Dotoku
Expressing the Truth

Expression of the truth now and insights of former times are a single track, and they are ten thousand miles apart.  Effort now continues to be directed by the expression of the truth itself and by insight itself.  Having accumulated long months and long years of holding onto this effort, we then get free of the past years and months of effort.  While we are endeavouring to get free, the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are all equally intuiting and affirming freedom.

            This selection is from Dōgen Zenji’s ‘Dotoku’ chapter of the Shobogenzo.  Dotoku has a number of different interpretations but the one meant here by Dōgen Zenji, the one used in Buddhism, is ‘expressing the truth’ or ‘saying what one has got’ or ‘speaking attainment’  And when we look at these different translations we have ‘expressing’, ‘saying’ or ‘speaking’ the truth.  This truth, of course, is not just not telling lies, but is the truth of the buddhas and patriarchs and the truth of ourselves when we sit in zazen.  By looking at it this way, we realise that ‘expressing, saying or speaking’ is beyond words but doesn’t exclude words.  We express the dharma with words, with actions, with thoughts, with arising from bed each morning and hearing the dog’s bark.  Hearing is expressing the truth; seeing is expressing the truth; all five skandhas are expressing the truth every moment of every day.

Expression of the truth now and insights of former times are a single track, and they are ten thousand miles apart.

            At first, we think that Dōgen here is saying that the truth of old patriarchs is somehow separated from the truth of today, but of course this cannot be.  When Lin-Chi went to see Huang Po, three times he was struck.  Lin-Chi was barely be able to open his mouth before Huang Po struck him.  And the truth of Huang Po’s strikes are the same today as they were 1,000 years ago. 
            In this sentence, Dōgen confirms this.  ‘A single track’ refers to the expression ‘a single track of iron’ which is unity, joining together.  The ‘ten thousand miles apart’ is the opposite, that is, separation.  But we don’t look at this ‘ten thousand miles apart’ as being different.  What Dōgen is saying here is that this ‘expression of the truth’ must be our own.  We must feel it, breathe it, touch and hold it.  We must be this truth and know it  for ourselves.
            So what we have here is an expression of the truth now and of former times being joined together by this single track of iron.  There can be no doubt that the truth, the real truth, not our ‘small mind’ truth, is unchanged from the distant past to the endless future.  Indeed, when we contemplate this, what distant past is there; what distant future is there? 
            Perhaps of more interest is to ask ‘what single track’ is there?  This single track is none other than ourselves, none other than our skin, flesh, bones and marrow, sitting in zazen, expressing the truth of the old patriarchs and buddhas, the truth of Old Man Sakya.  But while we sit with this unchanging truth, there is another aspect that we shouldn’t neglect.  And that is the truth that you feel in your knees when you sit; the truth when love for your child sweeps over you or the truth of the pain of separation from friends and family when you leave.  So while we express the truth of the old masters in our sitting, we also express the truth of the moment we live in.  And when we unite the two with the single iron track where have the miles gone?

Effort now continues to be directed by the expression of the truth itself and by insight itself.

            This sentence begins with the word ‘effort’ and in Japanese the word used is ‘kufu’, which actually has a number of meanings and appears often in Dōgen’s writings.  Sometimes he means it as ‘striving’ in pursuit of the truth and other times it can take a more cerebral, intellectual meaning which can be translated as ‘plan’ or ‘think out’.  But here I think Master Dōgen is referring to sitting in zazen with our whole body and mind.  And when we look at it this way, really, all that he is saying that our zazen is ‘directed’, or, if you prefer, ‘guided’, by truth and insight.  However, we shouldn’t just leave it there, because not only is our zazen ‘directed’ by truth and insight, it is also the expression of truth and insight.  Dōgen was firm believer in zazen as being attainment.  As his master, Tendo Nyojo, said, “When we are just sitting, we have attainment from the beginning.”  And I think this is what Master Dōgen is referring to here but he has taken it one step further saying not only is sitting attainment, but attainment guides sitting, attainment directs sitting.  We cannot separate attainment, or truth, from sitting.  And when we sit in zazen we express this non-separation, this unity of purpose and result.  It is unfortunate that the purpose is usually separated from the result and then we sit with some idea of attainment in mind and that leads to all sorts of confusion.  So we should take care and let Master Dōgen’s words guide us in our uncertainty and know that our efforts, our sitting, our practice is already attained and has already arrived.  It’s like waiting for the train at the train station and not seeing that the train is already there, was already there when we arrived and we never needed to wait for it.

Having accumulated long months and long years of holding onto this effort, we then get free of the past years and months of effort. While we are endeavouring to get free, the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are all equally intuiting and affirming freedom.

            We really need to look at both these statements together because if we take just the first statement by itself we can misunderstand what Master Dōgen is saying here.  It appears that he is saying we need long years of effort, of sitting in zazen to become free, to realise the truth but I don’t see it this way.  I see these long months and long years as just right now, just at this moment.  We accumulate these months and years every moment in our practice.  Master Dōgen is not saying that we need to wait for the winter to turn to spring to accumulate or gather together our practice but that our practice is winter and spring already.  We say that all dharmas are empty and often we forget that time is just another dharma and is as empty as the stones and trees.  We have attainment, we have realisation and we have practice and we have freedom of the past years and months and these are all united with the single iron track.
            Holding onto this effort is just maintaining our zazen mind, our practice in every situation.  But how do we do this ‘holding on’?  We do this by letting go ¾ letting go of our ‘small’ mind, our greed, our ignorance, our endless desires.  When we let go of these things we ‘hold on’ to our attainment, our true self.  We walk on the ground without fear of flying off into space and Dōgen’s ‘holding on’ is just like this, with no conscious effort, easy and effortless and perfectly natural.  Then we really are free to let go of even this.   Then we can come and go as we please,  hold on and let go,  stand up or sit down.
            It’s the last line in this selection that really hits the mark and clarifies quite clearly what Dōgen means when he says we get free of the past years and months of effort. While we are endeavouring to get free, the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are all equally intuiting and affirming freedom.  Here Dōgen clearly confirms our practice of sitting, of standing, of walking.  While we are doing all these things, the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are all equally intuiting and affirming freedom.  This points directly back at Dōgen’s master saying, “When we are just sitting, we have attainment from the beginning.”  Looking at the word ‘intuit’ here, the dictionary defines ‘intuition’ as “the power of the mind by which it immediately perceives the truth of things without reasoning or analysis” and I feel this is a pretty good definition of what happens when we sit in zazen.  Except, of course, it’s not just the mind, but the very skin, flesh, bones and marrow that perceive the truth of things.  And I think it’s not just the skin, flesh, bones and marrow that perceive here, but it’s also the very action of sitting that perceives and manifests the truth.  And when all this is happening, Dōgen says in the very next line, “National lands, mountains and rivers, are all intuiting and affirming freedom together.”  Of course!  And the old patriarchs and buddhas and Old Man Sakya is right there with us, expressing exactly the same truth that we are expressing right now, at this very moment.
            So when we sit, we express truth and affirm freedom not just for ourselves, but for all beings throughout space and time, with all dharmas beyond the beginningless past and into the endless future.  And we sit without thought of attainment, without judgement on our practice and with no future.  No future at all, just breathing in and out endlessly.

vk
9/11/96