Readings (2)

The very first of the readings in Chapter 1, The Human Condition (p. 26), contains a stock passage that the Buddha employs again and again throughout the discourses to characterize those who attain awakening (bodhi) and release (mokkha)—including himself—as follows:

“…whose taints are destroyed, who have lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached their own goal, utterly destroyed the fetters of existence, and are completely liberated through final knowledge.”

The process leading to release is described in terms of elimination of taints (asavā, variously translated as defilements, in- or outflows, corruptions), the perfection of a celibate and otherwise restrained way of life, the accomplishment of the required tasks, the attainment of benchmarks which trainees themselves set, and the overcoming of all attachments—in short, a sustained course of intentional acts performed with deliberation and full awareness, and leading in a series of stages to freedom from the cycle of birth-and-death, a condition that is achieved through and with knowledge. Cessation of renewed existence is the end.

In contrast, teachers in the lineage of Dōgen tend to discourage goal-orientation. Practice (if that is the right word for what we do) is sometimes characterized as open-ended or indeterminate. As students of Zen chant daily, “there is no attainment and nothing to attain.” Enlightenment in Zen is described in all-or-nothing terms, as innate and suddenly realized, or else embodied and lived in selfless obscurity. Because samsara and nirvana are not-two, there is no need for release. The cessation of suffering (nirvana) is indefinitely postponed for the sake of all sentient beings.

Looking at the two schemata side by side, it seems safe to say that Zen is not of the same species as its ancestor, Early Buddhism. Their disparate attitudes and doctrinal perspectives generated correspondingly different criteria for correct practice.