Poems of Dogen

[CircleoftheWay]

For a while I have taken a great interest in the 13th century zen master Dogen. A fascinating character. One simple thing that I admire is his obvious intensity, how he took every moment of time seriously. The "matter of life and death" was his deep concern There seems so much superficiality today, so much useless and senseless noise - the call to love the world while not conforming to it can create confusion of mind and heart.

But anyway, a poem of Dogen:-

To what shall I
Liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.

Many commentators, led astray by "the languid east" nonsense, and thoughts of maya (understood as "illusion") see such words, understand the poem, as being some some sort of diminution of the individual, and our world as being in a sense unreal.

Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, in his epic poem of the Buddha's life, "The Light of Asia", ended that poem with the words (upon the death of the Buddha as he enters Nirvana):-

"The dewdrop slips into the shining sea". More misunderstanding.

In fact, it is more that the shining sea slips into the dewdrop - yet even that does not capture the Buddhist position, which in fact is a no-position that supecedes all positions.

Getting back to Dogen's poem, here is a more perceptive understanding:-

“According to this verse, the entire world is fully contained in each and every one of the innumerable dewdrops, each one symbolic of the inexhaustible contents of all impermanent moments. Here the dewdrops no longer suggest illusion in contrast to reality because they are liberated by their reflection of the moon’s glow. Conversely, the moon as a symbol of Buddha-nature is not an aloof realm since it is fully merged in the finite and individuated manifestations of the dew. Just as the moon is one with the dewdrops, the poem itself becomes one with the setting it depicts.” (Steven Heine)

Thus the particular is seen to contain the universal. Each and every particular. Every moment. Every NOW. In this world, not some imagined "other" promised beyond the grave.

Another astute commentator Hee-Jin Kim invites us to pay particular attention to the pivotal word “shaken.” Many examples could be given of static images of the moon in a dewdrop or the moon reflected in still water but, by virtue of being shaken, the metaphor becomes dynamic and interactive.

So much for illusion, the diminution of the individual!

The Way does not exist to be found. Each moment is the way.

Anyway, maybe more another time if there is any interest.

 

[CircleoftheWay]

After speaking of rambling and not knowing what I'm going to say until I've said it, I have to admit that this particular post has been lifted from elsewhere. It's just that I drifted onto James Joyce on another thread and it jogged my memory.

Well, whatever, with a couple of alterations, another poem of Dogen with what could be stretched to be called a commentary.....

Poems are not ephemeral things. At best they travel heart to heart. Maybe they can also bring forth true communion, the deepest form of communication. The finger that points at the moon becomes the moon itself.

Reading the various details of Dogen's life in 13th century Japan (a time of great turmoil and social change), of his travels to China, can illuminate his poems, tie them to moments of doubt, to moments of his own illuminations, in time and space.

From Dogen's collection of poetry:-

Attaining the heart
Of the sutra,
The sounds of the
Bustling marketplace
Preach the Dharma

In my own Pure Land path of "no-calculation" the "marketplace" is the dojo (training ground), and everyone you meet is a "master". If not so, we can end up merely meeting ourselves, time and time again.

Moving back "west'......

James Joyce writes in "Ulysses":-

"God is a shout in the street"

From one or two commentaries on the works of James Joyce:-

Bloom (Leopold Bloom of Ulysses) is no perfect hero, but perfection is overrated. Give me a honest human being embracing their mundane humanity any day over a person striving after perfection.

Joyce does not present us with the illusion of a perfect life in this book, a life without pain and sorrow, but in all his honesty Joyce shows us that life as it is and not as we think it should be is worth saying Yes to. The sorrows and difficulties faced in Ulysses are included in Joyce’s affirmation of life, because what good would such an affirmation be if it did not include all of life?

Joyce offers a new litmus test for what we call the hero, not gigantic feats of strength, but small and simple feats of kindness.

And finally:-

An epiphany was not a miraculous dispensation from above but, as Joyce defined it, an insight into 'the soul of the commonest object'

(Kevin Birmingham, from "The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle For James Joyce's Ulysses.")


Simple feats and acts of kindness. So easy to miss, to become deaf and blind to.

Well that is it, I've been a bit under the weather the past two days. A hacking cough, a bit down and Fluey. I need some TLC.

 

[CircleoftheWay]

Just thinking of a life of anticipations and epitaphs which I often seem to be lost in, Dogen once wrote this little haiku:-

Even in Kyoto
Hearing the cuckoo cry
I yearn for Kyoto

I think that "true self" and "false self" can become a worthless game of hide and seek.

There is another poem by Dogen that speaks of finding your true self beyond all the longing and wishing...

Just when my longing to see
The moon over Kyoto
One last time grows deepest,
The image I behold this autumn night
Leaves me sleepless for its beauty.

Dogen was on his very last journey and held that yearning in his mind/heart, then the beauty of the present moment was gifted to him. It is always a gift.

 

[CircleoftheWay]

Anyway, having received much TLC from my loving wife of 45 years, and feeling a bit brighter, another adaptation of previous musings.

Another poem of Dogen:-

In the heart of the night,
Moonlight framing
A small boat drifting,
Tossed not by the waves
Nor swayed by the breeze

The meaning of this, at least for Dogen, can be illuminated by his words found in his "Genjokoan" (the actualisation of reality) He writes:-

If one riding in a boat watches the coast, one mistakenly perceives the coast as moving. If one watches the boat in relation to the surface of the water, then one notices that the boat is moving. Similarly, when we perceive the body and mind in a confused way and grasp all things with a discriminating mind, we mistakenly think that the self-nature of the mind is permanent. When we intimately practice and return right here, it is clear that all things have no fixed self.

Maybe it is just me but as I see it Dogen in his poem gives voice to the vulnerability of enlightenment. We do not possess enlightenment. It possesses us. It can never be ours.

"A clearly enlightened person falls into the well. How is this so?" (A zen koan)

And Thomas Merton:-

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened.

As I see it, many fear vulnerability. We can cling to being right, of having "all truth" - but Faith is of another order. It is a letting go, trusting in becoming.

Which is the "eastern" way of seeing things. Becoming, not Being. The eastern preoccupation with impermanence is well known to anyone who approaches its poetry, and impermanence can - and does - bring suffering when we cannot trust in the river of change.

But impermanence, if we "let go", can transform the suffering. But Impermanence, it becomes clear, doesn’t mean that things last for a while then pass away: things arise and pass away at the same time. The present moment is "eternity" but can never be caught. Things don’t exist as we imagine they do. Much of our experience of reality is illusory. And this is why we suffer. We attempt to hold onto happiness, as if it is a thing, a state of being, but as William Blake has written:-

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise

Therefore Being IS becoming. "God" can become an idol. Faith for me is in letting go.

I keep seeing Dogen sitting in Zazen, ramrod straight, in a strange sense inspirational. Someone who truly cared about Reality and leaving behind words that seek not to impose his own path, time and place upon others, but that - rather - allow us to find ours.

 

[Snoopy]

For a while I have taken a great interest in the 13th century zen master Dogen. A fascinating character. One simple thing that I admire is his obvious intensity, how he took every moment of time seriously. The "matter of life and death" was his deep concern There seems so much superficiality today, so much useless and senseless noise - the call to love the world while not conforming to it can create confusion of mind and heart.

But anyway, a poem of Dogen:-

To what shall I
Liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.

Many commentators, led astray by "the languid east" nonsense, and thoughts of maya (understood as "illusion") see such words, understand the poem, as being some some sort of diminution of the individual, and our world as being in a sense unreal.

Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, in his epic poem of the Buddha's life, "The Light of Asia", ended that poem with the words (upon the death of the Buddha as he enters Nirvana):-

"The dewdrop slips into the shining sea". More misunderstanding.

In fact, it is more that the shining sea slips into the dewdrop - yet even that does not capture the Buddhist position, which in fact is a no-position that supecedes all positions.

Getting back to Dogen's poem, here is a more perceptive understanding:-

“According to this verse, the entire world is fully contained in each and every one of the innumerable dewdrops, each one symbolic of the inexhaustible contents of all impermanent moments. Here the dewdrops no longer suggest illusion in contrast to reality because they are liberated by their reflection of the moon’s glow. Conversely, the moon as a symbol of Buddha-nature is not an aloof realm since it is fully merged in the finite and individuated manifestations of the dew. Just as the moon is one with the dewdrops, the poem itself becomes one with the setting it depicts.” (Steven Heine)

Thus the particular is seen to contain the universal. Each and every particular. Every moment. Every NOW. In this world, not some imagined "other" promised beyond the grave.

Another astute commentator Hee-Jin Kim invites us to pay particular attention to the pivotal word “shaken.” Many examples could be given of static images of the moon in a dewdrop or the moon reflected in still water but, by virtue of being shaken, the metaphor becomes dynamic and interactive.

So much for illusion, the diminution of the individual!

The Way does not exist to be found. Each moment is the way.

Anyway, maybe more another time if there is any interest.

Which book do you have please?

 

[CircleoftheWay]

Which book do you have please?

Hi, I have a few, but the one specifically on the poetry of Dogen is "The Zen Poetry of Dogen" sub-titled "Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace", by Steven Heine.

This contains a complete translation of Dogen’s collection of thirty-one-syllable Japanese poetry, or waka, along with a translation of a representative selection of his Chinese verse, or kanshi.

Also a lengthy introduction.

Steven Heine deals with the fact that often, in Dogen's prose writings, he spoke against becoming distracted from sole commitment to "the Way" by the lure of "idle secular pursuits" ( poetry?) Mr Heine states that Dogen recognised "if art is properly understood, it does not interfere with the enlightenment experience but complements or enhances it."

 

[CircleoftheWay]

Back into the world today after a few days under the weather. Although I like the image of being a bohemian drifter, blowing in the wind (!) in fact I know that I am a creature of habit. Routine is therapeutic. That is partly the meaning of the meeting of Dogen with an old cook who was seeking provisions for his monastic kitchen (this an event soon after Dogen's arrival in China as he sought authentic answers to his own life koan) Dogen said to the old guy:- "Would you not rather be practicing the Dharma than scurrying around seeking provisions for your monastery?" The old guy just laughed, and said that Dogen did not understand the Dharma. Dogen felt shame, but did not truly understand.

Maybe one lesson is to recognise that "teaching" can pop up in many ways, in many unexpected places. Becoming deaf to anything but the "masters" voice can close our mind/hearts. Dogen's shame was his "hearing", and as he said himself, his lack of understanding was his understanding. Which illuminates further words of the old cook, who said that throughout the entire universes nothing is concealed. The One Bright Pearl is there, unhidden, gift, grace - yet sadly we think it remains hidden and concealed, to be uncovered by our "understanding", the probings of our conditioned self that seeks to justify itself.

St Paul said that now we see "through a glass darkly." Why can we now not see face to face, what stops us when nothing in the entire universe is concealed?

Anyway, Dogen had further adventures in China. I think he met up with the old cook again. Another chat.

Well, another poem:-

Like a blade of grass,
My frail body
Treading the path to Kyoto,
Seeming to wander
Amid the cloudy mist on Kinobe Pass.

The above must be one of Dogen's last poems (if not his "death poem" - which tend to be a habit of zen masters) On his way to Kyoto seeking some sort of cure for his illness.

I can certainly empathize with wandering in a cloudy mist, but that is another story. I ramble.

Jane Hirshfield writes of great art and poetry that it is a "truing of vision......a changing of vision. Entering a good poem, a person feels, tastes, hears, thinks, and sees in altered ways.......by changing selves, one by one, art changes also the outer world that selves create and share."

I tend to think that we should not try too hard to force any change, which will always be the product of our conditioned self seeking to become "wiser" or, worse, more "enlightened". As Dogen knew, we are already enlightened and whatever we do is therefore an expression of enlightenment. But how easy it is to misunderstand that!

Dogen's own life koan - if the Mahayana teaching of Original Enlightenment is true, then why is there any need for practice? Why did the Buddhas of old continue to meditate? The historical Buddha was once asked this and his own answer was:-

"Out of compassion for the world"

Dogen had to find his own answer. We each have to find ours. There is nothing we need to do, yet we cannot do nothing.

Well, that's it. Coffee and burger finished.

​

 

[CircleoftheWay]

Sitting in Oxfam, my 4 hr stint on the tills, few customers to disturb my reverie. Listening to T-Rex Gold, realising that I was perhaps born to boogie. Is it too late?

Another Dogen poem written, according to Steven Heine, as expositions of Mahayana teaching.

Petals of the peach blossom
Unfolding in the spring breeze,
Sweeping aside all doubts
Amid the distractions of
Leaves and branches.


A footnote here:-

An allusion to the anecdote, cited in “Keisei-sanshoku,” concerning Zen Master Ling-yun (Jap. Reiun), who, during an arduous mountain journey, gained enlightenment through observing the spring peach blossoms in bloom. In Shobogenzo “Udonge” (Udumbara Flower), Dogen notes Ju-ching’s comment, “Ling-yun gained enlightenment upon seeing the blossoms in bloom, but I gained enlightenment upon seeing them fall.” Ling-yun’s saying also suggests Shakyamuni’s experience on the dawn of his awakening when he gazed at the morning star with singleminded concentration free from hindrance or distraction.


Thomas Merton:-

The spiritual life is something that people worry about when they are so busy with something else they think they ought to be spiritual. Spiritual life is guilt. Up here in the woods is seen the New Testament: that is to say, the wind comes through the trees and you breathe it.

(from "Day of a Stranger")

 

[CircleoftheWay]

This poem seems to speak of Original Face.

In spring, the cherry blossoms,
In summer, the cuckoo’s song,
In autumn, the moon, shining,
In winter, the frozen snow:
How pure and clear are the seasons!

As the zens say, we must find our original face before we were born. Some may see intimations of nihilism. There is in fact a book by Keiji Nishitani "Religion and Nothingness" , the subject of which is that the Western lurch towards nihilism can only be overthrown by moving onto the deeper "absolute nothingness" of the "East". Unfortunately, having paid over £40 for a copy, I found it way above my head - so I'll just have to take it on trust, which suits me. (Now I find that there is in fact a free PDF download!)

I think Dogen touches on this, and a commentator of Dogen (Hee-Jin Kim, in "Eihei Dogen:Mystical Realist") has written:-

The significance of the key notion of “casting off the body-mind” in the context of Dōgen’s life and thought was that zazen-only, as the mythic-cultic archetype, symbolized the totality of the self and the world and represented that in which Buddha-nature became embodied. To cast off the body-mind did not nullify historical and social existence so much as to put it into action so that it could be the self-creative and self-expressive embodiment of Buddha-nature. In being “cast off,” however, concrete human existence was fashioned in the mode of radical freedom—purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. Buddha-nature was not to be enfolded in, but was to unfold through, human activities and expressions. The meaning of existence was finally freed from and authenticated by its all-too-human conditions only if, and when, it lived co-eternally with ultimate meaninglessness.

There is a story of a moment of Dogen "enlightenment" when the monk next to him in zazen slumped forward and the master struck him, crying out:- "How dare you sleep when seeking to throw off body and mind!"

So much for nihilism.

Compare Meister Eckharts words in his German Sermon 22:-

Now listen carefully! I have often said, as great masters have said, that we should be so free of all things and all works, both inner and outer, that we become the place where God can act. But now we put it differently. If it is the case that someone is free of all creatures, of God and of themselves, if God finds a place to act in them, then we say: as long as this exists in someone, they have not yet reached the ultimate poverty. For God does not intend there to be a place in someone where he can act, but if there is to be true poverty of spirit, someone must be so free of God and all his works that if God wishes to act in the soul he must himself be the place in which he can act, and this he is certainly willing to be. For if God finds us this poor, then God performs his own active work and we passively receive God in ourselves and God becomes the place of his work in us since God works within himself. In this poverty, we attain again the eternal being which we once enjoyed, which is ours now and shall be for ever.

 

[CircleoftheWay]

True seeing received at birth

Seeking the Way
Amid the deepest mountain paths,
The retreat I find
None other than
My primordial home

A "way" that is no way at all, and as Thomas Merton once wrote...... "least of all a way out"!

Our "original face". Dogen's question that haunted his early, seeking, life was simply that if the Mahayana teaching of Original Enlightenment were true, why did the Buddhas of old still practice?

Another take:-

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

(T.S.Eliot, lines from Little Gidding, "Four Quartets")

Our "exploration" is the "way". Eliot intimates that some sort of "journey" is necessary in order to "know" truly that which has always been, and always will be.

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it
Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert....

(W.H.Auden)

I think that from a "western", Christian perspective the excerpts of poetry from Eliot and Auden hold promise of some sort of theodicy. Creation, the opposites, becoming lost in them, is some sort of necessity in order for God to share His reality in ever greater ways.

But I get lost in all the theologies - the loud voices of the ardent dogmatists drown me out. I find greater clarity in the "east", in the words and poetry of Dogen. Every moment is pure clarity, Now is the only moment, yet there is "movement toward Buddha". Again, the preoccupation of so many with the power of evil and the machinations of some satanic figure, taunting and leading astray, I find vacuous. I find it more encouraging to imagine that the only true "power" is Love, that we are surrounded not by devils, but only by bodhisattvas seeking only to open us to the Good, the True, the beautiful. Surely thinking such is the first step to our true giving and opening to others?

Well, I waffle. I ramble.

But yes, we can only do it alone, yet paradoxically, only among others.

"In protecting ourselves we protect others
In protecting others we protect ourselves"

(Buddhist text)

 

[CircleoftheWay]

Sometimes I have felt cheated by exponents of western zen, at least as expressed on Forums. My own thought is that so many in the west are on the run from certain expressions of Christianity that the slightest allusion to "faith", or of reliance upon texts, sends them running to obscure expressions such as the "cypress tree in the garden". I remember way back asking simple questions about zen to one or two worthies and kept getting back:- "why do you keep saying zen" ! Or even worse, one answered "it's mighty cold outside today"! Such is life.

Anyway, years later I am happy to find in Dogen:-

There is no path that comes from anything other than sincere trust.

Dogen, often lauded as expounding "Zazen Only" - which can alas lead not to sincere trust but only trust in the number of hours spent each day on the zafu. But I must not digress, and - of course - each to their own.

Well, another little poem of Dogen which I like:-

Each moment waking, sleeping,
In my grass-thatched hut,
I offer this prayer:
Let Shakyamuni Buddha’s compassion
Envelop the world.

There is surely a time for everything under heaven?