Chapter 74 of Shobogenzo is called Tenborin or “Turning the Dharma Wheel” and it’s a blessedly short one. In this chapter Dogen explores the nature of authenticity. What does it mean to receive a Buddhist teaching? What does it mean to give a Buddhist teaching? Is there such thing as a “genuine” teaching and an associated genuine scripture? Does it really matter? This stems from a historical argument that some teachers have put forward that only Buddhist teachings given in and recorded in India (the turnings of the wheel of dharma which generated teachings on the Four Noble Truths/Tripitaka, the dependent rising of phenomena, Buddha Nature and if you want to be controversial Vajrayana too) count as “genuine.” The problem with this is that it freezes or ossifies Buddhist teaching to a specific time and a specific place. Dogen takes the much more sensible position that in Nishijima’s words “when a true Buddhist master quotes a scripture, that act confirms the scripture as a true Buddhist teaching.” Consequently, Buddhist teaching can happen at any time, any place, anywhere. Anyway, the whole point is to sit Zazen – throughout our life – this is how you preach it sista.
There are a couple of phrases in the chapter which really jumped out at me: “when a person exhibits the truth and returns to the origin, space in the ten directions is jostling.” (p.27) Or “space in the ten directions, totally disappears” or “space in the ten directions exhibits the truth and returns to the origin.” Returning to the origin is a very provocative phrase especially when everything is jostling against everything else – the footnotes explain that this not about “an idealistic notion of harmony” but the nitty-gritty as-it-is-ness of our day-to-day lives where we bump against all sorts of experiences, pleasant, unpleasant or just neutral. For me, it’s important that returning to the origin is not that blissed out oceanic brain stretching fluff producing myth that gets peddled by some flakier New Agers – it’s about stubbing your toe on a table leg, petting your dog on the head, making porridge, cursing your boss and falling in love.
The second phrase that jumped out was “to grasp the present phrase is, here and now, just to grasp the bright star, to grasp a nose, to grasp peach blossoms and to grasp space, they are one.” (p.30) For some reason it got me to thinking about forgery. I like the idea that Brad Warner can quote Frank Zappa and theoretically that becomes a Buddhist teaching. I also remembered a book I read a long time ago called “Fake” which was the story of Elmyr de Hory the greatest art forger of the twentieth century. Many people stood in front of De Hory fakes assuming they were the real thing and had the same response they would have had to a genuine Great Master. Maybe even in the forgery there is that sense of returning to the origin and grasping space, even if that space has been stolen from elsewhere?
If a forged sutra still has the same effect as a “genuine” one then surely it becomes a “genuine” one? This is another thing I am pondering as I read Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book “Full Catastrophe Living” – I keep saying to myself “but this is just Buddhist meditation” yet it’s a sutra too – why is it so fearful of declaring what it is? Sometimes speaking quietly amplifies the message rather than shouting it out at full volume, and I guess that’s what it is; a whispering sutra jostling up against everything else.
