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buddha
September 2007 
Enlightenment, Delusion, Reality and Dogen
JewelMountain
What is enlightenment? What is delusion?
Students of Dogen and other great masters may understand this; some will, some will not. Yet Dogen was pretty clear on the subject. Our living practice can be just as clear.
Ok this profound mystery can't be adequately explained so why say anything at all? Two key words in Dogen's Shobogenzo are ‘Genjo' and ‘Doshu'. For our purposes Genjo means realization, Doshu means the expression of realization.
We can say that Shakyamuni Buddha had complete, perfect and unsurpassed realization when he saw the morning star but he still had to seek out his five former ascetic companions to express it, thus turning the dharma wheel.
Dogen says " ‘A greatly enlightened person is nevertheless deluded' is the quintessence of practice." Now isn't that clear? Yeah if you're familiar with Dogen's way of saying things. But do we really accept this statement with all our being , not just with our intellect? If we're not familiar with Dogen or some part of us still likes to view enlightenment as some mystical state to be attained then this statement is really worth exploring. If a commentary helps I'd recommend Hee-Jin Kim who I'll summarize with this post.
This statement of Dogen's was a response to this koan:
"A monastic once asked Great Teacher Pao-chih: ‘What is it like when a greatly enlightened person is nevertheless deluded?' The teacher replied: ‘A shattered mirror never reflects again; a fallen flower never returns to the tree.'"
Taking this koan to represent "the non-attached, self-emptying, traceless state of realization on the part of the enlightened one, who is thoroughly immersed in delusion and yet completely free of it" is to miss the dynamic interplay of delusion and enlightenment in their duality and nonduality.
Dogen comments "The greatly enlightened person in question is not someone who is greatly enlightened from the beginning, nor is the person someone who gets and appropriates it from somewhere else. Great enlightenment is not something that, despite being accessible to everyone in the public domain, you happen to encounter in your declining years. Nor can it be forcibly extracted through one's own contrivances; even so one realizes great enlightenment without fail. You should not construe nondelusion as great enlightenment; nor should you consider becoming a deluded person initially in order to sow the seeds of great enlightenment.
A greatly enlightened person is further greatly enlightened, and a greatly deluded person is still greatly enlightened as well. Just as there are greatly enlightened persons, there are also greatly enlightened buddhas, greatly enlightened earth, water, fire, wind and space, and greatly enlightened pillars and lanterns...
Consider this further. Is a greatly enlightened person who is nevertheless deluded the same as an unenlightened person? When being nevertheless deluded, does a greatly enlightened person create delusion by exerting that enlightenment?...
And is the "greatly enlightened" one hand and the "nevertheless deluded" the other? In any event, you should know that to understand ‘A greatly enlightened person is nevertheless deluded' is the quintessence of practice. Note that great enlightenment is ever intimate with great delusion."
Elsewhere in the more famous GenjoKoan, Dogen made it simpler:
"Those who greatly enlighten delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about enlightenment are sentient beings."
For anyone still not getting the point, Hee-Jin Kim interprets it this way.
Dogen repudiates all views of enlightenment as something we are innately endowed with, or as something we can acquire as a thing or object, or as something that arises due to some chance occurrence.
Enlightenment-Delusion; the relationship is not that where one negates the other, or is the absence of the other, nor does one come before or after the other.
Yet enlightenment "must neither descend to, nor incarnate as, delusion" and is "ever intimate with and transparent to delusion." This intimacy suggests the nonduality of delusion and enlightenment and intimates lively tensions between the two.
They are different perspectives, not metaphysical opposites or polarities.
"They are orientational and prespectival ‘foci' within the structure and dynamics of realization. As such, their boundaries, though provisional, always remain and are never erased. Yet they are permeable."
So enlightenment does not replace delusion but negotiates delusion in a manner consistent with its principles. Like any other methodological designations, enlightenment and delusion have no independent self nature; they are dependant on each other. "They are not metaphysical opposites in eternal struggle, nor do they collapse in the mystical coincidence of opposites, nor are they polar principles that posit a preordained universal order or harmony above and beyond them. They are soteriological tools to guide practitioners in the dynamic workings of realization."
Just as moonlight illumines the Earth at night, so does Enlightenment illumine Delusion (the depths of human nature that have hitherto been unknown, unnoticed, unfathomed by practitioners). We become aware of our moral, emotional, existential doubts, anguishes and ambiguities.
Yet Dogen said "Nothing in the whole world is ever concealed".
So light does not eradicate darkness enabling the hidden to become visible, because "originally nothing is hidden, and accordingly, light does not need to replace darkness."
All light does is illumine and penetrate darkness's depths in a perpetual process of dialogue.
This is interplay not adhesion or union, this is Dogen's mysticism of intimacy, a dynamic relationship that informs, challenges, negotiates, and transforms.
It's not so different from the fact that we each have an individual bodymind and are simultaneously interdependent with the bodyminds of all beings. Shunru Suzuki Roshi said "Not one, not two..."
Dogen concludes "To add a little to a large amount is ‘great enlightenment'; to take a little from a small amount is the ‘nevertheless deluded'...You should examine and act upon whether this present self is ‘nevertheless deluded' or not. This is the way you meet with the buddha-ancestors."
Now I'll shut up and go sit on a cushion. :)
Access: Public
“when i eat, i eat, when i sleep, i sleep.” :)
“But not everybody eats when they eat, and not everybody sleeps when they sleep.”, replied the Master.
The master was of course greatly enlightened, and nevertheless deluded.
Can't claim his level of nonattainment myself, sometimes i eat when i eat, sometimes i don't eat when i eat. Human beings make things complicated and so we have a practice…
:)
it's the practice that makes things complicated. ;)
the practice is simply to return to here now, to be present.
The master's practice was just that, just eating when he eat, just sleeping when he slept.
Just sitting when we sit. Nothing complicated. :)
Its simple, but not easy. And so ways of talking about it arise, and things get complicated, unless we realise they're just words. When they're helpful, cool.
When they're not, throw them in the bin. :)
'the practice is simply to return to here now, '
return from where?
'to be present.'
how does one practice 'to be present' ?
'… they're just words. When they're helpful, cool. When they're not, throw them in the bin.'
who decides when they are helpful?
return from where?
From wherever we drifted off to, maybe we were replaying in our heads some argument we had yesterday, maybe we were worrying about something that may happen tomorrow, maybe were just just resisting being with whatever was arising and wishing and daydreaming that it was all somehow different.
Of course we can never actually be anywhere but here now, but are we fully available for that with all our being and presence?
How does one practice being present? By being present. And when we become aware that we've drifted off, just to allow that awareness to enable us to let go of our daydream and return to being present. Perhaps for some sitting daily zazen increases the frequency of that awareness, perhaps for some a simple mindfulness training helps, taking 3 deep breaths when we feel annoyed at a red traffic light, or putting the right key in the front door each time first time.
Who decides when any of these words help? Whoever's reading them. We can each sense what is helpful to us or not while allowing that others may find a different formula. Thats ok….
:)
it's been nice talking to you. should you find yourself in zürich, you would be welcome to come and sit with us. ( see: zentrum für zen-buddhismus )
do you know this: 3rd patriarch ?
with all the proper bows and gashos, i ask you to join my 'friends' list. (you'll be easier to keep track of that way.) :))
may your life go well
yozan a.k.a. basho
Thank you Yozan
Its been useful talking with you also and if i'm ever in Zurich I would be delighted to come and sit with you.
Sosan's Verses On The Faith Mind is wonderful, basic instruction and profound insight expressed through sublime poetry.
May you be well and happy.
Sitting Together,
and with a deep bow,
/\ Gyokuzan.