Before Dogen there was Zongmi saying "practice and proof."

Bursting another bubble here. Dogen did not coin the phrase "practice and realization" (修證, PY. xiūzhèng, J. shusho) or as I prefer to translate it, "practice and proof” (could also be “cultivation and confirmation” or "practice and verification"). Virtually every phrase or slogan that Dogen is famous for in his writings (circa 1230 to his death in 1254) was not coined by him, but picked up and used by him in his unique stylization of poetic prose. This also applies to what is perhaps his most famous phrase “practice and realization” (sometimes “practice and enlightenment” or “practice and verification” depending on the translator).  The term 證 zhèng (J. sho) is a subject of some controversy because it means “proof, witness, verification, confirmation,” etc, but is very loosely translated as “realization” or even “enlightenment.”  Dogen specially emphasized that practice and its proof are one (修證一如), that is, we don’t practice to be able to prove enlightenment later, but that our correct practice is itself the proof of enlightenment.   This is just like the English idiom “the proof is in the pudding.”

This teaching of Japanese Zen Master Dogen is so famously known in Zen circles by its Japanese pronunciation “shusho” that many Western Zen students and teachers erroneously believe that Dogen coined the phrase. Not so.  I have not done an extensive search for the origin of the phrase, but I did come across it in the opus text written 400 years before Dogen, circa 835, by Chinese Zen Master Gjuifeng Zongmi titled Introduction to the Collection of the Various Expositions of the Fountainhead of Zen.

Sadly, the voluminous collection of the main text has been lost and only the introduction remains extant.  In his “Introduction to the Fountainhead of Chan” Zongmi details how Chan/Zen is the stream of Buddhism related to the direct awakening to mind and how the Chan/Zen stream relates to the stream of the teachings of the sutras and treatises. In doing so, Zongmi distinguishes the characteristics of the various branches of the Chan/Zen lineages stemming from Bodhidharma and correlates them to the various categories and teachings of the sutras and treatises.

In a section naming the Diamond-Cutter Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra and affirming that “these two sutras are the essence of our mind,” Zongmi points out how disciples of the time have confused ideas about this and who practice or cultivate mind consider the sutras and treatises as a separate lineage and those who explain and articulate the sutras and treatises consider the Chan/Zen Gate as a separate Dharma.  Zongmi then says, 

“Hearing discussion of cause and effect and of practice and proof, they immediately suppose it belongs to the family of sutras and treatises. They don’t know that practice and proof are directly the root matter of the Chan gate.

Hearing the articulation ‘exactly Mind is exactly Buddha,’ they immediately suppose it belongs to the Chan of inner feelings. They don’t know Mind and Buddha are directly the root mentation of the sutras and treatises.”

So it looks like Zongmi’s phrase “practice and proof (修證, J. shusho) are directly the root matter of the Chan gate” struck a chord with Dogen and he elaborated on the theme.

So the Universe rests on imperfection, who would have guessed?

.

The Dharma, incomparably profound and minutely subtle,

Is rarely encountered, even in hundreds of thousands of millions of kalpas.

We now can see it, listen to it, accept and hold it,

May we completely realize the true meaning of the Tathagata.

This (or a close variation) is the verse chanted before Dharma talks in Zen centers through out the world. The line about the rarity of being able to encounter the Dharma is often taken as some kind of self-aggrandizing hyperbole. A kalpa is an eon of very long time with several colorful analogies, such as the length of time it would take for a butterfly's wing brushing up against Mt. Everest to erode it to smooth ground   But the article, "This One Imperfection In Nuclear Physics Allowed Earth To Exist" by Ethan Siegel, explains how the rarity is literally true, because of the crazy quilt of conditions that must occur in order for planets to arise and for life on those planets to appear.

Of course, it begs the question of how those early sages of India were able to conceive of the inconceivable eons of time and the innumerable numbers of galaxies as many as the sands of the Ganges River that are the context for this one precious life, a couple thousand years before Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for daring to propose that the universe is infinite.  

The article describes the rarity like this:

In order to create a rocky planet that's teeming with life, the Universe needed to create large amounts of the heavy elements required for life's processes. To make many of those elements, such as Tin, Iodine, Selenium, Molybdenum, Zinc, and Copper, you need supernovae to have occurred many times in our galaxy's past. To get many more, such as Iron, Calcium, Cobalt, Sulfur, and Potassium, you need stars massive enough to create them....The only reason we can exist, today, is because one tiny imperfection in the early Universe allows the stars to grow hundreds of times as massive.

 

Since we are only able to appear on the basis of that one original "imperfection" then all appearances can be said to be the continuation of that imperfection, which gives credence to Zen master Dogen's phrase, ‘Shoshaku jushaku,” which according to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, means “'to succeed wrong with wrong,' or one continuous mistake.”

Buddhism is the religion of the science of mind, or the psychological religion.  I recognize that is a controversial claim, even for some Buddhists, but it is stated from a perspective in which it is a valid statement, so instead of saying why it appears invalid from one perspective, I would ask that the critic make the effort to stand, if only for a moment, in the spot where the view makes sense. Here are a couple Tibetan Buddhist perspectives adopting the Buddhism is a science of mind approach.

Buddhism, as the science of mind, empirically observes, investigates, and analyzes mind with its mental states, conditions, and phenomena, that comprise all our cognitions, thoughts, emotions, feelings, views, desires, joys, etc. (i.e., the Tin, Iodine, Selenium, Molybdenum, Zinc, and Copper of our mind). This empirical study of mind was Carl G. Jung's definition of the science of psychology (i.e., "psych" = mind; "ology" = study or science).  In other words, Buddhism explores the universe as mind not as matter.  What we are now discovering by Western Science's exploration of the universe as matter, not mind, is that there is a confluence and congruence of findings.  Over the preceding 400 years,(Bruno was killed by the Catholic Church in 1600 C.E.)  the exploration of the universe as matter has grown to include such previously inconceivable (at least to the West) ideas as infinity, laws of cause and effect, unseen forces of gravity, the strange nature of light (constant speed and indeterminacy as wave or particle),  dark matter and dark energy, etc., all of which have their analogues in the discoveries of Buddhism's exploration of the universe as mind.

The classic early Buddhist scripture The Dhammapada begins in the first two verses from this startling vantage point:

1. Mentation is the precursor of things; mentation is the ringleader; mentation is the producer.

If mentation is corrupted, just so the voice, just so the act,

Thereupon unease is enabled, just as the wheel follows the transporter’s (e.g., ox or man) foot.

2. Mentation is the precursor of things; mentation is the ringleader; mentation is the producer.

If mentation is clear, just so the voice, just so the act,

Thereupon ease is enabled, just as the shadow follows and does not depart.

Here, "mentation" (Pali and Sanskrit, mano & mana(s)) means the cognitive activity of mind, and "things" (P. dhamma, Skt. dharma) means both discrete things and the thingness of all phenomena.  So we find many variations in translation from the strict to the loose, from the prosaic to the poetic, such as:

All the phenomena of existence have mind as their precursor, mind as their supreme leader, and of mind are they made.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.

The important point here is that mentation (manas, also known as the 7th consciousness in Mahayana analysis), as the basic cognitive activity of mind, can be either corrupted or clear, and when it is corrupted all manners of antithetical conceptions and oppositional dualities arise that are taken as literal, fixed, and substantial.  This is what Buddhism calls the primordial ignorance, or in the words of Siegel's article "a tiny imperfection," in the arising of consciousness that leads to the 'creation' of the universe and life on a planet.  But there is the inherent possibility that what begins as corrupted and the source of all unease (dukkha) in life, can become clear and the source of ease (sukkha).

The Treatise on the Mahayana's Arousing of Faith (date unknown, translated into Chinese in 553 C.E. by the Indian monk Paramartha (499-569 C.E.)) contains an outline for how the universe appears (using the mind paradigm, not matter paradigm) that was elaborated on by Zen master Guifeng Zongmi (780 – 841 C.E.) and used by him to establish his taxonomy of the teachings (panjiao) of Buddhism.   In Zongmi's Treatise on the Origin of the Person (原人論 Yuan Ren Lun), based on the Arousing of Faith, the universe is the One True Mind and "initially there is only one true numionous nature, that is not born, does not die, does not increase, does not decrease, does not become, and does not change.  

The "big bang" of the appearance of consciousness occurs with the bifurcation of this unity into enlightenment, i.e., the clear mentation of the Dhammapada, on the one hand and unenlightenment, i.e. the corrupted mentation of the Dhammapada, on the other.  The word corrupt is used, not in a moral sense, but in a phenomenological sense of having a "broken" view of the phenomenon of thingness. This broken view is what is called "false conceptions" or "false thinking" and is taking the bifurcated view of consciousness as substantially existing and seeing things as fundamentally separate rather than unified.   Zongmi cites the Flower Garland Sutra's version of the Buddha's calling out upon his enlightenment:

“Children of the Buddha, there is not one of the multitude of beings who nevertheless does not completely possess the Tahtagata’s innate awareness and wisdom. Yet by means of false thinking and clinging they nevertheless do not verify getting it."     

The analogy to this question of unity or separation in the Western science of taking the universe as matter has been revealed through the changing nature of the theory of the universe from mechanics to quantum physics. Once things were taken as essentially separate, independent, and discrete things, and now their nature is seen as energetic fields of potential and actuality of non-thingness.

When the big bang of mental bifurcation takes place, the "world of birth and death" begins to appear, and by natural evolution, consciousness flows in a stream of ignorance called unenlightenment that reverberates into the condensation of subject and object (i.e., inner and outer orientations) and with further evolution becomes discrimination, continuation, attachments, conceptual elaborations, karma, and the fruit of karma in varying degrees of suffering within the six paths of birth and death (i.e., hell, ghosts, animals, humans, titans, and celestials).  

The Dhammapada's promise of clarifying mentation is seen by the Zen of Zongmi as the promise of enlightenment which begins (and ends) in the mind of enlightenment (bodhicitta) that first appears as a dawning intuition or intimation, then as a faith or trust in it's actual possibility, then as turning toward it as a path to cultivate, then the practical acts of cultivation, experiencing the fruit of that cultivation, and ultimately having one's own realization of enlightenment with its unassailable clarification of what had previously been thought of as broken ("mentation corrupted") and the manifestation of the mind of suchness.  As Zongmi points out, this teaching of the manifestation of the One True Mind, indistinguishable from one's own Buddha Nature, is the One Vehicle.         

"That Which Is The One Vehicle's (Ekayana) Teaching Of Manifesting Nature clarifies for everyone having sentience that everybody has the root enlightenment of True Mind.  Beginningless is how it comes, and it always abides clear and pure.  Its luminosity does not darken and is completely and constantly aware.  It is also called Buddha Nature, and is also called the Inner Tathagata (tathagatagarbha)."

So we can appreciate how this Dharma teaching is incomparably profound and minutely subtle and why it is so rarely encountered, even in hundreds of thousands of millions of eons, because, in the context of the universe as mind, the evolution of consciousness is synonymous with the evolution of the universe, and only after the process of evolution comes to the realization of its own nature can we see it, listen to it, accept and hold it, and completely realize the true meaning of the Tathagata as the coming and going of True Suchness.

What is knowing?

Someone asked,

"What is Knowing? It seems that knowing is not the same to everyone. I know, you know yet there exists so many shades of differences. What is the reason for this?"

The knowing that is the same for everyone is the same, but everyone overlooks the knowing that is the same because we create differences in our imagination and call that which we imagine the different kinds of knowing.  Zen is about not being beguiled by the differences of our imaginations and realizing the true knowing that is the same for everyone, because that is the solitary brightness of the true person without rank.

In his Introduction to the Collection of the Various Expositions of the Fountainhead of Zen (sometimes translated with the shortened title Introduction to Chan or Chan Prolegomenon), Zen Master Guifeng Zongmi writes (in my translation):

Question: Above you already said that nature on its own is “completely constant knowing.”  Why is it necessary for the various Buddhas to open and indicate it?

Answer: That which is this word knowing is not indeed the knowing of evidence.  It means to articulate the true nature that is not the same as the vast sky, a tree, or a rock.  Therefore I said knowing.  Neither is it like the conditional and objective discriminations of consciousness, nor like the shining essence of complete penetration of wisdom. It just is the one true suchness of nature autonomously and constantly knowing.

[For comparison here's Jeffrey Broughton's translation from Zongmi on Chan, p. 135:  

Question: Above you have spoken of the “complete and constant Knowing that is intrinsically [pure from without beginning]’” Why should it be necessary for the buddhas to open it up and show it?

Answer: This Knowing is not the knowing of realization. My intention was to explain that the true nature is not identical to the sky or a tree or a stone, and, therefore, I said “Knowing.” [Knowing] is not like the consciousnesses that take sense objects as objective supports and discriminate. It is not like the wisdom that illuminates substance and comprehends. It is just that the nature of thusness is spontaneously constant Knowing. ]

So Master Zongmi is making very important points about the knowing that is the common ground of beings.

"That which is this word knowing is not indeed the knowing of evidence."

It is not the knowing that is discovered by evidence, proof, testimony, demonstration, etc.  This is very hard for us to see, but it is essential. We always grasp onto knowing by the content of what is known that we think we can amass and put on our mental shelf as knowledge.  We learn something by the evidence and call that knowing. But this is not the kind of knowing that Zongmi calls knowing.

"It means to articulate the true nature that is not the same as the vast sky, a tree, or a rock."

To talk about knowing is to clarify our true nature. The sky, tree, and rock do not articulate true nature and have not need to clarify true nature. We do.

"Neither is it like the conditional and objective discriminations of consciousness,"

Zongmi makes it clear that the knowing he is talking about is not the knowinng of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or cognitive consciousness (vijnana) of the six consciousness. This kind of knowing by the six consciousnesses is dependent on the activity of the conditional objective discrimination of consciousness (vijnana). This is the knowing that is more basic that the testimonial knowing of knowledge, as it is the knowing of perception. However, most of us erroneously think that this is true knowing. We think that perception of color is knowing. We think that perception of sound is knowing.  Zongmi reminds us that true knowing is not to be confused with discriminations of consciousness.

"nor like the shining essence of complete penetration of wisdom."

Here, Zongmi is making the Zen point that the true knowing is not even the penetrating wisdom of prajna.  Prajna is the realm of the sages, bodhisattvas and Buddhas.  Zongmi is saying that the true knowing is not this type of wisdom, but is the knowing that is the inherent knowing of both commoners and sages, sentient beings and Buddhas. If knowing was the purview of sages and Buddhas, then that knowinng would be a knowing of accomplishment and as a knowing of acomplishment it could not be the innate knowing of true suchenss.

"It just is the one true suchness of nature autonomously and constantly knowing."

This knowing is shared by everyone. This is the knowing indicated by the Zen phrase "ordinary mind is Buddha." But because we confuse this knowing of true suchness, this "ordinary mind," with ordinary perceptions, objective consciousness, knowing about things, penetrating wisdom, etc, Zongmi has given us the examples of these categories of mistaken notions of "ordinary mind" and "knowing."

The knowing that we should know is the knowing that is just the one true suchness of our own true natue.  Because it is autonomously and constantly knowing, such words as "non-action" and "unconditioned" are applied to it and it is said that it cannot be gained by seeking. This is the conundrum.  It is autonomous and constant knowing, yet we don't know this knowing becasue we are distracted by our own objective discriminations that analyze and divide this one suchness into kinds of knowing and unknowing.

The Ten Stages of Awakening

Here's a table of comparison between three early models of the Ten Stages of Awakening.  We don't know how much cross reference there is between them.  The 10 Bodhisattva Stages from the Avatamsaka Sutra are the earliest. Zongmi obviously read the Avatamsaka Sutra and was extremely well versed in it but did not adopt it's model of 10 stages verbatim and instead used the famous "Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" as his template for the 10 levels of awakening.  The 10 Oxherding pictures have had several versions and I'm using here one of the later versions.  I've never herd a solid story about how the 10 Oxherding Pictures developed, but I have seen an earlier version that came from India using an elephant rather than an ox.

 The fourth column is my own version of the 10 stages in terms of the functioning of the Eight Consciousnesses and the well know association of the transformation of the Eight Consciousnesses into the Four Wisdoms that have been described in Zen since Huineng in the beginning of the 8th century.

	Zongmi’s 10 Levels of Awakening	10 Ox Herding Pictures	10 Bodhisattva Stages (bhūmi)	My View of the 10 Stages In Terms of the Eight Consciousnesses and Five Ranks
1	Awakening of Faith in One’s Own Suchness and the Three Jewels	Searching for the Ox	the Very Joyous. (Skt. Paramudita), in which one rejoices at realizing a partial aspect of the truth;	After years of wandering in the weeds and woods Awareness feels the intimations of the 8th Consciousness and begins to seek its own source.
2	Resolving to Attain Awakening by Generating Compassion, Wisdom and Vows	Seeing the Footprints	the Stainless. (Skt. Vimala), in which one is free from all defilement;	Awareness begins to turn around from enchantment with the 10,000 things of the 1st to 6th Consciousnesses and to investigate their images as reflected in the 7th Consciousness
3	Cultivating the Five Gates  to Make the Root of Faith Grow (i.e., the Five Paramitas with the fifth being samatha-vipassayna combined)	Seeing the Ox	the Luminous. (Skt. Prabhakari), in which one radiates the light of wisdom;	Peeking through the veil of the  7th Consciousness, Awareness becomes certain of the 8th Consciousness and begins releasing its fixed grip on the 1st to 5th Consciousnesses
4	Arising of Great Bodhicitta	Getting the Ox	the Radiant. (Skt. Archishmati), in which the radiant flame of wisdom burns away earthly desires;	Awareness fully lets go of grasping at the 1st to 5th Consciousnesses and begins to release its grip on the 6th Cons.  to flow through the 7th Consciousness into the 8th Consciousness
5	Overcoming the Six Afflictions and Seeing Self is empty.	Herding the Ox	the Difficult to Cultivate. (Skt. Sudurjaya), in which one surmounts the illusions of darkness, or ignorance as the Middle Way;	Awareness Having Let Go of all attachment to the 6th Consciousness passes through the Veil of the 7th Consciousness to enter the 8th Consciousness
6	Flowing in the Practice of the Six Perfections (the Six Paramitas with 5 and 6 being Dhyana and Prajna) Self and Dharmas both empty, eternally void eternally like an illusion.	Riding the Ox Home	the Manifest. (Skt. Abhimukhi) in which supreme wisdom begins to manifest;	Awareness Having let go of all attachment to the 7th Consciousness and fully returned to the 8th Cons., the 8th Cons. Transforms into the Great Mirror Wisdom
7	Mastery Over Forms, Everything in Fusion, All Arises From Discrimination of One’s Own Mind	Forgetting the Ox, the Person Resting	the Gone Afar. (Skt. Duramgama), in which one rises above the states of the Two vehicles;	Awareness arising through the Great Mirror Wisdom Transforms the 7th Consciousness into the Equality Wisdom
8	Mastery Over Mind, Nothing That is Not Illuminated	Person and Ox Both Forgotten	the Immovable. (Skt. Achala), in which one dwells firmly in the truth of the Middle Way and cannot be perturbed by anything;	Awareness arising through the Equality Wisdom Transforms the 6th Consciousness into the All Observing Wisdom
9	Free From Thoughts Cultivating No-thought, Awakened to the Origin of Delusion & So Full of Teaching Devices	Returning to the Source	the Good Intelligence. (Skt. Sadhumati), in which one preaches the Law freely and without restriction;	Awareness arising through the All Observing Wisdom Transforms the 1st to 5th Consciousnesses into the All Performing Wisdom
10	There is One Awakening With Limitless Responsive Functioning in the Constantly Abiding Dharma Realm, Seeing All Beings Attaining Perfect Awakening	Returning to the Marketplace With Helping Hands	the Cloud of Dharma. (Skt. Dharmamegha), in which one benefits all sentient beings with the Law (Dharma), just as a cloud sends down rain impartially on all things.	Awareness Blossoms in Full Awakening and Mutual Integration of the Four Wisdoms