Living by Vow

by Shohaku Okumura

  No matter what mistakes we make, we can start over because everything is impermanent. We can change. We can change the direction of our life. That is the way we transform our life, our thinking, and our views. According to Dōgen Zenji, sitting in zazen and letting go of everything is the key to shifting the basis of our life. By sitting and letting go we become free, even from the Buddha’s doctrine. We are not deluded, and we are not enlightened. So we just keep practicing. That is the meaning of shikantaza, or just sitting. If you feel good or enlightened in certain conditions, and you cling to this experience, you are deluded. You are already stagnating in enlightenment. So we open our hands and keep practicing. This is the meaning of just sitting, of continuous practice. There is no one who is deluded or enlightened. Sitting is itself enlightenment. This is why Dōgen Zenji said that we need to arouse bodhi-mind, moment by moment, billions of times.

  EMPTINESS IN PRACTICE

  “O Śāriputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness;

  They do not appear or disappear,

  Are neither tainted nor pure,

  Do not increase or decrease.”

  This paragraph was discussed above in relation to Nāgārjuna’s sayings in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. It refers not to something outside ourselves but rather to the way we see things, the way we grasp things using our intellect. Nāgārjuna says that our usual way of seeing and thinking is based on mental formations or thought constructions that he describes as meaningless argument. This is an important point in Mahāyāna philosophy that is difficult to understand. I will discuss it from the perspective of my own experience.

  Buddhist teachers from Shakyamuni Buddha to Nāgārjuna to Dōgen Zenji address the reality of our life, the true form of all beings. The problem is that when we think about this reality, when we try to grasp it, we lose it. We live inside reality. We are never apart from it, and yet we almost always lose sight of it. To discuss something we have to take a particular point of view. This is the problem.

  A long time ago I read a book on logic that included many famous paradoxes. One of the most interesting was a story about a king who told his retainers that no liars should be allowed into his kingdom. He built a barrier at the border. The guard asked everyone who wanted to enter the kingdom whether he was a liar or an honest person. Since everyone wanted to get into the country, they all said they were not liars, except for one who admitted, “I am a liar.” The guard didn’t know what to do. If this person really was a liar, then his statement was true; he was telling the truth and therefore he was not a liar. If he was not a liar, his statement was false, which meant he was a liar. Either way there could be no conclusion. Our usual way of thought presents a similar paradox. It doesn’t really fit reality, so we often make poor decisions.

  This story is an example of emptiness. Before we decide whether someone is a liar or an honest person, we have to define these terms. A liar is a person who tells lies, of course, and yet this is not enough. A liar is a person who always lies, and an honest person always tells the truth. This is the basic definition of a liar and an honest person. When we use these definitions, we should be consistent. A liar always lies. If a liar tells the truth, “liar” doesn’t apply. But in reality there is no one who always tells lies. We tell lies to deceive other people but if we speak only lies, we cannot deceive anyone. If someone always lies, I’ll know that the opposite of what he says is true. In fact, there is no one so honest he never tells a lie. If we think someone is weird, we don’t say, “You are weird.” We might say instead, “You are unique.” No one speaks only lies or only the truth.

  In reality there are no liars and no completely honest people. Thinking based on such definitions is an example of a thought construction, or meaningless argument. Such thinking misses the reality that we all lie to some degree. And yet there are some really honest people, and there are some liars. As Buddhists, we have to try to avoid lying because it is one of our precepts. If we interpret the precept of not lying with strict logic, we cannot be Buddhists. We can never completely follow the Buddha’s precept. So we have to inquire deeply into reality. This is not a matter of pure logic but of our attitude. This is our way of life, the Buddha’s truth, and the true form of human beings. In Buddhism the true form of all beings, the reality of our lives, is not based on simple logic. The wisdom of seeing emptiness is to see both sides. There are no liars and no honest people, and yet we try to avoid lying. There are two sides, and to see things from both is prajñā.

  Our thoughts, values, and attitudes are based on our work, education, and experiences. We must have some yardstick to live in society. But this yardstick is not absolute. I was born in Japan and grew up in Japanese society and cannot be completely free of a Japanese way of thinking and behaving. I don’t think that I have to become American, or that you should become Japanese. We have to understand that neither the American nor the Japanese way of thought is absolutely right. There is another way of thinking, of acting, of valuing things. It is the way of letting go of thought.

  This is what we do in our zazen. We become flexible. We have to let go of our evaluations and discriminations, or we cannot really connect with people from other traditions or cultures. In the past there were separate cultures that didn’t meet on a daily basis. Our modern world is becoming one society. Here in the United States many different kinds of people live together. If we hold on to our yardsticks and negate other people’s ways of doing things, we will fight. We will feel that we have to eliminate those who don’t agree with us. But when we let go of our way of thinking and become even a little bit free of our yardsticks, we have room to accept other ways of thinking. Our lives become broader and richer.

  The United States is the only foreign country I have lived in so far. Japan and America are special countries for me. My ideas about America have changed many times. I was born three years after World War II. My first memory of America is when I was about four or five years old and was told that my family lost all its wealth when the Americans bombed Osaka in March 1945. My family had lived in the center of Osaka for three hundred years, and they had accumulated some wealth. In one night we lost everything. I remember the only thing we had after the bombing was a statue of the Buddha, quite a large one for a lay family to own. I heard that my family had a shrine for this statue. I never saw it, but it must have been a large building. I also knew that my uncle was killed during the war. In my mind these memories created anger, hatred, and fear. In elementary school I heard that Japan was very poor and survived only because of help from America. America was a very prosperous country, while ours was very poor. America seemed like paradise, and we hoped to follow the American way. I then had two completely different, almost opposite views of America. America became something very positive, something we had to study as an ideal of democracy, science, technology, and materialistic consumer culture.

  My generation studied the American way of life, production, and system of values. Japan became much too American, almost more American than America. When I was a high school student during the Vietnam War, the Japanese mass media presented American imperialism as the enemy of humanity. This was another completely different idea. Later, when I studied history, I learned that the Japanese army did terrible things in China, Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian countries during World War II. My understanding deepened. Anger, hatred, and fear turned into a kind of sadness about humanity. All human beings have the same problems. America, Japan, all nations, and all individuals have the potential to do terrible things. To see things from different points of view is good. Finally I came to America to live in 1975. I lived in Massachusetts for about five years and experienced the American way of life. I found that there are many kind people and some who are not so kind, just as in Japan. People smile, laugh, cry, and scream the same ways in Japan and America. I think there is no big difference.

  To deepen our understanding we must negate our concepts. When we negate our beliefs and preconceptions we can see things from other poi
nts of view or a wider perspective. We should try to avoid grasping with our ready-made preconceptions or prejudices. If we open our hands and perceive things carefully, closely, then we can see other perspectives. This is opening the hand of thought. This is what we do in our zazen.

  This practice of letting go of thought enables us to see people and things with fresh eyes. Right now we have many flowers outside. When we see them we think they are beautiful. But when we look closely at a flower, it’s more than beautiful, it’s something really wondrous. Why is this flower so beautiful? Why does this flower bloom like this? Why is it that I can appreciate this beauty? There is surprise when we encounter things with fresh eyes. When we see the flower without thinking “This is beautiful” or “What is this flower called?” we really meet the flower itself. When we see the flower without thinking, we find that our life, this body and mind, and the life of the flower are the same life. There’s no separation. We can say, “I am blooming there as a flower.” To extinguish our views, to let go of thought, or to negate our own way of thinking is not negative. It makes our life very vivid and dynamic.

  To return to the passage:

  “O Śāriputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness;

  They do not appear or disappear,

  Are neither tainted nor pure,

  Do not increase or decrease.”

  If we read this carelessly, we may think dharma is somehow beyond appearance and disappearance, beyond taint and purity, or increase and decrease. We might assume there is something formless beyond phenomena. But the passage shouldn’t be understood in this way. For example, this bookstand was made in the past by someone using pieces of wood and today it exists as a bookstand. Someday it will break and disappear. This is a temporal form, a phenomenon. When we hear “since all dharmas are marked with emptiness, they do not appear or disappear,” we might imagine there is “something” beyond the phenomenon, in this case, the bookstand. We might believe this something is a noumenon which does not either appear or disappear, something that is permanent. We imagine this something beyond form is the true nature of this tentative phenomenon, and that to see this true nature of emptiness is enlightenment. In other words, we think emptiness is separate from form. This is not what is meant by the Heart Sutra. Emptiness is simply how form is. This bookstand is itself emptiness. We should not seek emptiness beyond this concrete bookstand.

  “Neither tainted nor pure, do not increase or decrease” should be understood in the same way. This bookstand is neither tainted nor pure. We should not think that there is something neither tainted nor pure that exists beyond this bookstand. Some people think that enlightenment is to see and become one with something formless and permanent beyond concrete things which have form and are impermanent. But the Heart Sutra says, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” We should not look for emptiness beyond form. There is nothing beyond phenomena. Phenomena are emptiness.

  In “Genjōkōan,” Dōgen Zenji says, “Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization.”84 Delusion and enlightenment depend on the relationship between ourselves and other beings. We cannot say this individual person is either enlightened or deluded because there is no person without relationship to others. Practice-enlightenment is not some mysterious experience. It is as clear and obvious as everyday reality.

  “Genjōkōan” continues, “When the Dharma has not yet fully penetrated body and mind, one thinks one is already filled with it. When the Dharma fills body and mind, one thinks something is [still] lacking.”85 When we are not filled completely with Dharma we grasp our self as the center of the world. We think this self is an absolute person who can see things objectively and understand them as they are. This belief occupies some part of our being, so the Dharma cannot completely permeate this body and mind. Therefore, we have to empty ourselves. Then the Dharma suffuses us and starts to fill the Dharma itself. When the Dharma completely pervades this body and mind, we feel something is lacking. Our way of thinking, our yardstick, is not complete or absolute, so we feel inadequate. We search more deeply. This is prajñā, to become free from our own yardstick and see things from a broader or deeper perspective. This is the wisdom that sees emptiness. There is nothing we can hold on to, nothing we can grasp. We open our hearts.

  Dōgen Zenji used an analogy: For example, when we sail a boat into the ocean beyond sight of land and our eyes scan [the horizon in] the four directions, it simply looks like a circle. No other shape appears. This great ocean, however, is neither round nor square. It has inexhaustible characteristics. [To a fish] it looks like a palace; [to a heavenly being] a jeweled necklace. [To us] as far as our eyes can see, it looks like a circle. All the myriad things are like this. Within the dusty world and beyond, there are innumerable aspects and characteristics; we only see or grasp as far as the power of our eye of study and practice can see. When we listen to the reality of myriad things, we must know that there are inexhaustible characteristics in both ocean and mountains, and there are many other worlds in the four directions.”86

  The ocean is not merely round. It has many other characteristics and aspects. In Buddhism it is said that the heavenly beings see water as jewels. There are many ways to perceive a single thing. The ocean is just one example of the myriad things we encounter in our lives. All people and things exist in ways other than how we see them. The phrase Dōgen Zenji uses is san gaku gen riki, meaning the power of the eye attained through practice. We develop the ability to see things clearly, closely, and deeply through the practice of letting go of thought. In Dōgen Zenji’s writing, practice means zazen.

  This is a very concrete description of emptiness in our practice. According to Dōgen Zenji our practice of zazen is the practice of prajñā that sees emptiness. Empty means ungraspable. We open our hand and see things from other perspectives by letting go of our own personal yardsticks. The Mahāyāna Buddhists who wrote the Prajñāpāramitā Sutras considered the Heart Sutra to be a sutra of transformation of the self. This is the way we transform ourselves, transform our way of life, enabling us to be flexible and see things without attachment. It is not mere insight or wisdom but rather a practice. Practice in the form of zazen is the foundation of our life. But since we cannot sit twenty-four hours a day, we have to learn how to encounter all things in our daily lives. We have to learn about the self, about our body and mind. We have to practice together with others. To live and practice together with all beings is the bodhisattva Way. This practice enriches our lives.

  DONGSHAN’S NOSE

  “Therefore in emptiness, no form,

  No feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness;

  No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;

  No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind;

  No realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.”

  This is one of the most popular parts of the Heart Sutra. It says there is nothing. I started to study Buddhism when I entered Komazawa University. The first thing we had to do was to memorize the dharma numbers. For instance, there are the five skandhas: form, sensation, perception, impulse, and consciousness (in Japanese, shiki ju sō gyō shiki). Also, there are six sense organs—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The eye senses shape and color; the ear hears sound; the nose smells; the tongue tastes; with our skin we touch. Each of these six sense organs has sense objects, and these two sets of six are called the twelve sense fields.

  When sense organs encounter objects, something happens within our mind. These interactions are called the six consciousnesses, roku shiki. The sutra uses the word “realm.” For instance, the realm of the eyes is eye-consciousness, or genshki. I think “realm” is not a good word here. The word used is dhātu, which in this case means element, not realm. When the eye encounters shape or color, eye-consciousness arises but initially no judgment is made.
It’s just a sensation, which then becomes a perception. Impulse or formation is a process of making definitions, conceptions, and judgments, which finally become consciousness. Each sense organ and object gives rise to a corresponding consciousness. These are called the eighteen dhātu, the eighteen elements of our lives. So there are five skandhas, twelve sense fields, and eighteen dhātu.

  In the next sentence the Heart Sutra says, “No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them.” These are the twelve links of causation. “Ignorance” is the first link, “old age and death” is the twelfth, and the phrase “and so forth until” simply means that all the intervening links are likewise negated. Next, “No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.” This refers to the four noble truths.

  These dharma numbers were the first things I learned when I began studying Buddhist teachings at the age of nineteen. But the Heart Sutra seemed to contradict what I had learned. It said there are no such things. I was surprised and confused. What did this mean? If the people who wrote the Heart Sutra wanted to negate the Buddha’s teaching, they should have said they were not Buddhists. But they claimed to be true Buddhists. Now I realize that this was a childish opinion. If you study the history of Buddhism, especially Mahāyāna Buddhism, you see that this really is the Buddha’s teaching. But as a nineteen-year-old I didn’t understand at all.