Jishin Kinson, Rev. Master

This is a transcript of a Dharma talk given following the Festival of Great Master Dōgen at Throssel in October.

To celebrate Eihei Dōgen today, the talk is going to be about morality… That probably sounds terribly dry for a celebration(!) but I’m going to concentrate on the underlay of good and bad; right and wrong, which help navigate our choices and actions; and we’ll have the wisdom of Dōgen in this area.  I’m using translations of Dōgen by Tanahashi and Hee-Jin Kim^, and some of Kim’s commentary.

But first, I hope any newcomers here already know that Buddhism teaches refraining from causing harm and doing everything that is good. There is no such thing as a genuine form of Buddhism without – or beyond – this.

Let’s start by moving forward through the origination of morality; the early origins of moral concepts and behaviour, because it throws light on the complexity of our adult approach.

It began with our parents bringing us up. We first learned what was acceptable and what was not acceptable. We learned about “yes” and “no” and later on (maybe about aged 4 or 5 years), we got the reasons for the good things to do, and the reasons for the things we did which were not acceptable. We developed restraint. We learned to consider others.

Now, such a foundation came to us with degrees of emotion and feeling content. As babies and then wild young children, restraint and being good or bad was emotion-bound for us, and complicated by our desires and social motives. I think you’d agree that our right/wrong sentiments through into adulthood have retained emotional colour.  We feel strongly about what we see as good or what we see as bad. We aren’t neutral when we express our views in these areas. Moral expression often comes with heat!

As a Zen practitioner, quietly observing what your own mind does, you will have been surprised – shocked even – to notice just how active and all-involved this right/wrong sensibility is. We habitually view circumstance and other people’s behaviour in terms of right and wrong; at best, it’s done absentmindedly. And at our worst, it comes out as seething judgement.

Dōgen had strong words to say about this – even for the Japanese culture of the 1200s. In Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, he says:

A student of the way must abandon (this kind of) human sentiment. Most people are being dragged about by discriminating good from evil, distinguishing right from wrong…and then grasping at right things and discarding so-called wrong things.¹

He said, “being dragged about” and I would add ‘being driven by obscure, emotional content’. This is constrictive! Now, do we want that?  Of course not!

Dōgen goes on to say something like: “To enter the Buddha way, let go of the mind that holds dear your body and worries. Refrain from making ready judgements based on your view of good and bad.”

“Good and bad”; “right and wrong” are not absolutes. We often bandy them about as labels. Nothing is wholly good or wholly bad – there is always a complex and moving matrix.  Quoting Hee-Jin Kim from his book, Eihei Dōgen, Mystical Realist:

Good and evil are temporary, having no self-identifiable nature of their own. They are not solid entities. Like phenomena, good and evil come and go in the impermanent scheme of things. They are relative values and so we must take care when discerning what is truly good or discarding what is bad.²

In Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, Dōgen says:

What is truly good; what is truly bad is difficult to determine.  In my case, I sometimes write poetry and prose. Some people praise me, saying it is extraordinary.  And some criticize me for doing such things as a monk, who has left everything to study the way. Ultimately, what shall we take as good and abandon as evil? It is very difficult to discern clearly what is good and what is bad.³

And, we need to engage good circumstance; support good circumstance and make good choices.  The best way forward, including here in the monastery, is to look openly at what is really going on, seeking to see and know, and not jump into the stricture of right, or the stricture of wrong. We need to cut through emotional content by just looking and knowing. This is the way to sow the seeds of liberation for us all and for everyone else. What’s good really does help everyone.

Moving on, we’re at the point of looking at the mystical/transcendental side of Buddhist morality.  There is a radical side to the Buddhist Precepts. They are referred to as ‘Liberators’; also as the ‘Activity of Buddhas’. To fully encounter the Precepts as liberators, we must be prepared to open up beyond assessing and discerning and thinking through – we have to want to move on beyond habitual forms. It tends to come along with an exquisite trust.

In Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen expressed the fundamentally Real and mystical nature of the Precepts. The place to look is the chapter on the Three Pure Precepts – Shoaku Makusa. The Three Pure Precepts we know as:

Refrain from all evil,
Do everything good,
Purify one’s own mind.

The action of that pure mind is to help liberate all sentient beings – which is the Bodhisattva’s activity.

In Tanahashi’s translation of the Shōbōgenzō, he discards the terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and has the Pure Precepts as:

Refrain from unwholesome action.
Do wholesome action.
Purify your own mind.

The first Pure Precept: refrain from evil.  From Hee-Jin Kim’s translation:

Evil is not an entity that acts on things.  Not to commit any evil (any harm) is the direct expression of supreme enlightenment itself. Where evil is not committed, the power of spiritual discipline is realised at once.

In other words, the power is realised by you, the moment you ‘cease from’. That effect cannot be explained, only known. Refraining from evil is in accord with your Buddha Nature, and what is felt is freedom and purity. This is far beyond the contrivance of morality of the worldly mind. This power is beyond moral sentiment.

Also, from Kim:

Of course all humans can fail and feel guilty. This is always going to be a human propensity; we must live with our vulnerability. We can see the results of our acts but we cannot alter the causing and effecting.

This is quite humbling, really.

Confession is an essential part of enlightenment.  The regular Renewal of Vows ceremony we have at Throssel, includes the confession verse:

All the evil committed by me is caused by beginningless greed, hate and delusion.
All the evil is committed by our body speech and mind;
I now confess everything wholeheartedly.

This serves to support us in ongoing practice. We are long-term becoming Buddha!

A ‘realized’ person is still subject to the universal law of causality. Evil deeds cause evil consequences and good deeds cause good consequences. This maybe a bit cryptic, but this law is deeply personal and there are no exceptions.

The second Pure Precept: “Do everything good.” Again from Kim’s translation:

Good is not an entity that acts on things. To do everything good transcends ‘ought’. [i.e. transcends ‘ought to do’!]  Good deeds done for the sake of acquiring good results is not really the activity of True Nature. Rather, doing good comes out of True Nature and is done for its OWN SAKE.

Doing good for its own sake explains its immediacy. What is experienced in the action is freedom and purity. “There is only fidelity to True Nature”.

Tanahashi’s version, on wholesome action, is as follows:

There is no wholesome action waiting for someone to practice it. Wholesome action is just do.  At the very moment of doing, True Nature is it. Doing is not for the sake of knowing it or discerning it as good. Wholesome action is just do.  Wholesome action arrives at the place of Buddha Nature where all wholesome action is done faster than a magnet drawing iron.

These moments of wholesome doing are the fulfilled moments of moral and spiritual freedom and purity.  These moments are experienced as freedom and purity.

The ‘do’ and the ‘refrain from’ of these first two Pure Precepts is liberating, and the actions to follow are liberated actions.

The third Pure Precept: “Purify your own mind.” This is my own understanding of it, at the moment:

To purify one’s mind is like a follow-on from the first two. It is underlining the need now to practice further towards the completion of PURITY. That is, in order for REFRAINING and DOING to keep their PURE function, the mind must be free of an attachment to them. To have REFRAIN FROM ever-present and ready in the mind as a mode of conduct is not quite it. There is no need to meet all circumstances in readiness for REFRAIN FROM.  Likewise, with DO – There is no need to deliberately meet circumstances in readiness to step forward. In the beginning we do this, of course. It is well-intentioned and comes from enthusiasm with new-found practice, but without due care, they become the new moral strictures and then judgement of self and others seeps in.  Where is liberation then?

A way to practice the third Pure Precept would be to remain open towards the immediacy of REFRAINING or the immediacy of DO.  In other words, allow them to arise just for their own sake – really, out of emptiness and freedom; freedom and purity. What you relied on, if you like, is shifting away from conceptual attachments.

At this level of the Precepts, morality is not a contrivance of the ordinary mind, and is not based on accumulated sentiment; in this sense it is pure. As Dōgen says, “The pure action coming forth is the actualisation of the fundamental point.” This is exquisite and takes us further into the fathomless knowing. It is enough; expect nothing more.

As Kim points out, there will always be something of a tension in us between the everyday approach with reliance on a rational morality, and spiritual transcendence and purity and action coming from there.  We must live with the Law of Causation and with human nature. We have rational morality but we should not let it usurp spiritual transcendence and purity, and the action which comes from them.

 

Notes

1. Shōbōgenzō-Zuimonki: Sayings of Eihei Dogen Zenji recorded by Kōun Ejō. Translated by Shohaku Okumura. Kyōtō Sōtō Zen Center, 1987.

2. Hee-Jin Kim, Eihei Dōgen, Mystical Realist, Wisdom Publications, 2000.

3. Tanahashi, Kazuaki, translator: Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo. Shambhala Publications, 2013.