometimes do—in terms of mu-Busshō (“no-Buddha-nature” or the “Buddha-nature-of-Nothingness”).

In any case, what is crucial is that neither the Ten Oxherding Pictures nor DOgen's Zen stops here at the empty circle. It may be necessary to pass through an experience of emptiness as a “great negation” of the ego and its

30

reifying attachments, and as the realization of absolute equality and equanimity. But even emptiness must not become a “perspectiveless perspective” to which one becomes attached. In the all-embracing “one taste” of perfect equality, the differences between singular things are concealed. Here, too, “emptiness must empty itself” and allow for distinctions, such that true nonduality is a matter of “not one and not two” ( fuichi funi). The universal truth of emptiness is not an overarching perspective that negates, but rather a pervading principle that enables the interplay between unique yet interconnected beings. In its “suchness,” each thing, person, animal, or event is neither an independent substance nor an indistinct portion of an undifferentiated totality: rather, it is a unique perspectival opening within the dynamically interweaving web of the world.

(p. 358) Hence, even though one may perceive the ocean (or world) as a vast empty circle, Dōgen goes on to write: “Nevertheless, the great ocean is not circular, and it is not square; the remaining virtues [or qualities] of the ocean are inexhaustible. It is like a palace [for fish]. It is like a jeweled ornament [to gods]. It is just that, as far as my eyes can see, for a while it looks like a circle.” Dōgen is drawing here on the traditional Buddhist notion that different sentient beings experience the world in different manners, depending on the conditioning of their karma. He is likely alluding specifically to the following commentary on the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha: “The sea itself basically has no disparities, yet owing to the karmic differences of devas, humans, craving spirits, and fish, devas see it as a treasure trove of jewels, humans see it as water, craving spirits see it as an ocean of pus, and fish see it

32

as a palatial dwelling.” Dōgen writes elsewhere that one “should not be limited to human views” and naively

think that what you view as water is “what dragons and fish see as water and use as water.” 33


The epistemology implied in Dōgen's view of enlightenment as an ongoing practice of enlightening, as an unending path of discovery, is thus what I would call an engaged yet egoless, a pluralistic yet nondual perspectivism. It is a perspectivism insofar as reality only shows itself one aspect and focal point at a time. On the one hand, in a deluded/deluding comportment to the world this aspect and focus get determined by the will of a self-fabricating ego that goes out and posits a horizon that delimits, filters, and schematizes how things can reveal themselves (namely, as objects set in front of a subject who represents and manipulates them). On the other hand, in an enlightened/enlightening comportment to the world, things are allowed to reveal themselves through nondual events in which the self has “forgotten itself” in its pure activity of egoless engagement. This engagement is neither simply passive nor simply active; for, originally, we are not detached ego-subjects who subsequently encounter (either passively or actively) independently subsisting objects. The original force at work in experience is neither “self-power” (jiriki) nor “other-power” (tariki). Rather, writes Dōgen, the “continuous practice” (gyOji) one participates in is “pure action that is forced neither by oneself nor by others.” 34 At every moment of enlightened/enlightening experience there is—for the time being—but a single nondual middle-voiced event of “being-time” (uji) 35 as a self-revelation of a singular aspect of reality. Enlightenment is a matter of realizing that the world is in truth made up of such nondual self-revelatory events. And just as these interconnected yet unique events are infinite, so is the path of their verification-in-practice.

Bibliography and Suggested Readings

ABE, MASAO. (1992) A Study of DOgen: His Philosophy and Religion, edited by Steven Heine. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

CHANG, GARMA C. C. (1971) The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Find this resource:

COOK, FRANCIS H. (1977) Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (1989) Sounds of Valley Streams: Enlightenment in Dōgen's Zen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (2002) How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.

Find this resource:

DŌGEN. (1971) A Primer of Sōtō Zen: A Translation of Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, translated by ReihO Masunaga. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (1985) Flowers of Emptiness: Selections from Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō, translated by Hee-Jin Kim. Lewiston, ME: Edwin Mellen Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (1990a) Shōbōgenzō, edited by Mizuno Yaoko. 4 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami. Find this resource:

——— . (1990b) Dōgen Zenji goroku, edited by Kagamishima Genryti. Tokyo: KOdansha. Find this resource:

——— . (1992) Rational Zen: The Mind of Dōgen Zenji. Translated by Thomas Cleary. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Find this resource:

——— . (1994–1999) Master Dōgen's Shobogenzo, translated by Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross. 4 vols. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing.

Find this resource:

——— . (1995) Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi. New York: North Point Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (1999) Enlightenment Unfolds: The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Dōgen. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Find this resource:

——— . (2002) The Heart of Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō, translated by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (2004) Beyond Thinking: A Guide to Meditation, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Find this resource:

ELBERFELD, ROLF. (2004) Phänomenologie der Zeit im Buddhismus. Stuttgart: frommann holzboog. Find this resource:

GARFIELD, JAY. (1995) Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. New York: Oxford University Press.

Find this resource:

HANH, THICH NHAT. (1988). The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajñaparamita Heart Sutra. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.

Find this resource:

HEINE, STEVEN. (1985) Existential and Ontological Dimensions of Time in Heidegger and DOgen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

——— . (1994) DOgen and the KOan Tradition: A Tale of Two ShObOgenzO. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

KASULIS T. P. (1981) Zen Action/Zen Person. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Find this resource:

KIM, HEE-JIN. (2004) DOgen: Mystical Realist. Boston, MA: Wisdom. Find this resource:

——— . (2007) DOgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

KOPF, GEREON. (2002) Beyond Personal Identity: DOgen, Nishida and a Phenomenology of No-Self. Richmond, Surrey: Routledge.

Find this resource:

LaFleur, William R. (ed.). (1985) DOgen Studies. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Find this resource:

(p. 360) LOPEZ, DONALD S., JR. (1988) The Heart Sūtra Explained. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

NAGATOMO, SHIGENORI. (1992) Attunement Through the Body. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Find this resource:

ŌHASHI, RYŌSUKE, and ROLF ELBERFELD. (2006) DOgen ShObOgenzO: Ausgewählte Schriften. Tokyo: Keio University Press.

Find this resource:

SHANER, DAVID EDWARD. (1985) The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism: A Phenomenological Study of Kūkai and DOgen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

STAMBAUGH, JOAN. (1990) Impermanence is Buddha-nature: DOgen's Understanding of Temporality. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Find this resource:

Steineck, Christian, et al. (eds.). (2002) DOgen als Philosoph. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Find this resource:

SWANSON, PAUL. (1995) Foundations of T'ien-T'ai Philosophy: The Flowering of the Two Truths Theory in Chinese Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press.

Find this resource:

YAMADA, MUMON. (2004) Lectures on the Ten Oxherding Pictures, translated by Victor Sogen Hori. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Find this resource:

YASUTANI, HAKUUN. (1996) Flowers Fall: A Commentary on Zen Master DOgen's GenjOkOan, translated by Paul Jaffe. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Find this resource:

YUASA, YASUO. (1987) The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Find this resource:

Notes:

(1) Dōgen 1990a, 1:54 and 59; compare Dōgen 2002, 40 and 44. Most of my primary references will be to Dōgen 1990a, a reliable and readily available Japanese edition of the ShObOgenzO in four volumes. Although all translations of quoted passages from Dōgen's texts will be my own, for the reader's convenience I will cross-reference available English translations in addition to citing the original Japanese texts.

(2) For a full translation of this text, together with an essay that includes an explanation of the title as well as an earlier version of parts of the present chapter, see Bret W. Davis, “The Presencing of Truth: Dōgen's GenjOkOan,” in Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, ed. William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 251–259. Other translations of GenjOkoan include “Manifesting Suchness” (Waddell and Abe 2002), “Manifesting Absolute Reality” (Cook 1989), “The Realized Universe” (Nishijima and Cross 1994), “Actualizing the Fundamental Point” (Tanahashi 1985), and “Offenbarmachen des vollen Erscheinens” (ľhashi and Elberfeld 2006).

(3) Dōgen was first treated as a “philosopher” in Japan in the early twentieth century, most notably by Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960) and by Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962). Prior to that, the study of his texts had been confined to Sōtō sectarian exegesis, culminating in ShObOgenzO keiteki (Tokyo: Daihōrinkaku, 1965, originally published posthumously in 1930), a detailed and influential commentary by Nishiari Bokusan (1821–1910). For an engaging example of a recent Zen master's commentary, which is frequently sharply critical of Nishiari's interpretations, see

Yasutani 1996. Philosophical studies of DOgen in the West include Abe 1992; Heine 1994; Kasulis 1981; Hee-Jin Kim 2004, 2007; and Kopf 2002.

(4) See DOgen 1999, 163–172, 179–184; Heine 1994, 243–249; and Cook 1989, 101–106.

(5) Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 199 (§162); see also Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), p. 340 (§637).

(6) See Martin Heidegger, “The Essence of Truth,” in Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

(7) DOgen 1990a, 1:54; compare DOgen 2002, 41.

(8) DOgen 1990a, 1:53; compare DOgen 2002, 40.

(9) See Hanh 1988, and Lopez 1988.

(10) See Garfield 1995.

(11) See Swanson 1995.

(12) However, just as each of Tiantai's Three Truths is affirmed as a view of the truth, many traditional commentators (including Nishiari) stress that each of the first three sentences of the GenjOkOan ultimately has its own unassailable validity as a perspectival expression of the whole truth.

(13) DOgen 1990b, 171; compare DOgen 2002, 2–3.

(14) DOgen 1990a, 1:11; compare DOgen 2002, 8; also see DOgen 1985, 87.

(15) See Elberfeld 2004, 382.

(16) DOgen 1990a, 1:54; compare DOgen 2002, 40.

(17) See DOgen 1990a, 1:28; DOgen 2002, 19.

(18) DOgen 1990a, 1:60; compare DOgen 2002, 44–45.

(19) DOgen 1990a, 1:73; compare DOgen 2002, 61.

(20) As with much of Zen thought, DOgen's perspectivism is heavily influenced by Huayan (Jap. Kegon) philosophy, which in turn draws upon the Avatamsaka Sūtra's image of the “jewel net of Indra” wherein each jewel reflects all the others. See Cook 1977 and Chang 1971.

(21) DOgen 1990a, 1:54; compare DOgen 2002, 41.

(22) Note the terminological shift from “Buddha Dharma” to “Buddha Way” in the first section of the GenjOkOan. In Japan, the terms traditionally used for “Buddhism” (now bukkyO) were buppO (Buddha Dharma or Law, which refers to the Buddhist teachings or the truth indicated by those teachings) and butsudO (Buddha Way, which refers to the practice of the way of the Buddha).

(23) The very word “Zen” derives from the Sanskrit dhyāna, meaning meditation.

(24) DOgen Zenji goroku, 170; compare DOgen 2002, 3.

(23.) See DOgen 2002, 21–23, and DOgen 1994, 41–46. On the notion of “body-mind” in DOgen, see Yuasa 1987, 111–123; Nagatomo 1992, 105–129; and Shaner 1985, 129–155.

DOgen 1990a, 1:18; compare DOgen 2002, 14.

DOgen 1990a, 2:84; compare DOgen 1999, 174.

DOgen 1990a, 1:54; compare DOgen 2002, 41. There are contrasting interpretations of this passage. Along with most scholars, I have interpreted this “rousing the [whole] body-mind to perceive and listen” in terms of enlightenment. Other scholars have read it in terms of delusion. For a noteworthy example of the latter interpretation, see “‘GenjOkOan’ to shizen,” in Ueda Shizuteru shū [Ueda Shizuteru Collection] (Tokyo: Iwanami, 2002), 9:286ff.

DOgen 1990a, 1:57; compare DOgen 2002, 43.

DOgen 1990a, 1:57–58; compare DOgen 2002, 43.

See Yamada 2004.

Quoted in DOgen 2002, 43; see also DOgen 1990a, 1:440.

DOgen 1990a, 2:198.

DOgen 1990a, 1:297; compare DOgen 1999, 114.

In the Uji fascicle (DOgen 1990a, 2:46ff.; DOgen 2002, 48ff.), DOgen famously reads the compound uji, not simply as “for the time being,” but as a nondual event of “being-time.” On this important aspect of his thought, see Heine 1985; Stambaugh 1990; and Elberfeld 2004.

Bret W. Davis

Bret W. Davis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. In addition to earning a Ph.D. in Western Philosophy, he spent over a decade in Japan working on Buddhist and Japanese philosophy. He is author of Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (2007); translator of Martin Heidegger, Country Path Conversations (2010); editor of Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts (2009); and coeditor of Japanese Philosophy in the World (in Japanese, 2005) and Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (2010). He has also published numerous articles in English and Japanese, including an article on the Kyoto school for the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Oxford Handbooks Online


Natural Freedom: Human/Nature Nondualism in Japanese Thought

 Natural Freedom: Human/Nature Nondualism in Japanese Thought

Bret W. Davis

The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

Edited by William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield

Print Publication Date: May 2011 Subject: Philosophy, Non-Western Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2011 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328998.003.0029

Abstract and Keywords

Many of us today can neither swallow the metaphysical dogma that would separate our souls from the natural world nor bite the

deterministic bullet and renounce our longing for—and inner sense of—freedom. The question, then, is: Can we find a path that leads beyond these apparent conflicts between freedom and nature? One thing seems clear: if there is such a path of reconciliation, it must entail along the way a radical rethinking of the very concepts of “nature” and “freedom.” This article demonstrates that Japanese thought has much to contribute to precisely such a rethinking of nature and freedom—a rethinking that sees them as nondually interrelated in their origins and as ultimately reconcilable through practice. By drawing on a number of traditional and modern thinkers, it explores the philosophical sources in Japan for recognizing and realizing the possibility of a natural freedom.

Keywords: Japanese philosophy, natural freedom, nature, origins

Follow the creative transformations of nature; return to the creative transformations of nature! —Bashō

If one has engaged in this practice for a long period of time, no matter in which direction one lets the mind go, it moves in a state of freedom.

—Takuan Sōhō

“How should one live?”

“One should live freely and naturally.”

An intuitively compelling response. And yet, can one have it both ways? Can one be both free and natural?

In fact, strong currents in the Western tradition tell us no. According to long-standing metaphysical dualisms, just as the mind or soul is distinct from the body, freedom is of an essentially different order than nature. While transcendently oriented religion tells us that we must ultimately free our souls from their embodiment in nature, modern science (albeit perhaps no longer quantum physics) tells us (p. 335) that nature is governed by deterministic laws that would seem to be the very antithesis of freedom as autonomy or self-determination.

Nevertheless, many of us today can neither swallow the metaphysical dogma that would separate our souls from the natural world nor bite the deterministic bullet and renounce our longing for—and inner sense of—freedom. The question, then, is: Can we find a path that leads beyond these apparent conflicts between freedom and nature? One thing seems clear: if there is such a path of reconciliation, it must entail along the way a radical rethinking of the very concepts of “nature” and “freedom.”

What I mean to demonstrate in this essay is that Japanese thought has much to contribute to precisely such a rethinking of nature and freedom, a rethinking that sees them as nondually interrelated in their origins and as ultimately reconcilable through practice. By drawing on a number of traditional and modern thinkers, I shall explore here the philosophical sources in Japan for recognizing and realizing the possibility of a natural freedom.

The Intimacy of Freedom and Nature

The modern Japanese philosopher Kuki Shtizō wrote the following succinct and striking account of the fundamental differences between typically Western and typically Japanese conceptions of the relation between freedom and nature:

In the Japanese ideal of morality, “nature” in the sense of what is “so of itself” [onozukara na shizen] has great significance. ... If one does not reach the point of naturalness [jinen], then morality is not seen as completed. This is quite distinct from the West. Indeed, in Western conceptual configurations nature is often thought in opposition to freedom. By contrast, in Japanese practical experience there is a tendency for nature and freedom to be understood as fused together and identified. Freedom is something that naturally springs forth of itself. Freedom is not born as the result of a strained self-assertiveness. When the heart/mind of heaven and earth naturally comes forth of itself just as it is, that is freedom. 1

According to traditional Japanese thought, then, freedom is not something gained by separating ourselves from nature, but rather is itself an expression of naturalness. It is not a freedom from nature, but rather a freedom in nature, a freedom of naturalness or a natural freedom.

This intimacy between freedom and nature is in fact reflected in the very language used to speak of “nature” and “freedom” in Japan. The ji of jiyū 自由 (“freedom” or, more literally, “arising-from-oneself”) or of jizai 自在 (“freedom” or, more literally, “abiding-of-oneself”) is written with the same character as the shi of shizen自然 (“nature” or, (p. 336) more literally, “what-is-just-so-of-itself”). The latter compound can also be read as jinen (“naturalness” or, more literally, “being-just-so-of-itself”). Moreover, the same character 自 (shi or ji)—a prefix meaning “self-” and originally a preposition meaning “from”—is also used, with only a slight variation in its phonetic modulation, to write

2

both onozukara 自ずから and mizukara 自ら. Onozukara is used as a noun or as an adjective signifying what is, or that something is, originally “so-of-itself,” or as an adverb signifying that something occurs naturally “of-itself.” Mizukara, on the other hand, can be used as a first-person pronoun or as a noun meaning “oneself,” and it is often used as an adverb signifying that something is done “of-oneself,” “by-oneself,” or “from-oneself.” The root meaning of “self” can also be found in these expressions in the ono 己, which refers generally to the self (onore 己 or jiko 自己), and in the mi 身, which refers more specifically to the “personal embodied self” (as in mibun身分 or jibunjishin 自分自身).

As we shall see, what is striking in Japanese thought is precisely the nonduality between the personal initiative implied in the expression mizukara and the impersonal naturalness implied in the expression onozukara. In other words, the freedom (jiyū 自由) of the self (jiko 自己) is thought to accord with—rather than to stand in opposition to—the naturalness (jinen 自然) of nature (shizen 自然). Only by way of finding one's place of participation in what is naturally “so-of-itself” (onozukara 自ずから) can one recover the authentic ability to be freely “of-oneself” (mizukara 自ら). In taking part in nature, one is naturally free.

Freedom: Negative and Positive, Supernatural and Natural

As with the Western terms “freedom” and “liberty,” Japanese words such as jiyū and jizai also imply, at least to begin with, a freedom from constraints. However, at the same time there is a keen awareness that a liberation merely from external restrictions can give way to an arbitrariness and even egoistic wantonness. Hence, Suzuki (p. 337) Daisetsu draws a sharp distinction between “freedom” (jiyū) and “licentiousness” (hōitsu). Indeed, he claims that these are opposites, insofar as the latter involves a lack of self-control that leads to a slavery to the passions. (It is worth mentioning that Suzuki criticizes here the “Beat Generation”—many of whom ironically claimed to be inspired by Suzuki's own writings on Zen—for failing to make this crucial distinction between freedom and following one's whims.) The realization of true freedom, Suzuki claims, requires passing not only through a discipline of self-control, but ultimately through an existential “death” of

the ego as the internal source of bondage. 3


Unlike humans, inanimate things and nonhuman animals are not alienated from their own specific forms of natural freedom. “The pine tree is not the bamboo, and the bamboo is not the pine tree; each dwells in its own place, and this is the freedom of the pine tree and the bamboo.” To call this “necessity” rather than “freedom,” Suzuki remarks, is to take an outsider's perspective. For the pine tree to be a pine tree is the expression of its natural freedom, not the result of a denial of its desire to be something else. Natural necessity, experienced from within, is natural freedom. Nishitani Keiji also suggests a kind of compatibilism between natural freedom and natural necessity when he writes: “when someone tosses a crust of bread and a dog leaps up in the air to catch it, every ‘thing’ involved ... [is] subject to certain physico-chemical laws. ... [And yet,] the dog and the man live the laws of nature. ... [Moreover,] their activities in some sense also imply an appropriation of

4

the laws of nature.” In fact, as we shall see, in the Japanese tradition human freedom is thought to be compatible not only with the lawful regularity, but also with the radical indeterminacy and contingency of nature's unfathomable ways.

Yet humans, and apparently humans alone, are capable not only of naturalness but also of “falsity,” that is, of a distorted and distorting view of their own place in the world and the range of possibilities open to this place. To be sure, we humans are not pine trees, and we have certain unique abilities and responsibilities for cooperatively shaping our environment. But it is a hubristic falsification for us to think of ourselves as supernatural masters of the natural world. We too have our own specific freedom within nature, not outside or opposed to it.

While Suzuki somewhat polemically claims that the (modern liberal) West has failed to think beyond a negative sense of freedom or liberty, in fact there have long been debates in Western political philosophy surrounding what Isaiah Berlin has referred to as “two concepts of liberty,” 5 namely, a “negative freedom” from constraints and a “positive freedom” to realize one's authentic potentials. Moreover, it is not the case that negative freedom has been thought only in the sense of political freedom from external constraints. According to Kant, for

example, morality demands a freedom from internal compulsions (sensuous or natural “inclinations”), a negative freedom that in turn enables a positive freedom, (p. 338) namely, the “autonomy” of giving the supersensuous or supernatural law of practical reason to oneself.

Nevertheless, while Kant thinks of autonomy dualistically as requiring a supersensuous will free from natural inclinations, Suzuki thinks in nondualistic terms of an autonomous naturalness. Suzuki defines freedom as “the activity that naturally comes forth as it is—without any direction from another and without restriction—from the principle of nature.” Far from seeing autonomy as an independence from nature, he stresses the linguistic as well as semantic intimacy between freedom, or “arising-from-oneself” (jiyū rlFk)—autonomy in the sense of acting

7

on one's own accord or “of-oneself” (mizukara rlLj)—and naturalness as a spontaneous activity that happens “of-itself” (onozukara rlLj). On the one hand, then, Suzuki would agree with Kant that positive freedom requires a negative freedom, not just from external constraints, but also from internal compulsions. On the other hand, however, he would disagree with the idea that autonomy is gained by means of a supernatural freedom from and rational control of all natural inclinations. Autonomy is not gained by means of a complete independence from the supposed heteronomy of nature, but rather by means of harmonizing oneself with the truly natural Way that is the very origin of the self. Freedom is realized not by way of a dualistic disengagement from nature, but rather by way of a nondualistic engagement in nature.

In an early work, Nishitani suggests a dialectical path through a disengagement from egoistic self-will (what we might call our inauthentic, alienated, and alienating self-nature) toward a recovery of genuine naturalness (our authentic self-nature). 8 He acknowledges Kantian rational autonomy as a significant step on a way that ultimately, however, leads back to a realization of the nonduality of our authentic self with a radical naturalness. In his later attempts to think of this human/nature nonduality, where the self freely participates in nature, Nishitani turns increasingly to the tradition of Zen Buddhism. He quotes, for instance, the following passages from Musō Kokushi:

Hills and rivers, the earth, plants and trees, tiles and stones, all of these are the self's own original part. ... Out of the realm of the original part have arisen all things: from the wisdom of Buddhas and saints to the body-and-mind of every sentient being, and all


lands and worlds. 9


(p. 339) When the self awakens to its own “original part,” the core and source of its being, it realizes its participation in the dynamically interconnected whole of nature.

Nature as a Way of Naturalness

The question of freedom has taken us back to the question of nature. The contemporary Japanese psychoanalyst Kimura Bin draws a broad distinction between, on the one hand, a conception of nature that sets it in opposition to human culture and, on the other, a conception of nature that sees it as “pertaining to the innermost psychic reality” of human beings. The former conception, Kimura says, predominates in the Western tradition, whereas the latter is typified in the traditional Japanese understanding of nature. 10 Suzuki also claims that “Western ‘nature’ is dualistic and is set over against ‘the human,’” while “Eastern ‘shizen’ includes ‘the human.’” 11 The Greeks did often set technē (art/craft) and nomos (convention) over against physis (nature); and a dualistic distinction between the natural body (soma) and the supernatural soul (psychē) gets repeated in one form or another from Plato through medieval Christian thought to Descartes. Of course, we can also find countercurrents to such dualisms throughout the Western tradition. But in Japan, a human/nature nondualism is the main current of thinking. As Yanabu Akira writes, the traditional Japanese notion of “nature” (shizen) signifies a world that either precedes the

subject/object split or that entails the unification of subject and object. 12


What, then, is this “nature” in which humans nondually participate? Today, shizen is used as a translation of the Western concept (or rather concepts) of “nature.” In premodern (that is, pre-Westernized) Japan, however, “nature” as the totality of all natural things was referred to with such expressions as “mountains-rivers-grasses-trees” (sansensOmoku) and “the interwoven variety [literally the ‘forest web’] of the myriad phenomena” (shinrabanshO). On the other hand, “Nature” as the order of the cosmos, or as a dynamic cosmological principle of

6

transformation, was expressed with such terms as “heaven and earth” (tenchi), the Way (dō or michi), and “creative transformation” (zōka). Nature in the Japanese tradition is thus an inherently dynamic and creative whole unto itself. It is not the product of a transcendent Creator; indeed, even the Shintō gods are said to have emerged from mysterious yet natural processes. 13

(p. 340) In many respects, this Japanese sense of “nature” does resemble a Greek sense of kosmos: that is, a self-contained world that includes the gods as well as all animate and inanimate beings, and in which humans are to find their proper place. But the Japanese did not attempt to develop a “cosmology” in the sense of a thoroughly logical account (logos) of a thoroughly rationally ordered world (kosmos). While nature is not thought of as simply chaotic, that is, while there are indeed principle patterns (ri or kotowari) that permeate the phenomenal flux, the rhyme and reason of nature's Way ultimately exceeds human calculation and intellectual reasoning. Nevertheless, while the principle of this fluid Way cannot be fixed in place by the objectifying intellect, it can be existentially realized by means of a holistically engaged praxis that includes, but is not limited to, discursive reasoning.

In the Japanese tradition nature is thus not so much an object of study as it is a way of life. The Japanese were concerned less with “nature” as the object of a theory of being, and more with “naturalness” as a principle of becoming and as a practical way of living. In fact, the Japanese word that is used today to translate the Western concept of “nature”—自然, read as shizen—was originally used as an adjective (natural) or as an adverb (naturally), rather than as a substantive (nature). Naturalness—自然, read as jinen—is an adverb describing the authentic way in which things, animals, and, ideally, people are. The human task is therefore not to learn to completely predict and externally control nature by fathoming its rational laws, but rather to bring oneself into accordance with the fluid principle of its Way.

A Way Beyond the Pitfalls of Naturalism and Supernaturalism

As we have seen, in traditional Japanese thought freedom is not found in a victorious or tragic struggle against nature, but rather in the naturalness of a participation in nature. But this free participation in nature is not in fact a given; the source of natural freedom must be retapped. And the path back to a radical wellspring of naturalness must avoid the pitfall of a superficial “naturalism.” At the same time, as we shall see, Japanese thinkers attempted to avoid this pitfall without diverting the path away from a nondualistic this-worldly naturalness toward a dualistic otherworldly supernaturalism.

An affirmation of the soteriological efficacy of nature is a recurrent theme in Japanese Buddhism as well as in indigenous Shintō thought. The Buddha Way does not lead to a transcendence of nature, but entails rather a return to naturalness; and natural phenomena themselves

14

help teach us this Way. Dōgen claims that “grass and trees” are the Buddha-nature. “The stitras,” he says, “are the entire universe, (p. 341) mountains and rivers and the great earth, plants and trees,” and we are counseled to listen to “the voices and figures of streams and the sounds and shapes of mountains” as they “bounteously deliver eighty-four-thousand gāthās [verses].” 15

And yet, Dōgen was also keenly aware that the then-prevalent doctrine of the “original enlightenment” (hongaku) of all beings can easily mislead one to a superficial “naturalism” that permits a wanton indifference to practice. 16 In this regard he cites his teacher Rujin's warning: “If one says all sentient beings are from the first Buddhas, that would fall under the teaching of the non-Buddhist school of Naturalism.” 17

That a genuinely radical naturalness is not to be confused with the egoistic abandon of so-called naturalism is also clearly apparent in Shinran's ideal of “dharmic naturalness” (jinenhōni). For Shinran, such genuine naturalness is achieved precisely by disposing of all egoistic workings of “self-power” (jiriki) and opening oneself to the “other-power” (tariki) of Amida Buddha's grace. To Western ears, this may initially sound like a familiar sacrifice of naturalistic egoism for the sake of supernatural fideism, in other words, a giving up of self-will for the sake of obedience to God's Will. Yet, for Shinran, even the personified transcendence of Amida is ultimately to be understood as an

18

“expedient means” for returning to a natural spontaneity and effortless compassion here and now. And, we might ask, would not this dharmic naturalness then lie radically beyond the very dualism of self-power and other-power?

19

Nishida Kitarō writes that “in dharmic naturalness, we see God in a place where there is no God,” and he explicitly suggests that dharmic naturalness must be understood neither in terms of the egoistic arbitrariness of an immanent naturalism nor in terms of a deferential obedience to a supernatural being.

Something like what Shinran calls dharmic naturalness is not what is thought of as natural [shizen] in Western thought. It is not a matter of behaving arbitrarily and just following one's impulses. It is not a matter of so-called “naturalism” [shizenshugi]. Dharmic naturalness must involve exhaustively exerting the self in the face of things. It must include infinite effort, and must not merely be a matter of going with the flow. And yet, it should be recognized that one's efforts are themselves not one's own. There is

something which of itself naturally allows things to happen [onozukara shikarashimeru mono]. ... [This] must not be [thought of as] something that moves the self either from the outside or from the inside, but rather [as] something that envelopes the self.

(p. 342) True naturalness is not gained by simply passively submitting oneself to the Will of a transcendent being outside the self, any more than it can be gained by simply acting on the willfulness found immanent in the surface layers of the self. Rather, according to Nishida, the true individual discovers him- or herself to be “enveloped” by the “place of absolute nothingness”; and, realizing oneself as a “focal point” of

the self-determination of this dynamic place, one truly becomes what one is, “a creative element in a creative world.” 21


Human/Nature Nonduality: Existence and return

Nondualism is sometimes taken to be synonymous with distinctionless monism. However, while this may apply to the Advaita Vedanta school of Indian philosophy, in East Asian thought, and in Zen Buddhism in particular, nonduality (funi) tends to be thought rather in terms of “not one and not two” (fuichi-funi). As seen in the passage quoted above, Nishida was satisfied neither with a philosophy of sheer immanence nor with one of dualistic transcendence. Rather, he thought that the nondual relation between the self and the absolute must be

22

understood in terms of “immanent transcendence” (naizai-teki-chōetsu). Precisely because the finite self is “enveloped by” rather than externally opposed to the absolute, the absolute is found at the very heart of the finite self. Insofar as we understand nature to be the encompassing whole of reality,23 in order to understand the relation of the finite self to nature, we must think in such terms of a nondual relation of immanent transcendence. The self is not simply submerged in nature, but neither is it something dualistically separate or separable from nature.

Kimura Bin helps us to understand this nondual relation between the self and nature by explaining it in terms of a literal sense of “existence.” “The self, mizukara, is nothing but an ‘existence’ in the sense of a ‘standing out’ or ‘emerging’ of the intrinsic nature, onozukara, into the outer intersubjective reality of human life through the ‘ex-it’ of one's own body, mi.”24 The personal embodied self is thus an (p. 343) ek-stasis, a standing outside oneself, insofar as it is an emergence from “the overall spontaneous activity of nature” that is the “very origin of the inner self.”

Kimura suggests that mental health requires a dynamic balance between individuating existence and staying in touch with one's natural origins. While on the one hand the schizophrenic is unable to first achieve an individuating existence from nature, on the other hand the Zen practitioner seeks to radically return to the creative source of (human) nature. “If the goal of endeavor in Zen Buddhism is gaining access to the true Self before the differentiation of mizukara from onozukara, the basic disturbance of the schizophrenic psychosis can be seen in a

25

difficulty to differentiate them.” While the schizophrenic fails to become an individual in the first place, the Zen practitioner attempts to transcend individual egoism and alienation by returning to the natural roots of humanity.

Freedom is thus not simply an innate given, but rather the achievement of a regained naturalness. The true self is a part of nature, but it is a part that dynamically stands out from and returns to nature. Natural freedom is not a static state of being, but rather a dynamic dialectic of existence and return.

The Unfathomability of Nature and Freedom

Insofar as we humans are one with nature, in other words, insofar as we come from nature and can return to nature, we can realize—awaken to and embody—the principle of its fluid Way. And yet, insofar as we stand out from nature as existing finite individuals, we can neither fathom its every rhyme and reason nor control every twist and turn of its flow.

As we have seen, the same characters 自然 can be read either as jinen or as shizen. While the former reading was used in the past, as it is still today, in the sense of “natural,” without artificial intervention, the latter reading was traditionally used to refer to events that were unexpected, “one in ten thousand” (man-ichi). Analogously, the expression onozukara was used not only to refer to events that were

26

“natural,” that happen as a matter “of course,” but also to events that occur “perchance” (hyottosuruto or tamatama). Hence, the expressions onozukara and shizen evince, not a nature that is exhaustively ruled by laws of necessity that can be epistemologically fathomed and technologically manipulated, but rather a nature that can manifest itself also in radically contingent and surprising events.27 Such events,

28

that of death in particular, are (p. 344) beyond our ken and control—and yet they too are natural. Returning to a life of naturalness thus

20

requires more than comprehending and attuning ourselves to the lawful regularities of nature; it also demands an openness to nature's unfathomable contingencies and a recognition of our own finitude and mortality in particular.

This conjunction of what is natural (“of course”) with what is contingent and surprising is paradoxical only if we assume that the ways of nature can be reduced to the laws of human understanding and submitted to the calculations of egoistic desire. Yet, while this noncalculable contingency means that the natural world is beyond our control, the indeterminacy of nature is in fact also the source of our own freedom. An acknowledgment of the ultimate unfathomability of natural processes is at the same time an affirmation of the nondeterministic freedom of our participation in these processes. The spontaneity and creativity of nature and freedom is the complement of their contingency and unpredictability.

Freedom, after all, essentially cannot be explained—for to explain freedom would be to explain it away. What can be determined in advance is, strictly speaking, nothing new, but rather merely the mechanistic or teleological unfolding of what was already there. However situated and finite it may be, freedom is precisely what cannot be exhaustively determined by causes and conditions. Indeed, freedom (jiyū 自由) is as such an origin; it is a source from (自) which something new arises (由). It is not a predictable becoming based on determinate being, but

rather a creative emergence out of an indeterminate “nothingness.” 29


The traditional Japanese Way of nature entails, then, a nondeterministic, uncontrollable, incalculable excess of originality and creativity. This natural Way both exceeds the control of our egos and is the very source of the freedom of our authentic selves. For, as Nishida puts it, we become true individuals when we realize ourselves as “creative elements in a creative world.”

The Practice of Regaining Natural Freedom

As is implied in Bashō's call for us to “return to the creative transformations of nature,” natural freedom is not simply a given; it must be achieved. This achievement, however, is a matter of radical regress rather than linear progress; that is to say, it entails stepping back to our forgotten roots, getting back in touch with the hidden source of spontaneous creativity and compassionate responsibility that lies underfoot.

(p. 345) The quest for natural freedom in the Japanese tradition thus always starts with a paradox of self-alienation: to begin with we are not who we are most originally.

Dōgen opens his Fukanzazengi with a version of this paradox: “From the beginning the Way circulates everywhere; why the need to verify it in practice? ... And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, heaven and earth are vastly separated; if the least disorder arises, the heart and

30

mind get lost in confusion.” Although the natural Way is everywhere, its ubiquity must be realized, that is, awakened to and actualized. Dōgen's solution to the acquired enlightenment (shikaku) versus original enlightenment (hongaku) dilemma is found in his notion of “the

31

oneness of practice and enlightenment” (shushO ittO). With this doctrine he manages to avoid the pitfall of a superficial naturalism that excuses humans from the task of realizing the originary ubiquity of the Buddha-nature. Practice is not a means by which we acquire a new essence; yet it is a way of expressly verifying our true being. As he tells us in BendOwa: “Although the Dharma [cosmic law] amply inheres in every person, without practice, it does not presence; if it is not verified, it is not attained.” 32 The natural freedom of our Buddha-nature is always already underfoot, and yet it must be appropriated by means of holistic practice (shugyO).

While there is no end to this practice of the realization of natural freedom (insofar as what one realizes is that practice is realization), one

33

does pass from a more or less artificially forced discipline to what Takuan calls a state of “samadhic freedom” (jiyū zammai). The practice (keiko) of serious discipline, Takuan writes, leads to a “state of freedom [jiyū]” in which one can let the mind go in any direction. 34 If one has learned to “throw the mind away in the entire body, not stopping it here or there,” then, “when it does inhabit these various places, it will realize its function and act without error.” 35 Freed from internal compulsion by means of strict external discipline, one finally lets go of the latter to realize a genuinely natural freedom in the midst of everyday activity.

As we have seen, the nonduality of this natural freedom does not imply a licentious naturalism, nor does it imply a distinctionless monism into which singular differences are dissolved and ethical responsibility abnegated. Although Takuan is sometimes accused of dissolving ethical distinctions, insofar as in his “lessons to the sword master” he says that the self, the opponent, and the sword are all to be viewed as

36

“empty [of independent substantiality],” in fact, the spontaneous freedom he teaches does contain significant ethical implications. It is necessary to cast off the dualistic discriminations of the ego, not in order to attain a blanket state of nondiscrimination, but rather in order to discriminate—that is, to make practical (p. 346) distinctions and ethical judgments—freely and naturally. This freedom from (artificial and egoistic) discrimination and freedom for (natural and nonegoistic) discrimination is what Takuan means when he says: “Without looking at right and wrong, he is able to see right and wrong well; without attempting to discriminate, he is able to discriminate well.” 37 One finds the

source of practical wisdom, not by intellectually disengaging oneself from the everyday world and transcending it to a supernatural realm, but rather by means of a holistic practice of intimately engaging oneself with the everyday world by nondually attuning oneself to the fluid principle—the natural Way—that pervades the singular events of the here and now.

To be sure, Zen masters and other Japanese teachers in the past and in the present have not always lived up to their ideal practices of returning to a free and responsible naturalness. At their worst, they have inhibited individual autonomy by conflating nonegoistic naturalness with conformity to the status quo of the community. On the path to recovering a nondual spontaneity, there are certainly perilous sidetracks that would confuse nonduality with homogeneity and pitfalls that would simply replace self-assertive activity with deferential passivity. But such aberrations and crude reversals should not divert our attention from genuine paths of recovering natural freedom. At their best, Japanese thinkers have conveyed ways of casting off both individual and collective egoism through practices of returning ever again to the wellsprings of a nondual naturalness that is a source of both compassionate responsibility and creative freedom.

Bibliography and Suggested Readings

DAVIS, BRET W. (2007) “Does a Dog See Into Its Buddha-nature? Re-posing the Question of Animality/Humanity in Zen Buddhism.” In uddha Nature and Animality , edited by David Jones. Fremont, CA: Jain Publishing.

Find this resource:

DŌGEN KIGEN. (2002) The Heart of Dôgen's Shôbôgenzô, translated by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Find this resource:

KIM, HEE-JIN. (1987) Dôgen Kigen: Mystical Realist (revised ed.). Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Find this resource:

KIMURA BIN. (1988) “Self and Nature—An Interpretation of Schizophrenia.” Zen Buddhism Today 6, 1–10. Find this resource:

LAFLEUR, WILLIAM R. (1989) “Saigyō and the Buddhist Value of Nature.” In Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in nvironmental Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Find this resource:

MARUYAMA, MASAO. (1974) Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, translated by Mikiso Hane. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

Find this resource:

NISHIDA KITARŌ. (1987) Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview, translated by David A. Dilworth. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Find this resource:

(p. 347) NISHITANI, KEIJI. (1982) Religion and Nothingness, translated by Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Find this resource:

——— . (2005) “On Nature,” translated by Aihara Setsuko and Graham Parkes. In Confluences: Studies from East to West in Honor of V. H. Viglielmo, edited by William Ridgeway and Nobuko Ochner. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Find this resource:

SUZUKI, D. T. (1996) “The Role of Nature in Zen Buddhism.” In Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki, edited by William Barrett. New York: Doubleday.

Find this resource:

TAKUAN SŌHŌ. (1986) The Unfettered Mind, translated by William Scott Wilson. Tokyo: Kodansha. Find this resource:

UNNO, TAITETSU. (1998) River of Fire, River of Water: An Introduction to the Pure Land Tradition of Shin Buddhism. New York: Doubleday. Find this resource:

Notes:

(1) Kuki ShūzO zenshū (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1980), vol. 3, p. 276; also see ibid., vol. 2, p. 102. Unless otherwise noted, translations from Japanese sources are my own.

(2) Mizukara and onozukara are indigenous Japanese expressions that are sometimes written entirely in phonetic script (hiragana); more often, however, they are written in part with kanji, the ideograms adopted from China. I cannot discuss here the continuities/parallels and differences between Japanese and Chinese (specifically Daoist and Chan) conceptions of the intimacy of freedom and nature. I will also have to defer an examination of the many variations within Japanese thought, since my intent in this essay is to synthesize and reflect on a general sense of “natural freedom” that pervades much of this tradition. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that, just as the Daoists, who pleaded for a return to naturalness, had their critics in the Legalists and some Confucians (Hanzi), who stressed an artificial reshaping of human nature, the prominent theme of recovering natural freedom was not always universally accepted in Japan. Maruyama Masao has argued, for example, that a rejection of the Neo-Confucian rooting of ethical and political principles in “nature” (shizen), and an attempt to see them as based rather on human “invention” (sakui), can be found in a number of thinkers (Ogyti Sorai in particular) in the Tokugawa period in Japan. Maruyama interprets this shift as a “modernization” that paved the way for Westernization. See Maruyama 1974, part 2.

(3) Suzuki Daisetsu, TOyO-teki-na mikata (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1997), p. 68.

(4) Nishitani 1982, 79–80.

(5) See Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).

(6) See Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, 2nd ed., trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 70 [452]. When Kant uses the term “nature” in the “widest sense” to mean “the existence of things under laws,” he opposes the intelligible world of “supersensuous nature” to the empirical world of “sensuous nature.” He claims that these worlds, or views of the world, are strictly distinct and yet somehow coexist in a manner incomprehensible to us. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Macmillan, 1956), p. 44 [43], 102–103 [99–100].

(7) Suzuki, TOyO-teki-na mikata, p. 65. Note that Suzuki writes here mizukara and onozukara exactly the same, distinguishing them only by appended phonetic script (furigana).

(8) See Nishitani Keiji chosakushū (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 85–90.

(9) Nishitani 1982, 108.

(10) Kimura 1988, 4.

(11) Suzuki, TOyO-tekihna mikata, p. 220.

(12) Yanabu Akira, “Shizen: Honyakugo no unda gokai,” in Honyakugo seiritsu jijO (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1982), p. 133.

(13) See Sagara Tōru, “‘Onozukara’ toshite no shizen,” in Sagara TOru chosakushū (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1995), vol. 6, pp. 148–149. Maruyama sees this as reflecting the fact that the Japanese historical consciousness is based, not on a teleological sense of creation, but on a sense of the natural dynamism of a continual becoming (tsugi-tsugi ni nariyuku ikioi). See Maruyama Masao, “Rekishi-ishiki no ‘kosō,’ ” in Chūsei to hangyaku (Tokyo: Chikuma, 1992).

(14) Dōgen 2002, 76–77.

(15) Quoted from the “Jishō zammai” and “Keiseisanshoku” fascicles of the ShObOgenzO in Kim 1987, 97, 256.

(16) According to Takeuchi Seiichi, the “naturalism” (shizenshugi) of the “I novels” of early twentieth-century Japanese literature also fell into an analogous pitfall. See Takeuchi Seiichi, “Onozukara” to “mizukara”: NihonshisO no kiso (Tokyo: Shunjtisha, 2004), pp. 11–13, 20– 21.

(17) “Dōgen's Hōkyō-ki (1),” trans. Norman Waddell, The Eastern Buddhist New Series 10/2 (October 1977): 121.

(18) Sagara shows how Shinran ultimately understands Amida and other-power as expedient means for realizing naturalness (“ ‘Onozukara’ keijijōgaku,” in Sagara TOru chosakushū, vol. 6, pp. 136–137).

(19) Nishida 1987, 121, translation modified.

(20) Nishida Kitarô zenshū (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1987–1989), vol. 12, p. 369.

(21) See Nishida Kitarô zenshū, vol. 8, p. 339.

(22) See Nishida 1987, 99, 110, 121.

(23) Nishida himself does not in fact usually speak of the absolute or the ultimately enveloping and self-determining world as “nature.” In his later thought, he tends to limit “nature” (shizen) per se to the realms of biology and physics, which he generally claims are enveloped by the historical world. However, in an important text from his later period, Nishida writes of the dialectically self-determining world in terms of “historical nature” (rekishi-teki shizen) (Nishida Kitarô zenshū, vol. 8, pp. 298ff.). In an early essay, Nishida had written that “nature and culture are not opposed to one another; nature is the root of culture. An artificial culture separated from a profound and vast nature cannot but degenerate” (Nishida Kitarô zenshū, vol. 13, p. 129).

(24) Kimura 1988, 6.

(25) Ibid., 10.

(26) See the entries for “shizen” and “onozukara” in Kôjien (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1991) and in Iwanami kogojiten (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1992).

(27) It is not surprising that Kuki's philosophical investigation of “contingency” (gūzen) led him through European existentialism back to the Japanese conception of nature. See Tanaka Kytibun, Kuki Shūzô: gūzen to shizen (Tokyo: Perikansha, 1992), ch. 5.

(28) See Sagara, “‘Onozukara’ keijijōgaku,” pp. 124–125, and “‘Onozukara’ toshite no shizen,” pp. 151–153.

(29) See Nishitani 2005, 67–68.

(30) My translation. For an alternative translation, see Dōgen 2002, 2–3.

(31) The attempt to steer through the horns of acquired versus original enlightenment dualism did not remain unique to Dōgen. As Takeuchi points out, Ippen spoke of “the nonduality of acquired and original enlightenment [shihon-funi]” (“Onozukara” to “mizukara,” 19).

(32) My translation. For an alternative translation, see Dōgen 2002, 8.

(33) Takuan 1986, 82. Wilson translates jiyū zammai as “freedom in a meditative state.”

(34) Ibid., 36.

(35) Ibid., 26, 31, translation modified.

(36) Ibid., 37.

(37) Ibid., 81, translation modified.

Bret W. Davis

Bret W. Davis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. In addition to earning a Ph.D. in Western Philosophy, he spent over a decade in Japan working on Buddhist and Japanese philosophy. He is author of Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (2007); translator of Martin Heidegger, Country Path Conversations (2010); editor of Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts (2009); and coeditor of Japanese Philosophy in the World (in Japanese, 2005) and Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (2010). He has also published numerous articles in English and Japanese, including an article on the Kyoto school for the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Oxford Handbooks Online