![]() that passes back and forth and up and down through itself infinitely. In fact, the
various Sakyamunis of the myriad Mahayana sutras were all obviously fronts for the
authors of texts of often widely divergent interests and convictions.
The rupas or statues of Sakyamuni Buddha vary from culture to culture.
Southeast Asian rupas are usually closely based upon the major and minor marks of
a great man from ancient Indian folklore and so Sakyamuni is often shown with a
pointed head, long heels that protrude from behind the feet, elbows arms like
elephant trunks. Graceful in appearance to some, eerily disfigured to others. Chinese
rupas are often pudgy with a big grin. Japanese rupas tend to be perhaps a bit more
aristocratic. There is always an attempt to depict him as serene and transcendent.
Some recent contemporary Western images of the Buddha include attempts
to reframe him as a messenger of love and warmth, even attempting to situate him
like Jesus in the garden playing with the children.
The image that was contemporary to Dogen was derived from a vast range of
Mahayana sutras including the Prajnaparamita texts, the Avatamsaka, the
Vimalakirti, the Lankavatara, the Surangama and so on. But of greatest impact to
Japanese culture was the influence of the Lotus sutra and its central position in the
Teachings of the powerful Tendai school. These sutras tell of a Buddha who had
appeared in this world only to renounce great wealth and powerful position in order
to seek the truth of existence. The sutras say that he was twenty-nine when he did
this, Dogen here says nineteen. The sutras say that he engaged in various ascetic
practises for six years before simply sitting beneath the bodhi tree and through
attending directly to his experience, realizing nirvana, the cessation of all
conditioning of experience. Keizan zenji in the Denkoroku says that he sat under the
bodhi tree for six years. The numbers arent important. Sakyamuni then taught in
northern India for over forty years. These sutras say that he is only one of a number
of Buddhas that have appeared in this universe and that there are many universes
with many Buddhas. In the Lotus sutra, Sakyamuni also reveals that his life in this
world was merely the enactment of a drama, to provide an example for sentient
beings on how to go about the practice of the Dharma, while he himself has been
and will be alive and awake for a limitless lifetime. He is not a god, and not the
creator of the world. He is simply awake and beyond all categories and conditions.
Mere gods live and die over time, universes come and go, causes and conditions
configure and change, while he is simply always awake and free.
Dogen zenji refers to him as our true father, using the metaphor from the
parable of the son and his lost inheritance from the Lotus sutra. He emphasizes the
events of the Buddhas life. These are archetypal and mythical in the sutras. For
example, when the Buddha abandons his family and his kingdom and cuts away his
hair, the earth shakes. When he awakens, the earth shakes. When he Teaches,
flowers fall from the sky, shining beings of various realms gather to listen. Dogen
believed all of these things were true. He had no reason not to. Enough odd things
had happened in his own practice. But what was important was that the Buddha was
at ease in every situation, whether being praised by heavenly beings and presented
with offerings or being reviled by those who did not agree with his Teachings. He was
at ease because he had already passed beyond all coming and going, all birth and
death. And despite the fact that he gained nothing by it except weariness and
difficulty, he taught the Dharma that he had realized to others as his continuous
practice. Living together with his students, he developed for them a way for them to
actually practise and realize what he had realized. This great compassion was deeply
and always appreciated by Dogen, both as a student and then as a Teacher himself
of the Buddhas Way.
I myself experience such a deep appreciation. On the morning of Jodo-e, the
memorial for the Buddhas Awakening that concludes our Rohatsu sesshin, I read
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