The Prologue
The empty sky vanishes. Mountains are level with the plains.
Above, not a tile to cover the head. Below, not an inch of ground upon
which to stand.
The Main Case
The great Master Dogen taught, “From time immemorial the
mountains have been the dwelling place of the great sages; wise ones and
sages have made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and
mind. And through these wise ones and sages the mountains have been
actualized. However many great sages and wise ones we suppose have
assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains no one
has met a single one of them. There is only the actualization of the
life of the mountains; not a single trace of their having entered
remains.”
The Capping Verse
When we truly enter the mountains,
birds, bugs, beasts and blossoms
radiate supernatural excellence
and take great delight in our presence.
John Daido Loori, Roshi
Master Dogen’s “Mountains and Rivers Sutra” is the heart of
the teachings of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Over the years of
developing the training here on Tremper Mountain, our way of teaching
the dharma has come directly from this text. Dogen is known as an
outstanding poet, metaphysician, and one of Japan’s leading spiritual
figures. The subject of this chapter—which is part of his masterwork, Shobogenzo: The Tresury of the True Dharma Eye—is
nature, the immediate landscape in which we practice. Dogen was a lover
of nature. He built his primary monastery, Eiheiji, deep in the
mountains, preferring the unspoiled environment of forested hills, crags
and roaring streams to the high society of Kyoto. Yet, he was first and
foremost a Zen Buddhist master, so the mountains and rivers of Dogen’s
writings are not so much the mountains and rivers of poetry, but the
mountains and rivers of the true dharma eye, of the realized truth of
the universe. In fact, we can say that the “Mountains and Rivers Sutra”
is not about mountains and rivers, but that the mountains and rivers themselves are the sutra, the true buddhadharma.
In Buddhist lore, mountains and rivers frequently symbolize samsara, the
cyclic nature of phenomenal existence and the ups and downs of life,
phenomena. But in studying the “Mountains and Rivers Sutra,” it doesn’t
take long to appreciate that Dogen’s mountains and rivers are not just
the mountains and rivers of samsara. He challenges us, declaring that because mountains and rivers are samsara, they are nirvana. In other words, samsara is nirvana, nirvana is samsara.
In the sutra Dogen writes, “From time immemorial the mountains have been
the dwelling place of the great sages; wise ones and sages have made
the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind.And through
these wise ones and sages the mountains have been actualized.” Notice
that he doesn’t just say “wise ones” or “sages.” He says “wise ones and
sages.” “Wise ones” refers to those who do not yet have complete
realization; they still lack vision of the Way. “Sages,” on the other
hand, refers to those who have attained that vision of the Way. Dogen is
saying that these two kinds of practitioners have “made mountains their
own chambers, their own body and mind,” and it is through them that the
mountains have been actualized. How do you actualize the mountain? To
actualize the mountain, you first need to realize it.
Dogen goes on to say, “However many great sages and wise ones we suppose
have assembled in the mountains, ever since they entered the mountains
no one has met a single one of them.” In many of the world’s religions,
practitioners retreat to the wilderness for periods of intensive
practice. Then why does Dogen say that no one has ever met a single one
of the wise ones and sages who have entered the mountains?
When we speak of “entering the mountains” we’re speaking of the non-dual
dharma. There is no separation between the sage and the mountain. This
is how we should understand the nature of a true “dwelling place.”
“Dwelling place” is the equivalent of whole body and mind, the realm
that is free of the polarities of motion and rest, man and woman,
teacher and student, being and nonbeing—free of all dualities arising
from the mistaken distinction of self and other. When you have made the
mountains your own body and mind, there is no meeting them. Since the
mountains and sages are one reality, that the sages have entered the
mountains means that there is no one to meet and nothing to be met.
“There is only the actualization of the life of the mountains; not a
single trace of their having entered remains.”
Dogen’s teachings on nonduality are based on the teachings of the Flower Garland Sutra. Among other topics, this voluminous Mahayana text deals with the fourfold dharmadhatu
or dharma realms, in the Soto school presented as the Five Ranks of
Master Dongshan. Master Dongshan was one of the founders of the Soto
school of Zen, which is one of lineages transmitted in the Mountains and
Rivers Order. The Five Ranks are a framework to help us understand the
interplay between the absolute and the relative. It is also a
formulation of different degrees of enlightenment.
The first rank deals with the absolute realm of reality, shunyata
or emptiness. According to Buddhism, all things are inherently empty.
But we need to be careful about how we appreciate this “emptiness.” The
notions of emptiness has been so convoluted in our language that the
word has practically lost all of its Buddhist significance. I once took
part in a psychology conference called “Sacred Emptiness.” In the
program, there weren’t two talks that dealt with emptiness in the same
way. Each participant had his or her own definition.
Emptiness is not really an accurate translation of shunyata. We use the
word in a way that implies that emptiness is an attribute to be
discovered. Conventionally, we say that the world is round. If you look,
your perceptions confirm this. There is roundness. Similarly, the
implication in the word emptiness is that it is a quality of something.
It’s empty. But the emptiness of shunyata is not a thing. It’s meant to
oppose all views—including, most importantly, the view of emptiness. It
has absolutely, unequivocally no status whatsoever. It is neither
existent nor nonexistent. To consider that it is any such thing is
utterly deluded. When we say that an object is empty, this means that it
is empty of independent existence, or of any inherent characteristics.
It is interdependent with everything. From a Mahayana Buddhist
perspective, emptiness and interdependence are one and the same thing.
Because all dharmas—all things—are empty, they lack self nature. This
means that they do not exclude anything, and they do not hinder
anything. Each dharma has the ability to penetrate everywhere without
obstructing any other dharma. This is called muge-—no
hindrance, no obstruction. This is not only true of mountains and
rivers, but of all things, all dharmas, all beings. It is true of you
and I.
The prologue begins, “The empty sky vanishes. Mountains are level with
the plains. Above, not a tile to cover the head. Below, not an inch of
ground upon which to stand.” This is pointing to the first and pivotal
transition in practice—the experience of the fundamental unity of
reality.
Most Western practitioners are very impatient. Soon after they begin
practice they start pressing the teacher to move them along in their
training. They want to be assigned koan work, even though they may not
be ready. What does it mean to be ready to do koan work? It means to
have entered into samadhi, to have experienced the falling away of body
and mind, the great death. All passions, desires, and aspirations must
be released. All perspectives disappear. Samsara and enlightenment
themselves become nonexistent, like a bottomless, clear pool. This is
deep samadhi with no awareness of the self. Whether we’re working on the
breath, on koans, doing shikantaza, or entering the mountains, whole
body and mind intimacy is of supreme importance. The breath, when it’s
entered with the whole body and mind, produces samadhi. Mu, the sound of
the bell, the flight of the crow, the valley stream, when entered
fully, produce the same result. When you rush your practice towards some
goal, you pay for it all through koan study. It ends up being
intellectual and sloppy. No matter how sophisticated we get, or how many
books we read, it is always clear when someone has seen a koan directly
or only gained some understanding about it. Intellectual responses
don’t reach the truth of a koan. You have to become the koan to see its
reality. You have to embody it. In embodying it, you actualize it—you
make it actual; you make it real. It’s through the realization of one’s
own body and mind that the mountains are actualized. To actualize means
to manifest insight in your very existence, in the world.
Photo by Dan Colcer
Dogen says in the “Mountains and Rivers Sutra,” “The countenance of the
mountains is completely different when we are in the world gazing off at
the mountains and when we are in the mountains meeting the mountains.”
The nature of the breath is completely different when we have separated
ourselves from it as an observer, and when we are the breath with the
whole body and mind. This is whole body and mind intimacy. When you’re
really intimate with something, it no longer exists and you no longer
exist. The word relationship has no meaning at all in this case. There’s
no way to talk about it, to judge it, to analyze it or categorize it.
It fills the whole universe. Dogen said, “To hear sound with the whole
body and mind, to see form with the whole body and mind, one understands
them intimately.” To understand intimately doesn’t mean to acquire
information. It is another way of expressing enlightenment itself.
Intimacy is the dwelling place of the great sages. Realization is
intimacy. Once you make that quantum leap of realization, then your way
of perceiving yourself and the universe is very different. Yet nothing
has changed. Everything is precisely as it was before, but your way of
seeing and appreciating is quite different. Your way of living includes a
new imperative that begins to guide your actions. Without knowing,
things change. That’s why realization cannot be contrived. It always
reveals itself.
Why is realizing the mountains as one’s own body and mind such a pivotal
and transforming occasion? Needless to say, when we say “mountains”
we’re not just referring to mountains, but rather to all form—all
things, all beings sentient and insentient, and neither sentient nor
insentient. To realize all form as one’s own body and mind is to dwell
in a different world. It is to be a universe that is unborn and
inextinguishable, universe that has no beginning or end. You have no
beginning or end. Then how will you care for the mountains and rivers,
for your own body and mind, the body and mind of the universe?
Whether you realize it or not, the intimacy that Dogen points to is the
life of each one of us. When you realize it, you empower yourself and
you actualize that realization in your life. But whether you realize it
or not, it is always present. As the capping verse says:
When we truly enter the mountains,
birds, bugs, beasts and blossoms
radiate supernatural excellence
and take great delight in our presence.
Photo by Dan Colcer
Each time you let go of a thought and bring yourself back to the
moment—whatever that moment is for you—each time you are fully present.
In every moment of genuine practice you bring yourself a step closer to
total unity with the breath, with the koan, with your life.
The only limits that exist are the ones we set for ourselves.
Take off the blinders, release the chain, push down the walls of the
cage and advance a step forward. When you’ve taken that step,
acknowledge it, let it go, and advance another step. And when you
finally arrive at enlightenment, acknowledge it, let it go and take a
step forward. That is, always had been, and will be the ceaseless
practice of all the buddhas and ancestors. By doing this, you actualize
their very being, their very life. You give life to the Buddha.
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