Zen · Chan · 1200–1253
Dogen
Soto Zen · founder in Japan · Shobogenzo · Fukanzazengi
The one who reduced the whole path to a single word: just sit. And in that sitting – already everything.
The essence of the teaching: Sitting in zazen is not a means to reach enlightenment but the very manifestation of enlightenment here and now. Practice and realization are inseparable: there is no gap between doing and being. You do not sit in order to become a Buddha – the sitting itself is the expression of the Buddha you already are.
Transmission
Dogen long agonized over one question: if all beings are already endowed with Buddha-nature, then why practice at all? The answer came in China: practice and awakening are one. He called it shinjin datsuraku – the falling away of body and mind. Sit upright, without leaning on incense, recitation, or mantra, and simply let body and mind go. Seek no gain, chase no state, set aside thoughts of good and bad. To study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be awakened by all things. In a single instant of such sitting, he said, the grasses, the trees, and the walls preach the Dharma together with you.
The full transmission — for members of the School. Here is its essence and its taste.
The tradition
Zen · Chan
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