The Buddha-Nature in Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō

The Buddha-nature in Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō

Article

Citation:	Kodera, Takashi James. "The Buddha-Nature in Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 4, no. 4 (1977): 267–92. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2797.

Article Summary

It has come to be acknowledged in the present century that Dōgen is one of the most seminal thinkers of Japanese Buddhism. For nearly seven centuries, however, he has been buried in oblivion, except within the Sōtō School of Zen that reveres Dōgen as its founder. Even the Sōtō School contributed to the obscurity of their founder by prohibiting the publication of Dōgen’s major work, Shōbōgenzō until the end of the eighteenth century.
Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960) brought Dōgen out of this long period of obscurity with his treatise Shamon Dōgen written between 1919 and 1921.^[1] Watsuji's contribution, however, is not limited to his introduction of Dōgen to public attention. Instead of treating Dōgen as the founder of the Sōtō School, he

presents him as a human being, a person, a man (hito):

...it may be justifiable to assert that I opened a gate to a new interpretation of Dōgen. He thereby becomes not the Dōgen of a sect but of mankind; not the founder Dōgen but rather our Dōgen. The reason why I claim it so daringly is due to my realization that his truth was killed by sheer sectarian treatments (Watsuji 1925，p. 160).
This realization grew out of Watsuji’s effort to solve the problem of how a layman like himself could attempt to understand Dōgen's "truth" without engaging in the rigorous training prescribed by the Zen tradition (Watsuji 1925, p , 156). A sectarian would claim that the "truth" must be experienced immediately and that any attempt to verbalize or conceptualize it constitutes falsification. If the immediate experience is the only gateway to the "truth," as the sectarian would claim, why did Dōgen himself write so much? Dōgen believed that it was through writing that his truth was to be transmitted to others. For his own religious training, he singlemindedly concentrated on sitting in meditation; yet he saw no intrinsic conflict between sitting and writing. This is why Dōgen started writing Shōbōgenzō in 1231: so that he might be able to "transmit the

Buddha’s authentic Dharma to those who are misguided by false teachers" (Watsuji 1925, p. 157). Watsuji further quotes from Dogen: "Although it (Shōbōgenzō) might appear to be a mere 'theory,' it still bears indispensable importance for the sake of Dharma" (1925，p. 157). Thus Watsuji claims that his approach, which relies on words and concepts, is a valid alternative to the monk’s subjective pursuit.
According to Dōgen, enlightenment is possible only through rigorous sitting in meditation (kufū zazen) and through the study of Dharma under a master (sanshi monpō). One can encounter Dōgen as a master through his writings, for he answers one’s questions in his works. But one still must practice sitting in meditation. Watsuji insists that meditation can be done in an office or a study as well as in a meditation hall; he even goes so far as to say that perhaps a study may be a more congenial place for this purpose than a meditation hall when many monasteries are no longer concerned with the transmission of the truth but are immersed in secular concerns (1925，p. 158). Therefore, for Watsuji, meditation does not necessarily require the act of entering a monastery.

The treatise was originally contributed in parts to two scholarly journals, Shin shōsetsu and Shisō. They were later compiled and published as part of Watsuji, Nihon seishinshi kenkyū [A study of the spiritual history of Japan] (1925). The references in this paper are from the book.

[1] The treatise was originally contributed in parts to two scholarly journals, Shin shōsetsu and Shisō. They were later compiled and published as part of Watsuji, Nihon seishinshi kenkyū [A study of the spiritual history of Japan] (1925). The references in this paper are from the book.

[1]