Dogen’s Four Embracing Actions

Dogen’s Four Embracing Actions (Excerpt from a talk by Hozan Roshi, July 2016)

I’m going to talk about how we cultivate and manifest Bodhisattva nature in our practice here in this wonderful room, and in our practice in the world, which are not two things. The context is with such alarming public discourse, based on fear, on separation of one group from another, but my question is not about Republican or Democrat or politics as such. It’s about how you and I can carry our practice, the composure, effort, and patience of zazen from this room into the world. How can we cultivate our ability to plant seeds of peace to replace seeds of violence, greed, and delusion that we actually all have within us, to transform them?

This is an important teaching, one of the most accessible teachings by our ancestor Dogen from his Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. The first is generosity or giving. The second is loving or kind speech. The third is beneficial action. And the fourth is identity action. These are the ways a Bodhisattva goes forth in the world, ways one can operate, the natural functioning of an awakened Bodhisattva. They are also ways we can cultivate our Bodhisattva nature, develop that nature to give birth to the Bodhisattva within us by living in these ways, returning to these practices, particularly when things are hard or things are going wrong.

Dogen starts by talking about generosity, or Dana: “Giving means not to be greedy, and not to be greedy means not to covet. Even if we rule the four continents, in order to teach, to offer the teachings of the true way, we must simply and unfailingly not be greedy.” He says it’s like offering treasures we are about to discard to those we do not know. “We give flowers blooming on the distant mountains to the Tathagata, and we offer treasures accumulated in past lives to living beings.” In his time, to give flowers blooming in the distant mountains was to give the Buddhists something they already had; flowers just bloomed. In our time, we have to make an effort to sustain those flowers because what we are doing on our mountains is stripping them for timber, strip mining them for coal, developing them for housing projects. There’s no room for the flowers to bloom in many places. For us to give flowers on the distant mountain to the Tathagata, to the Buddha, calls for a serious effort or intention, and that’s in the spirit of giving. Dogen writes that we offer ourselves to ourselves, and we offer others to others. That’s to me the turning line. We offer ourselves to ourselves. In other words, we allow ourselves to be as we are, to be as our true selves, not necessarily as our narrow selves or small selves, but to be as free and open as we can, to hold this posture when we offer ourselves to ourselves. That’s what we’re doing when we’re sitting zazen.

The second of these embracing actions is loving speech, which he says means to arouse compassionate mind when meeting with living beings. It means don’t immediately stake out your position to challenge or oppose, but actually listen. He says, in general, we should not use any violent or harmful words, which leaves a little opening for when sometimes there might be a need for strong speech, not necessarily harmful, but strong speech. When your child is about to step off the curb into traffic, you have to speak strongly. You may have to do things, to exercise that strength to help people, but in general, not. And then he says speak with a mind that compassionately cares for living beings as if they were our own children. That’s loving or kind speech. The third principle is beneficial action, which means creating skillful means to benefit living beings, whether they are noble or humble. Dogen says we should benefit friends and foes, self and others alike we are all one being. How we treat our friends should not be different from how we treat those we are in opposition to. We may use different language, a different approach, but we have to recognize there’s a fundamental human connection that we have. We are all expressions of this big mind, and this is the way we treat ourselves. When I’m sitting in zazen, there are pleasant and unpleasant thoughts, critical and affirming thoughts that arise in my mind. The practice is to meet them all respectfully and let them walk away. If we push them away, if we react to them, they will hang around and push back. This dynamic of contention is what we feed by our reactivity, so we should benefit friends and foes, self and others alike. Then, Dogen says, because beneficial actions never regress, if we attain this mind, we can perform beneficial actions even for grass, trees, wind, and water. This is the wide vision of Dogen, of Chinese and Japanese Zen. It’s all alive. Everything’s alive, and so it’s not just about me, not just about my family; it’s about the entire world that we inhabit. The fourth point is identity action, sometimes translated as cooperation, sameness, identity meaning being—not like identity politics. It’s being in identity with all that you encounter, meaning we’re all part of one large identity, not to be different from self or others. Do I have an integral sense of myself where I include, as Suzuki Roshi often said, everything as part of myself rather than separating off this and this and this, compartmentalizing it, trying to push this in the basement, sticking this one up in the attic, putting this one forward so people can see it. It’s to not be different from all that one is, to recognize this fundamental oneness of being. He says the ocean does not refuse water; therefore, it is able to achieve vastness. It just takes all the water, as much water as you want to give, and it’ll be as big as it needs to be. The mountains do not refuse earth; therefore, they are able to become tall.

“And wise rulers are not weary of people; therefore they form a large nation. Wise rulers do not weary of their people. That does not mean they fail to offer rewards and punishments, but they never tire of their people. Although people desire to form a nation and have wise rulers, few fully understand why a wise ruler is wise. They are simply glad to be embraced by the wise ruler, but they don’t realize they are embracing a wise ruler.” Thus, the principle of identity action exists both in the wise ruler and the people. A society exists on the basis of our willingness to go along with it. That means sometimes we go along because we’re privileged by it, sometimes because there’s a gun held to our heads, or sometimes for what we perceive to be our children’s sake. But it’s always about society existing on the basis of cooperation.

When that cooperation is withdrawn, societies change; this is how things change. In China’s history, there would be a conflation of natural disasters, probably going on all the time, but people would notice and say, oh, it’s time for us to withdraw our support for this ruler because he’s not wise anymore; we need to find a new one. It’s about this dynamic; the only way a ruler can continue is with either the willing or the coerced cooperation of the people. Identity action means sameness, and this is what Dogen says here: the principle of identity action exists both in the wise ruler and the people. Can I meet people whose views seem diametrically opposed to mine, listen to them, and create an atmosphere where I can present mine? This is highly idealistic, but it’s the best thing that I know how to do. And it’s what I’m working with, basically, when I sit zazen. Can I meet the parts of myself that are deeply troubling to me and just accept them as part of the whole catastrophe? As I develop the capacity to do that, then my ability to include others becomes broader; then, one is bringing forth one’s Bodhisattva nature. And that’s what I wish for each of us. And that’s what I think, at the deepest level, our practice is about.

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