Shobogenzo Bussho - 'Buddha-Nature'.

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I had occasion recently to transcribe a short talk about this chapter of Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, so I thought I'd have a look at it here on the blog.

In Zen practice, in sitting 'dropping off body and mind' in zazen, we directly express and experience the ungraspable (or 'ineffable', as Nishijima Roshi liked to say) nature of our actions and our selves. Our action and our experience happens instantaneously, but it can't be confined or reduced to any thought or theory or name.

Buddhist philosophy however needs some way to express the possibility of realising this and so it speaks in terms of 'buddha-nature'.

As Nishijima Roshi indicates in his introduction to this chapter in the Nishijima/ Cross translation, Master Dogen focuses on two main conceptions of the idea of buddha-nature that he both confirms and refutes so as to contextualise them from the direct point of view of Zen practice-realisation.

The first concept is that buddha-nature is a sort of potential or seed that lies within us.

The second is that buddha-nature is a sort of spiritual essence, a bit like an inner spirit or soul.

Master Dogen interrogates these ideas to indicate that buddha-nature is essentially a matter of our real action, our practice, in the present moment.

More to come on Shobogenzo Bussho.

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