Temporality of hermeneutics in Dogen's Shobogenzo
By Steven Heine
Philosophy East and West
Volume 33, no.2 (April, 1983)
P139-147
P139
I. THE HERMENEUTICS OF TEMPORALITY
In the first two sections of the fascicle on
"Buddha-nature" ("Bussho"(a)) in the Shobogenzo(b),
Dogen(c) critically revises--or, it could be said,
deliberately and creatively rewrites--traditionally
honored sayings from the Nirvaa.na Suutra and Zen
master Huai-hai in order to bring them in accord
with his own understanding and expression of
impermanence (mujo(d)) as the true basis of reality
and direct disclosure of an experience of
non-substantiality (muga(e) ) . That is, he
challenges, reinterprets and restates, even at the
risk of grammatical distortion, previous views of
Buddha-nature which convey what he believes to be a
misconception of time, however subtle or veiled, in
that they overlook or violate the spontaneous
moment-to-moment process of arising-desistence,
life-death, coming-going. The tendency to
misrepresent impermanence by an attachment to
Buddha-nature, conceived of either as a futural goal
beyond this present moment or as a fixed substratum
underlying it, betrays an eternalist clinging which
seeks enlightenment outside rather than fully within
temporal conditions and the mutability of dharmic
factors, and therefore reflects the lack of genuine
realization of non-self.
Dogen insists on eliminating even the slightest
doctrinal discrepancy between Buddha-nature and the
immediate here-and-now presencing of the
multidimensional unity of being-time (uji(f)), such
that "time (ji(g)) itself is already none other than
all beings (u(h)); beings are none other than
time."(1) Because he asserts the efficacy of
language, in contrast to the Rinzai view of Zen as a
"special transmission outside the teaching" (kyoge
betsuden(l) ) , and is not satisfied with the
rationale that Buddhist sayings are provisional and
ultimately discardable, Dogen attempts to correct
rather than reject apparently misleading statements.
By recasting previous expressions, he shows not only
what they omitted or stated incorrectly, but also
what they really intended to say, the truth at once
embedded in and concealed by the fabric of the
words; he does not seek to destroy the notion of
Buddha-nature but to recover and restore its genuine
temporal meaning free of traces of eternalism.
According to the passage Dogen cites from the
Nirvaa.na Suutra:
All sentient beings without exception have the
Buddha-nature. Tathagata abides forever without
change," (2)
By playing on the verb "to have"(u) which can also
mean "to be, " Dogen rereads the phrase, "All
sentient beings have the Buddha-nature" as
"whole-beingBuddha-nature" (shutsu-u-bussho(j)), The
unified being of Buddha-nature is not a static
substratum beyond or beneath temporal phenomena. It
is neither an entity possessed by all beings nor a
greater power which encompasses them; neither an
Steven Heine is a Fulbright Researcher at the
University of Tokyo. This paper was first presented
at the 27th International Conference of Orientalists
in Tokyo in May 1982.
P140
emergent being that began at a certain time nor an
original or timeless being. It neither subsists
before Zen practice nor is attained at the
conclusion of practice.
Thus, whole-being-Buddha-nature must not be
conceived of as something hidden that is awaiting
realization or as a potential from the past which
will come to the fore in the future. The traditional
interpretation of the second phrase of the passage
implies that Buddha-nature is a constant essence
which, when nourished by the Dharma rain, gives
forth branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits with new
seed-potentials, and it thereby presupposes a gap
between being-time and enlightenment. It assumes
that past, present, and future are three separable
and independent realms through which existence
passes, leading inevitably toward some destination
beyond time. By reinterpreting the word-order of the
final phrase, however, Dogen takes it to mean,
"Tathagata does not abide forever and is change."
The significance of Dogen's reformulations,
regardless of whether they are grammatically
justifiable, is that Buddha-nature is no longer, he
says, "a question of something in the tree or
something outside the tree. There is no time of the
past or present when the truth is not realized.
Therefore, although the unenlightened standpoint may
be presupposed, root, stem, branch, and leaf must
simultaneously realize Buddha-nature as the very
same whole being."(3)
On the surface, Huai-hai's Zen injunction does
not seem to be problematic concerning time, but
Dogen's critical revision reveals just how
insidiously disturbing the permeations and
consequences of the eternalist tendency can be. The
Zen dictum (which may represent a paraphrase of the
Nirvaa.na Suutra) is:
If you wish to know the Buddha-nature's meaning, you
should watch for temporal conditions. If the time
arrives, the Buddha-nature will manifest itself.(4)
Although these words appear successfully to state
Buddha-nature as inseparably connected to temporal
conditions, Dogen maintains that unless
authentically interpreted, they suggest that
Buddha-nature is a realm beyond daily time which
somehow comes about as a "matter of natural course."
If the time is suitable, the Buddha-nature will
arrive whether or not one practices to achieve it.
In exposing this common misinterpretation, Dogen
comments that, "if the time does not come, then
whether you study with a teacher in search of the
Dharma, or practice the Way in relentless pursuit,
it is not manifested."
Because being-time is always already manifest as
all beings and there is no substratum outside it,
Dogen reinterprets the phrase "if the time arrives"
(jisetsu nyakushi(k)) to mean "the time already
arrived" (jisetsu kishi(l)), not in some futural
realm to be anticipated but spontaneously and
completely this very moment. "There is no time right
now that is not a time that has arrived," he writes.
"There is no Buddha-nature that is not Buddha-nature
fully manifested right here-and-now."(6) Thus, from
the standpoint of being-time, there is no "if"
because the time already here is itself the full
presencing of Buddha-nature, which does not have to
"arrive."
Aside from the passages from the "Bussho"
fascicle, another prominent
141
example of Dogen's interpretative method is his use
of the term "being-time" which consists of two
Chinese characters, u and ji (also pronounced
arutoki in Japanese), that in ordinary discourse
means "sometimes" or "at a certain time" in the
sense that an entity occurs at a particular point
"in" time. At the beginning of the "Uji" fascicle,
Dogen quotes the following Zen poem (by Yueh-shan
Wei-yen):
Sometimes (uji) standing so high up on the mountain top;
Sometimes walking deep down on the bottom of the sea;
Sometimes a three-headed eight-armed [demon or Acala];
Sometimes a sixteen- or eight-foot [Buddha];(7)
He then draws out the deeper philosophical
significance of the term by highlighting the meaning
of each of the two characters separately--being and
time--and then illustrating that the everyday word,
although it is generally not realized or
acknowledged, points to the primordial unity of
being-time as absolutely inseparable, twofold
aspects of the selfsame reality. Therefore, the
apparent opposites of the mountain top and ocean
depths, demon and Buddha--time seen as either useful
and fitting or inappropriate and out of season--are
not mutually exclusive possibilities, but the
ever-varying manifestations of ultimately
non-differentiable being-time. Dogen comments that
spring, for example, does not arrive at a certain
chronologically measured time-point, but that all
the various expressions of spring--the colors,
fragrances, ambience, and vistas--are the immediate
realization of the being-time of spring.
One central question emerges in reconstructing
and analyzing Dogen's method of interpretation: If
Dogen maintains that language is not inherently
erroneous and irrelevant but rather in need of
correction to uncover the true significance hidden
within it, on what basis does he take license to
alter the expressions of scripture, the testimony of
masters, and the conventions of ordinary language?
How does he justify the "intentional misreadings" he
asserts? If they merely reflect his own views, why
not discard previous expressions; if he seeks to
salvage these expressions, how can he avoid the
charge of solipsism? A related issue is, how can we
determine or evaluate the merit or success of
Dogen's approach? Is he being true to the tradition
or subverting it, disclosing or concealing its
ground?
The examples of revision cited above illustrate
what can be termed Dogen's "hermeneutics of
temporality"--his reevaluation and reorientation of
the doctrine of Buddha-nature in order to reflect
the fundamental unity of being-time. I will now show
that the hermeneutics of temporality is itself
grounded on Dogen's understanding of the temporal
foundations of the development of, and interaction
within, the Buddhist tradition that allows for---or
even demands-a continuing process of self-criticism
based on here-and-now enlightenment experience.
Because, as Dogen argues, from the standpoint of
being-time there is no temporal gap between past and
present, now and then, former and current
realization of Dharma, previous theories must,
therefore, be justified in terms
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of--and if necessary revised to express--the
continuously renewed experiences of contemporary
practitioners. Dogen's interpretative license thus
rests on a "temporality of hermeneutics" that
reflects the two inseparable dimensions of
being-time: the spontaneity of "right-now"
(nikon(m)), and the simultaneity of all temporal
phases through "totalistic passage or process"
(kyoryaku(n)).
II. THE TEMPORALITY OF HERMENEUTICS
In the fascicle on "The Record of Transmission"
("Shisho"(o)), Dogen records a dialogue in which he
had asked his Chinese mentor, Zen master Ju-ching,
how the Dharma of past accomplishment could be
transmitted in the present age; that is, how it was
possible right-now to understand, appropriate, and
duplicate the experience of enlightenment which was
originally accomplished long before. Ju-ching
responds that the question itself presupposes a
fixation with time viewed as a linear or sequential
realm separable from phenomena and moving with an
inevitability and inviolability of its own, and
thereby reduces the spontaneous transmission of
Dharma to the mere coming and going of something
"in" time. "The transmission from Buddha to Buddha,
" Ju-ching asserts, "continues right up to this very
moment with each and every Buddha preserving the
true transmission. It is not like many different
things piled up on top of one another or lined up
side-by-side. You should realize that the
transmission passes from Buddha to Buddha exactly as
it is. Do not be concerned with however much time it
takes to achieve or perfect this realization."(8)
Thus, past and present experiences, despite their
apparent chronological gap, are not independent and
unrelated occurrences but simultaneous and
overlapping manifestations of being-time. Dogen
takes Ju-ching's view of the continuity of the
Dharma tradition as the point of departure to show
that just as current experience partakes of and
fully emulates prior realization of Dharma, the
expression of that former realization must in turn
successfully correspond to and reflect present
achievement and understanding.
Dogen thus attempts to analyze the structural
unity of past and present in a way that allows for
their provisional differentiation without collapsing
all experience into monolithic uniformity that blurs
rather than clarifies the relation between previous
and current expressions. In "Uji" he illustrates the
continuity of being-time by the example of someone
who lives in a valley, crosses a river, and climbs a
mountain to reach a palace at the summit. Dogen
distinguishes between the unenlightened view based
on a misconception of the flow of time as only
linear, which he feels haunts the expressions of the
Nirvaa.na Suutra and Huai-hai, and the enlightened
view based on a genuine understanding of temporal
passage. From the average or unenlightened
standpoint, while the goal of the summit is being
sought, there is a tendency to relegate the mountain
and river to things of the past which have no
relation to living in the present. "Although the
mountain and river are indeed here right-now," Dogen
writes, "I [the unenlightened] seem
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to think that I have left them far behind and I act
as if I occupy a palace made of rubies, thereby
believing that there is a separation between myself
and the mountain and river [as great] as that
between heaven and earth."(9) The palace--a remote
pinnacle from which one can idly oversee the
landscape he seeks to escape or claims to
transcend-symbolizes the self-centered hopes and
expectations which existentially fear or reject and
ontologically deny here-and-now activity. Obsessed
with the fabricated and romanticized future which
may or may not exist or ever be reached, the past is
considered to have vanished, and the present is
overlooked or discounted.
When the linear conception of time is
presupposed, the Dharma is seen as a substantive
entity which moves in time from past to present and
is to be reached only in the future "if the time is
right," a chronological progression of names and
dates transferred from time to time, place to place
by artifacts such as scripture and documents, images
and idols. The unenlightened, Doigen writes, "tend
to think that the Buddhist Way is something outside
of which the objective world stands, and the Dharma
that makes passage is misunderstood as moving
eastward a hundred thousand worlds and a hundred
thousand epochs away."(10) Such a view results in
the misconception that the "self-same mind to
self-same mind transmission" of Zen awakening
represented by Bodhidharma's coming to the West was
an event that took place at some former time in some
other place, as if removed from one's own
immediately present temporal existence. Thus,
although current experience is considered to be
severed from the past, history and tradition take on
an authority that overwhelms the present and leaves
one longing for the unreachable goal of a futural
delusion. Previous expressions of Dharma are either
accepted and repeated without full comprehension or
internalization, or they are rejected without
clarification or justification. Dogen does not seek
to deny the historical reality of any particular
event, but to reorient an understanding of its
occurrence as one aspect of the multidimensional
unity of being-time.
In contrast to the unenlightened standpoint,
Dogen maintains that the act of climbing the
mountain manifests the inseparability of past,
present, and future. Dogen points out the twofold
identity of being-time in terms of its immediacy or
spontaneity and its simultaneity or continuity
embracing all temporal phases. First, he argues that
the moment of ascent (nikon) has priority over the
delusory future--it is ontologically more real and
existentially more meaningful than the fabricated
ruby palace. "Does or does not the very moment of
ascending the mountain and crossing the river chew
up and spit out the time of the palace made of
rubies? "(11) Being-time at once encompasses and
underlies, overcomes and refutes conventional
fixations and attachments.
The second dimension of being-time-totalistic
passage (kyoryaku) --refers to the continuously
creative and regenerating element which occurs each
and every moment. Dogen writes of kyoryaku:
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There is [totalistic] passage from today to
tomorrow, passage from today to yesterday, passage
from yesterday to today, passage from today to
today, and passage from tomorrow to tomorrow.(12)
Nikon and kyoryaku are two interpenetrating and
ultimately self-same--though provisionally
distinguishable-standpoints for understanding the
structure of being-time. Neither has priority; the
difference between them is a matter of viewing
either the topology (nikon) or the cross-section
(kyoryaku) of a total temporal phenomenon. In the
metaphor of the mountain climb, for example, nikon
designates the particular and immediate occasion of
ascent. Kyoryaku suggests the entire temporal
context and background of events of man and universe
by which, as Dogen says in the fascicle on "Complete
Activity" ("Zenki"(p)), "life lives through me and I
am me because of life."(13) Totalistic passage
encompasses all personal, social, and natural
history, and conditioning and recollection, as well
as all futural projection, outlook, and striving
that both make possible and are contained within the
concrete circumstances invariably and fully manifest
here-and-now. At any given moment, the conditions
and anticipation that have placed someone in his
current position are ever-present. Each occasion is
complete because it includes the full range of
possibilities and perspectives extending and
reverberating simultaneously throughout the three
tenses.
Kyoryaku is the comprehensive asymmetrical
process of enlightened projection here-and-now
actively engaging passenger and passageway as well
as the full context of experiential reality
surrounding and permeating the movement. Dogen
iterates five extensive motions of passage to refute
the conventional view of serial progression, and to
convey the complexity and insubstantiality,
intricacy and fluidity, flexibility and
multidimensionality of the dynamism of being-time.
The first three motions--"passage from today to
tomorrow, today to yesterday, and yesterday to
today"--indicate that time proceeds backwards as
well as forwards, embracing past, present, and
future in reflective unity. Dogen does not simply
deny the ordinary perception of linear movement, but
reveals the deeper dimensions of time always
underlying experience whether or not they are ever
realized. Each moment--every decision made or
expression uttered--contains the full thrust of
yesterday's recollection and tomorrow's outlook.
"Passage from today to today" suggests that the
total present is neither a static point isolated
from the continuity of time nor an indefinite
instant in an endless sequence, but constitutes the
focus of temporal passage simultaneously advancing
and retreating within itself. It also refers not
only to internal movement of the moment, but to the
transmission from this day to any other one (whether
conventionally labelled "yesterday" or "tomorrow")
which, from its vantage point, becomes the current
"today." Finally, "passage from tomorrow to
tomorrow" shows that although Dogen is critical of
the futural delusions symbolized by the "ruby
palace," he by no means overlooks the future if it
is understood in terms of the flexible identity with
past and present. The future
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(which contains "yesterday" and "today") may have
priority at any given occasion, but this is not
absolute and should be seen as a shifting
perspective within the holistic, self-generating and
self-renewing moment of being-time.
III. CONCLUSIONS: THE MEANINGS OF KYORYAKU
The notion of kyoryaku thus establishes the basis
for Dogen's radical reorientation and
reinterpretation of traditional Mahaayaana and Zen
conceptions of Buddha-nature in two interrelated
ways. First, as in his revision of the Nirvaa.na
Suutra and Huai-hai, Dogen seeks to de-structure the
view of an eternal Buddhanature and to disclose the
full integration of bussho with nikon and kyoryaku
in that it is nothing other than this very moment of
the totalistic passage of being-time. Buddha-nature
is neither an unactualized potentiality awaiting the
appropriate time for fulfillment nor something
static and eternal that does not require
self-effort, but is realized as kyoryaku--a
continuously unfolding process which spreads
right-now backwards and forwards throughout past and
future. Second, because of the simultaneity of
temporal phases, Dogen takes license to alter and
revise drastically previous expressions in accord
with his current experience of Dharma. The
hermeneutics of temporality is achieved by virtue of
the temporality of hermeneutics. Just as kyoryaku is
the foundation of Buddha-nature, it also constitutes
the ground which determines the hermeneutic process
in the following ways: it is the basis of Dogen's
relation to the tradition, the temporal ground of
the continuity of the tradition itself, and the
basis for any evaluation--from outside the
tradition--of Dogen's method of and success in
reinterpreting it.
Although Dogen acknowledges the limitations of
unedifying or indulgent discourse, he maintains that
the simultaneous interrelatedness of past and
present enlightenment experiences demands that the
Dharma be perpetually reexplored and renewed through
creative expressions of its inexhaustible meanings.
The "passage of being-time from today to yesterday"
allows Dogen to reach back to recover the past, and
the "passage from yesterday to today" requires that
he justify his own standpoint in terms of previous
accomplishments. The historical distance between
past and present is not denied but upheld as a
positive and productive possibility rather than a
negative factor or inherent impediment to
understanding. The temporal gap is at once
heightened to allow the present--already influenced
by the past--to review and restate the past from a
new vantage point("passage from today to tomorrow"),
and dissolved in that both phases constitute the
flexible unity of here-and-now experience. Dogen
suggests that neither text nor current practice are
autonomous entities but continuously challenge one
another, and that out of the interdependence and
mutuality of their encounter, truth is disclosed.
One should neither submit to the authority of
scripture nor subvert it to his own perspective,
neither simply accept nor reject prior expressions,
but partake with them in an on-going process of
dialogue and observation, exploration and
examination("passage from today to
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today") by which both parties enlighten and enhance
each other, and are in turn subject to the critical
scrutiny of the future, a gaze which already
influences the present ("passage from tomorrow to
tomorrow") . Dogen writes in the fascicle on
"Expressing the Way" ("Dote"(q)), "Expressing the
Way now contains no doubt. That is why present
expression of the Way possesses past observation,
and observation of the past possesses present
expression of the Way. Therefore, right-now there is
expression and observation. Present expression and
past observation are [both inseparably] linked and
[separated] by thousands of miles. Present practice
is brought about by this very expression and
observation of the Way."(14)
Dogen's emphasis on transmission as the
renewable experience of what he terms "the
reciprocal spiritual communion" (kanno-doko(r) )
between master and disciple, scripture and
practitioner, former and current experience and
expression rests, in turn, on the temporal nature of
the tradition. Dharma is not an atemporal truth
outside of concrete experience and the mutability of
phenomena. Nor is it fulfilled unless and until---or
more positively, it is fulfilled only upon--current
realization of kyoryaku as the meaning of
Buddha-nature. "The truth of Buddha-nature," Dogen
maintains in "Bussho," "Is that it is not completed
prior to the attainment of Buddhahood (jobutsu(s));
it is completed in and through [or upon] the
attainment of Buddhahood. The Buddha-nature is
necessarily realized simultaneously with the
attainment of Buddhahood."(15) Thus, the continuity
of the tradition is a passage which invariably
transcends itself, a buoyant, fluid, and
self-renewing process whose inherent internal
back-and-forth movement leads beyond its own
boundaries. As the tradition seeks to realize
itself, it always stands beyond itself and reflects
back on its own significance and intentions,
expressing an unlimited reservoir of meanings. To
overcome the tradition is within the tradition; it
is, in fact, the fulfillment of the tradition, the
only and essential way it is completed. The process
of transmission is an act of transcendence
attainable each and every moment.
Finally, kyoryaku is the basis by which those
outside the tradition can ask whether or not Dogen
is correct in his assertions of what previous
expressions of the tradition really intended to say
or should have said. Yet, this question of accuracy
becomes irrelevant, not because Dogen begs us to
suspend judgement in sympathy with the tradition,
but because the tradition itself--as a continuing
process of self-transcendence-is not concerned with
such an issue. The criterion of evaluation is not
whether Dogen is true to the tradition---which is
already beyond itself--but whether Dogen's thought
as passenger of the tradition is justifiable in
terms of its philosophical reasoning and reflection
about the temporal structure of experience. The act
of reconstructing and interpreting Dogen's thought
is necessarily engaged by and participates with his
doctrines in the passage of understanding. We are
challenged by his expressions and must reevaluate
and rewrite our own conceptions accordingly, even as
we seek to analyze and question Dogen's. In the
mutual reciprocity of this dialogical encounter
throughout the passage of time, kyoryaku becomes
manifest.
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NOTES
All passages from Shobogenzo are my translation of
the following edition: Dogen, volumes 12 and 13 of
Nihon shiso taikei, ed. Terada Toru and Mizuno
Yaoko(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970 and 1972).
1. "Uji"(fascicle 20).
2. "Bussho"(fascicle 3).
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. "Uji"
8. "Shisho"(fascicle 39).
9. "Uji"
10.Ibid.
11.Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. "Zenki" (fascicle 22).
14. "Dote"(fascicle 33).
15. "Bussho"
a 佛性 k 時節若至
b 正法眼藏 l 時節既至
c 道元 m 而今
d 無常 n 經歷
e 無我 o 嗣書
f 有時 p 全機
g 時 q 道得
h 有 r 感應道交
i 教外別傳 s 成佛
j 悉有佛性