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Read one foundational Sōtō text: Dōgen’s Fukanzazengi

Read Dōgen’s one-page Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen, the text in which he set out why and how to sit.

Por qué funciona

The Sōtōshū says that immediately after returning from China Dōgen wrote the Fukanzazengi to proclaim the Dharma he had received, and that he wrote it so that as many people as possible could practise zazen. It is short and complete. It opens by asking why, if the Way is already perfect, anyone needs to practise, and answers with the Buddha’s six years and Bodhidharma’s nine of sitting; it gives the posture; it gives the heart of the method in a few words — think of not thinking; “not thinking, what kind of thinking is that?”; nonthinking; and it says that this zazen is not meditation practice but “the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment.” Seijun Ishii explains that Dōgen’s view of practice and realisation as one (shushō ittō) overturns the usual idea of practice as a cause and awakening as its effect: one sits because one is already Buddha, not in order to become one. Reading the text itself lets you hear Dōgen rather than his interpreters.

Cómo hacerlo

  1. Read the Sōtōshū’s English translation of the Fukanzazengi in one sitting; it takes a few minutes.
  2. Read it again slowly, noticing its three movements: why to sit, how to sit, and the encouragement to keep sitting.
  3. Choose one sentence — for example “Practice-realization is naturally undefiled” — and take it into your next zazen without trying to work it out.
  4. Read Ishii’s short essay on shushō ittō for the background to Dōgen’s view of practice and realisation.
  5. If you join a Sōtō community, notice when the text is recited; the Sōtōshū includes it among the scriptures for daily services and practice.

Evidencia

The translation, including the lines quoted here, is the one the Sōtōshū publishes. The circumstances of its writing are from the Sōtōshū’s pages on Dōgen and on the school’s history. Ishii’s key-terms essays explain shushō ittō and set Dōgen’s Zen against both the silent-illumination and kōan currents of Song China. Heine and Wright’s Zen Classics collects scholarly studies of formative Zen texts, including Dōgen’s. (anecdotal)

Translations of the Fukanzazengi differ in wording. Reading it is study, not a substitute for sitting or for instruction; for Dōgen’s just-sitting method see the shikantaza page.

Fuentes

Error común

Turning “think of not thinking” into a technique — straining to stop thoughts or to produce a special blank state. The text itself warns against having any design on becoming a Buddha.

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Preguntas frecuentes

¿Cómo funciona Read one foundational Sōtō text: Dōgen’s Fukanzazengi?

The Sōtōshū says that immediately after returning from China Dōgen wrote the Fukanzazengi to proclaim the Dharma he had received, and that he wrote it so that as many people as possible could practise zazen. It is short and complete. It opens by asking why, if the Way is already perfect, anyone needs to practise, and answers with the Buddha’s six years and Bodhidharma’s nine of sitting; it gives the posture; it gives the heart of the method in a few words — think of not thinking; “not thinking, what kind of thinking is that?”; nonthinking; and it says that this zazen is not meditation practice but “the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment.” Seijun Ishii explains that Dōgen’s view of practice and realisation as one (shushō ittō) overturns the usual idea of practice as a cause and awakening as its effect: one sits because one is already Buddha, not in order to become one. Reading the text itself lets you hear Dōgen rather than his interpreters.

¿Cuál es el error más común con Read one foundational Sōtō text: Dōgen’s Fukanzazengi?

Turning “think of not thinking” into a technique — straining to stop thoughts or to produce a special blank state. The text itself warns against having any design on becoming a Buddha.

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