道元論 1On Dogen, Part 1

Within the landscape of Japanese Zen, three lineages prevail: the Soto, the Rinzai, and the Obaku. My personal fascination, however, remains anchored in the progenitor of the Soto school. In this essay, we shall explore the revolutionary concept of displacement as articulated by the founder of the Soto sect—the largest force within the world of Zen.

Today, the Soto school remains a formidable institution, claiming some 3.5 to 4 million adherents out of Japan’s approximately 80 million Buddhist practitioners. While they represent roughly 4 to 5 percent of all Buddhists, within the specific framework of Zen, the Soto school accounts for a staggering 66 percent of the faithful. If one views Zen merely through the modern lens of "mindfulness," the revolutionary character of this lineage remains obscured. Yet, by uncovering its essence, we begin to see how truly radical Zen was intended to be. To grasp this, we must look, above all else, at the founder himself.

The architect of the Soto school, a revolutionary monk who navigated the turbulence of the 13th century, was Dogen (1200–1253). To trace his life is to witness a religious seeker who, more deeply than any of his contemporaries, wrestled with the concept of the 【浄土】 “Pure Land/Jodo“—the dominant Buddhist aspiration of the age. He lived to manifest that vision in the real. Though he would eventually found the great temple of Eihei-ji in what is now Fukui Prefecture, his journey began with a profound doubt regarding the Pure Land. This doubt propelled him on a grand odyssey to Song Dynasty China in search of truth. When we focus on how he ultimately perceived the Pure Land, we find that his conclusion always involved the intervention of "non-separation."

Born into the Kuge—the high court aristocracy of Kyoto—Dogen entered the world at a precipice. His life, spanning 1200 to 1253, coincided with the violent transition from the long-standing era of the nobility to the nascent age of the samurai. The aristocratic government had succumbed to terminal corruption and internal collapse, its authority vanishing. Consequently, the warriors, once merely the "watchdogs" of the elite, rose to seize the reins of power. Though Dogen belonged to the privileged class, it was an era where such privilege offered little sanctuary.

Indeed, eight years before his birth, the first military government, the Kamakura Shogunate, was established by Minamoto Yoritomo (1147–1199). Thus, Dogen was born into an age of upheaval, where the surging warrior class engaged in a fierce struggle against the waning hegemony of the nobles. The aristocracy of Kyoto fell into ruin with terrifying speed. Because the fate of the nobility was tethered to the fate of the city itself, Kyoto descended into a terrestrial hell, besieged by public disorder and relentless disasters. Amidst this vortex, Dogen’s parents, exhausted by incessant strife, passed away early, leaving him an orphan.

This childhood encounter with loss instilled in him the fundamental Buddhist truth of 【無常】 (Mujo)—impermanence. Consequently, he forsook the path of the courtier and chose instead the life of a monk, seeking to master the Buddhist Way. In any era of transition, famine, plague, and war inevitably follow the shift in power. As a result of this societal instability, a dark obsession with the "Latter Day of the Law"—the belief that the world was ending—spread across all classes, cloaking society in literal and spiritual darkness. It is perhaps difficult to reconcile this with the modern image of Kyoto, but the city has historically seen periods where corpses were left to rot in heaps upon the streets. A classic example is the banks of the Kamo River, where crowds now gather from dusk until night; historically, it was a site where countless bodies were abandoned. Those with a heightened sensitivity to the unseen avoid such places entirely. Kyoto is haunted by myriad such taboos, of which the average tourist remains blissfully unaware.

Dogen’s first destination was Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, an edifice built to guard the northeastern Demon Gate of Kyoto. While immersed in the teachings of the Tendai school (a branch of Esoteric Buddhism), he collided with a piercing question: "If all human beings originally possess the Buddha-nature, why must we subject ourselves to such grueling asceticism?" The practices of Esoteric Buddhism, then as now, were exceptionally severe. However, several centuries after the death of the founder, Saicho (767–822), the underlying purpose of these rigors had been forgotten. The monks had fallen into a state of spiritual decay, where the act of sequestering oneself in the mountains to escape the world became an end in itself. They confused the means with the end, clinging to the wishful thinking that as long as they endured hardship, they would become Buddhas.

Having been raised in the heart of Kyoto, Dogen felt a visceral repulsion toward these mountain monks who believed they could reach enlightenment while remaining cloistered. While they ignored the world, people just down the mountain were starving, murdering, and deceiving one another. If one does not face the problems of the real, then any form of asceticism is meaningless. It was against this stagnation that Dogen harbored his strongest doubts.

Realizing that the Tendai school of his time held no satisfying answers, and feeling that further stay at Enryaku-ji was a waste of his finite life, he descended the mountain. He moved to Kennin-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple within the city. Kennin-ji is the head temple of the Rinzai sect and is known as the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto. It is deeply significant that Dogen made such a drastic shift from Esoteric Buddhism to Zen. To a man of his unyielding conviction, whose sole aim was faith in the Buddha, sectarian labels were irrelevant; he held the sectarian rigidness of other monks in contempt.

His move to Kennin-ji transformed his life. There, he studied under Myozen (1184–1225), a direct disciple of Eisai, the man who first brought Rinzai Zen to Japan. This was Dogen’s first authentic encounter with Zen. Since Kennin-ji had been established in 1202 during his infancy, it was then a vibrant, surging center of religious energy. Dogen is said to have entered its gates in 1217, at the age of seventeen.

However, in those days, temples and monks often functioned as hubs for political and military activity. Particularly in the case of Mount Hiei, the monks exploited their remote location—where the court and nobility could not monitor their actions—to foster radical ideologies and serve as a source of revolutionary insurrection. When examining Japanese religious history, one often senses that religion and organized terror exist but a hair’s breadth apart; the Enryaku-ji of that era was no exception. To the monks of Mount Hiei, who were deeply enmeshed in politics, Zen was a threatening new doctrine. Fearing for their vested interests, they subjected the new movement to violent suppression. To avoid total persecution, Eisai had been unable to keep Kennin-ji a purely Zen space; he was forced to maintain it as a syncretic institution, performing the esoteric rituals of the Tendai and Shingon schools alongside Zen practice.

Dogen, already disillusioned with Tendai, soon felt the limitations of this compromise at Kennin-ji. During these frustrated years of his youth, a defining event occurred: the Jokyu War of 1221. In essence, it was the final, desperate resistance of the former rulers—the Imperial court and the nobility—against the new masters, the warriors of the Shogunate.

The cause was pathetically simple: the royalty and nobles, having lost their privileges and become mere figureheads, could not endure being governed by the warriors who were once their dogs. It was an ugly struggle. For Dogen, who shared the blood of that aristocracy, this event brought total disillusionment. Seeing Kyoto—the nation's capital—in such a state, he decided there was no hope left for Japan. Seeking a new horizon, he resolved to cross the perilous seas to Song China with Myozen to continue his search.

Thus, in the spring of 1223, at the age of twenty-four, Dogen departed from Hakata. He arrived in China in April, wandering through various regions in search of a new possibility, until May 1, 1225, when he experienced a destined encounter. His counterpart was Nyojo (Rujing) of Tiantong Mountain. Dogen became certain that Nyojo was the true master who transmitted the authentic Dharma. He became his disciple and threw himself into rigorous practice. Tragically, his companion and former teacher, Myozen, passed away at Tiantong Mountain that same May. It is a poignant thought—as if Myozen had lived solely to bridge Dogen to Nyojo. Here, one can see the true lineage of Zen beginning to flow.

Eventually, under Nyojo’s guidance, Dogen attained the enlightened state of 【身心脱落】 (Shinjin-Datsuraku). This term is not a convoluted concept; it signifies the state where the dualistic world of the "body" 【身】 and the "mind" 【心】 is rendered non-separate through the act of "casting off" 【脱落】—the shedding of all selfish desires and attachments.

In 1227, having received the seal of enlightenment (inka) from Nyojo, Dogen returned to Japan at the age of twenty-eight. He initially went back to Kennin-ji, the site of his bond with Myozen. There, in an effort to teach a pure Zen devoid of esoteric influence, he composed the Fukan-Zazengi (Universal Recommendations for Zazen), detailing the correct method of seated meditation.

However, because Kennin-ji was located in the heart of Kyoto, it could not escape the shadow of Enryaku-ji, which reached into the very core of the Imperial court. To ignore them was to risk the temple being demolished or burned. The monks of Kennin-ji had also succumbed to corruption, bowing to power. They refused to heed Dogen’s words, leading to inevitable friction. Consequently, Dogen moved to the Fushimi district and, in 1233, opened Kosho-ji. There, he finally found the freedom to preach his faith with all his soul, unburdened by the gaze of others. He opened his doors to all, teaching disciples regardless of whether they were ordained monks.

His primary focus was a unique method of practice known as 【只管打坐】 (Shikan-Taza). This term, a combination of 【只管】 and 【打坐】, means "to sit with single-minded devotion." In essence, one does not sit with the intent to gain something or to reach enlightenment—purposes born of selfish desire. Rather, the act of sitting itself is the manifestation of enlightenment. Any meditation driven by a goal is flawed from its very inception; no matter how long it is practiced, it will never reach the truth. Simultaneously, he began writing his magnum opus, the Shobogenzo (正法眼蔵).

Yet, as the young Dogen began to accelerate on his spiritual path, he was again obstructed by the old Buddhist powers of Kyoto, led by Mount Hiei. After enduring daily pressure and harassment, the risk became the real that they would influence the authorities to crush his teachings as "heresy." Advised by one of his followers, Dogen concluded that a true path of faith could never be established in the corruption of Kyoto. He decided to move to a new land. Thus, in 1243, he migrated to the province of Echizen, now known as Fukui Prefecture.

In this new territory, he built Daibutsu-ji in 1244. In 1246, its name was changed to Eihei-ji, the temple that is now world-renowned. Dogen spent the remainder of his life there, dedicating himself to practice and the cultivation of his disciples.

At Eihei-ji, Dogen set out to declare that practice is not a stagnant destination where the "why" is forgotten, as it had become in traditional circles. He asserted that while practice is the means, its purpose lies elsewhere. His concept of Shikan-Taza is the prime example. As mentioned, it means "just sitting," which makes it highly susceptible to misunderstanding. People often mistakenly believe that simply sitting physically will achieve something. However, in my view, the essence does not lie in the physical act of sitting, but in anchoring the mind itself within its own origin.

I believe that for Dogen, the true issue of Shikan-Taza was not the presence or absence of the physical posture. Rather, it addressed the tendency of the human mind to become dissolute and lose itself. The essence lies in tethering those wandering movements of the heart back to their primordial source. By realizing this through Shikan-Taza, one achieves a state where people no longer fall into separation. At that moment, Shinjin-Datsuraku is realized, and non-separation is attained.

Yet, one might say Dogen’s life had only just reached its true starting point. For the Buddhist world of that time faced a supreme problem, and he would spend his life demonstrating a new possibility against it. Because of the societal ruin and the desolation of the human spirit in that unstable age, Pure Land Buddhism—led by figures like Honen (1133–1212) and Shinran (1173–1263)—was spreading like wildfire among the common people.

What stood before Dogen was the collective heart of a people yearning for the Pure Land. How did he confront this most difficult of problems?

To be continued…