Genjokoan: The Three Philosophies and the 'Nonthinking' Koan.


Master Dogen laid out three viewpoints, or 'three philosophies' as Nishijima Roshi descibed them, at the start of Genjokoan: thinking/ ideas, an absence of ideas, and the phase of Buddhist practice that transcends both an 'abundance' of ideas and a 'lack' of ideas, thoughts and values.

This chimes nicely with an important koan that Master Dogen cites in his zazen instructions, Fukanzazengi. He discusses this koan in more detail in the chapter of Shobogenzo called Zazenshin:


Once, when the Great Master Hongdao of Yueshan was sitting [in meditation], a monk asked him, "What are you thinking of, [sitting there] so fixedly?"
The master answered, "I'm thinking of not thinking."
The monk asked, "How do you think of not thinking?"
The Master answered, "Nonthinking."


This koan presents three modes in relation to thinking: 1. Thinking 2. Not thinking, and 3. Nonthinking (sometimes translated as 'different to thinking') all of which correspond to Master Dogen's three viewpoints.

'Nonthinking' is clarified in this koan as the mode of practice in sitting zazen -- thought is not negated, thoughts are still present, but when we notice we are engaging with them in zazen we just stop that and let them go and eventually our habitual grasping at coming-and-going arising thought generally calms down and clarifies, and then we can learn something about the nature of thought and self, as the deluded mind tends to grab on to and identify with our thoughts as 'me, myself and I'.

In this way both 'thinking' and 'not thinking' are realised for what they really are through the activity of body and mind that is sitting 'nonthinking'. And so 'thinking' and 'not thinking' are presented not as opposites or as diametrically opposed, but as in a dynamic and harmonious relationship via the practice of sitting 'nonthinking' -- we can experience for ourselves via 'nonthinking' that we are not just our thoughts, nor just an absence of thought, but are a spontaneous flow of thoughts, awareness, perceptions and sensations with no discernable centre nor boundaries.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Master Dogen's Shobogenzo: A Layman's Reading

Image
Hello, I'm Harry, a student of Zen Buddhism with my teachers the late Gudo Nishijima Roshi and Peter Rocca Sensei. I live and work a lay person's life in Belfast. On this blog I'll be reading and reflecting upon Shobogenzo, the masterwork of Zen Master Eihei Dogen, the 13th century philosopher-monk and founder of Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan. Shobogenzo ('True Dharma Eye Treasury") is an ambitious literary expression of Master Dogen's zazen practice as he brings his 'Dharma eye' to bear on such things as Buddhist teachings, Zen koans, the central practice of zazen, and essential themes including time and life/death and what it is to exist in this dance of coming and going, realisation and delusion, and also what it is to experience in our practice of zazen that which we are prior to the dance of words or ideas or any opposing, conditioned things at all. Master Dogen, besides being a gifted philosopher, was a poet who dared to attempt to express what many ...
Read more

Genjokoan 1: Three Philosophies, One Reality (views 1 and 2).

Image
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. 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. 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. And though it is like this, it is only that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.   In these readings of Shobogenzo I'll be using the Nishijima/ Cross translation of the text, which is available in full (four volumes) in PDF format via the 'links' section in the menu. This chapter, Genjokoan, is considered very important as its opening section is seen as offering an essential insight into how Master Dogen looks at things from different viewpoints in...
Read more