Genjokoan 2: Leaping Clear... (while seated, view 3)

 

[1] When all dharmas are [seen as] the Buddha-Dharma, then there is delusion and realization, there is practice, there is life and there is death, there are buddhas and there are ordinary beings. [2] When the myriad dharmas are each not of the self, there is no delusion and no realization, no buddhas and no ordinary beings, no life and no death. [3] The Buddha’s truth is originally transcendent over abundance and scarcity, and so there is life and death, there is delusion and realization, there are beings and buddhas. [4] And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.

In the first two phases of Master Dogen's contextualisation of what Buddhist practice is all about he presented two views of how people have generally looked at and interpreted the self and the world - a view based on ideas, ideals and thinking (idealism), and a view based in the senses, the body and the material world devoid of values ascribed by the mind (materialism).

In the next phase, the third, Master Dogen brings our attention to the Buddhist view of things:

[3] The Buddha’s truth is originally transcendent over abundance and scarcity, and so there is life and death, there is delusion and realization, there are beings and buddhas.

Master Dogen states that the Buddhist view is 'originally transcendent' over the 'abundance' of thoughts and values of the first view he presents, and also over the 'scarcity' of thoughts and values of the second view. This third phase is the view of the practice of zazen, of 'dropping off body [the 2nd view] and mind [the 1st view]' to use the phrase that Master Dogen valued highly in his meditation instructions.

In 'dropping off body and mind' in Buddhist practice, in sitting and allowing thoughts and bodily sensations to come and go and eventually quieten down, we can experience directly for ourselves that our self and the world is not reliant upon our thoughts and is not just a matter of physical perceptions and sensations.

This view can be seen to be 'originally' transcendent as we can experience the coming and going of thoughts and feelings to be our natural, resting state before we stir things up with our habitual grabbing onto thoughts and feelings and our going off on the narratives which we may have come to identify with as our selves... Master Dogen talks more about the implications for the 'self' in all this later on in Genjokoan, so I'll park all that for now.

Nishijima Roshi described this phase as the phase of 'action'. He presented this view as confirming Buddhism as a 'philosophy of action', a philosophy of direct practice which can be seen as distinct from philosophies or religions based on thought or belief, or on a lack of thought or belief. Life and death, delusion and realisation, and being an ordinary being or being a buddha are real states of action or activity, so they are affirmed in this phase as real, leaping into actuality from the ideas, ideals or religious/philosophical values they are presented as in the first phase... the essential point of Buddhism is to do the practice, not to think about it.

The Tanahashi et al translation of this chapter renders this third phase as "The buddha way, in essence, is leaping clear of abundance and lack..." which is a nice energetic expression of the vivid, awake zazen that Master Dogen encourages us to practice.