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Teisho 4: Sakyamuni Buddhas
Tuesday, October 9, 2001
from the series “Turning the Wheel of the Way"
Commentaries of Dogen's "Gyoji: Continuous Practice"
Presented by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi
© Copyright 2001 White Wind Zen Community
Dogen zenji raises now his first example of continuous practice, of
unremitting effort. He begins of course where the history of the Lineage of Buddhas
and Awakened Ancestors began, with the One Come Thus, the Buddha, Sakyamuni.
Our compassionate father and our great Teacher, Sakyamuni Buddha,
went deep into the mountains when he was nineteen and began his
continuous practice, and at the age of thirty, engaged in the continuous
practice which perfectly practices together with the earth and all sentient
beings. Until he was in his eighties, he practiced continuously in the
mountains, the forests, and the monasteries. He never returned to his
father’s palace or resumed his position as prince over the land. Throughout
his entire life in the world he never wore new monks’ cotton robes or had a
new alms bowl. He never had a day or a moment alone, but constantly taught
others and received them in the Dharma. He never rejected the vain
attentions of humans or shining beings, and was patient at abuse from those
outside of the Way. The teaching activities of his whole lifetime were nothing
other than continuous practice. The forms practised by the Buddha of washing
his robes and begging for his food were nothing other than continuous
practice.
The Sakyamuni Buddha that Dogen zenji speaks of here is the one that he
knows. First of all, it is a very Mahayana Buddha and a very medieval Japanese
Buddha at that. Secondly, it is the Sakyamuni Buddha whose skin, flesh, bone and
marrow he himself inhabits and is inhabited by.
What I mean by “a Mahayana Buddha and a medieval Japanese Buddha” is
that the image of Sakyamuni that Dogen had was one common to his particular time
and place. There are as many images of the Buddha as are grains of sand in the river
Ganges.
To many, the Buddha is an ethereal, vague figure, not least because very few
people read the Sanskrit Mahayana sutras and Theravadin Pali suttas that present
the canon of Teachings ascribed to him. If they do read sutras, they tend to read
only a few of them. And so most people do not really know very much about what he
is purported to have said, let alone have much sense of him as such. 
There was the Sakyamuni Buddha of the Vajracheddika sutra, the Diamond
Cutter sutra, who was profound, concise, and very funny. And the Sakyamuni of the
Vimalakirti sutra who of course just sets the stage for Vimalakirti’s antics. The
Sakyamuni of the Lankavatara was radical, rambling, and inconsistent but
provocative in exploring just what it was he was trying to say. The Sakyamuni of the
Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita sutra, the 8,000 Line Perfect Knowing sutra, had some
very scary things to say and said them well. The Sakyamuni of the Avatamsaka
sutra, the Flower Garland, was just a front for the infinite loopiness of a universe