Roshi continued our exploration of Dogen’s Shobogenzo this week focusing on the section entitled the “108 Gates of Dharma illumination”.
Firstly, Roshi noted that the number 108 is kind of arbitrary to us Westerners, but it has quite a history in Buddhism – and even before Buddhism. There has been quite a bit of thought throughout history on how we got to 108 gates. For instance, some suggest a ‘mathematical approach’ where we take the senses and multiply by the ‘poisons’ and then multiply by possible reactions (positive, negative, and neutral) However, it seems that calculations like these are really distractions from Dogen’s main point.

Preparing for his talk on the 108 Gates got Roshi thinking about a clergy meeting he recently attended. Many of the other participants were focused on all the recent challenges in our country. When Roshi’s turn to speak came up, he noted that in Zen problems and ‘defilements’ are actually opportunities. Challenges are not always bad – many times they teach us something. This is Dogen’s key message. A defilement is simply another gateway to practice.

Dogen is challenging us to understand the deeper nature of suffering. If we really consider it, suffering comes because of our desire to hold tightly to our view of what the ‘right thing’ is. This is what Roshi was seeing in the other clergy members. They had very fixed ideas of right and wrong and when current events did not agree with these ideas their suffering naturally arose. Our practice of mindfulness does not state that there is not right and wrong, rather it instructs that we cannot cling to it. We must let go of the events and not identify so strongly with them. Only then can we gain enough distance to start taking skillful actions to make things better.

Just like in world events, it is the same thing with spirituality itself. There is an old parable in Zen that if you see the Buddha on the road, you should kill the Buddha. It is so easy to think that because we have the Dharma, we are somehow better than everyone else. We have the “inside knowledge!” This is not the case – we are no better or worse than anyone else. This is why being engaged in the problems of the world from a spiritual place is so problematic. How can we be ‘useful’ without the ego getting in the way? When we do act for the good of others, it must come from a place of understanding that we are all the same thing and not because we are ‘doing Buddhism!” If I cut my finger, I apply first aid because the finger is me – not because I am a moral person. It is the same thing with everything else. We vow to save all beings because we value life and consciousness!

So how do we begin to approach the world this way? Roshi asked us to consider exactly what the Buddha is. Is it simply a wooden idol? Is it Shakyamuni, who was a teacher 2500 years ago? Is it all the Buddhas who came before and after Shakyamuni? We need to open up our thinking much wider than that! Can it be all the ancestors? What about everyone in the Sangha? Open, Open, Open! Ok, what about everyone sentient being? No Open, Open, Open! Buddha is everything, everywhere, and everywhen!

Roshi then asked about the Dharma. We can think of the Dharma as the scripture of Buddhism. However, we know that the Dharma existed before the first celestial Buddha – so how does the doctrine exist before the teacher? The doctrine is simply words on a piece of paper. We need to Open, Open, Open. The Dharma exists everywhere – here on Earth, and a billion lightyears from Earth. The Dharma is everything, everywhere, and everywhen! Roshi then pointed out that it is exactly the same for the Sangha as well!

Roshi wrapped up by noting the importance of this perspective. We need to open up our minds and resist the desire to cling to narrow definitions. This is not an easy feat to accomplish as our ego is programmed to cling. Buddhism is a religion as it asks us to take the leap of faith to transcend the ego of narrow definitions and look to a much broader reality. In the beginning, we may not fully understand how it works, but this is why we practice and allow the understanding to slowly manifest.