Hoko's key messages about jinshin inga

When Dogen talks about faith, it doesn’t mean what it would in a Western tradition.  He’s talking about faith that awakening is already here and that there’s nothing to get.

In Gakudo Yojinshu, Dogen says, "Those who practice the way of the Buddha must first have faith in the way of the Buddha."  Faith and verification are an important pair.  What we’re verifying is our faith in Buddha-nature and the existence of awakening and their ability to actualize themselves in us.  In the beginning we don’t have personal experience and understanding of what it is to see as Buddha sees, but we practice and verify.  At some point, faith is supported by knowledge.  

We might see how practice has transformed our sangha friends, or we might even notice that over the course of time we see a bit more clearly and understand the dharma a bit more deeply.  That strengthens our faith that we can indeed embody the dharma and move through the world as bodhisattvas, as well as our faith that what Buddha taught was real and wholesome even if we can’t see yet way Buddha saw.  That’s verification.

Taking refuge is an early step in establishing our practice and is an expression of faith to which we keep returning.  We’re turning away from self-involvement and toward something else, and when our entire focus up to this point has been on taking care of the self, that takes faith.  Abandoning the things our culture puts value on takes faith and is based on seeing impermanence.  

Arousing bodhi mind (hotsu bodaishin) involves both faith and verification.  The buddha within us wakes up and decides to be realized.  Taking vows is the act of a buddha, so it’s another kind of verification that Buddha is already here.  We couldn’t do it if Buddha wasn’t already here.  Here again, practice and awakening are not two.

Sometimes practice isn’t easy, and we can think that we’ve put ourselves into karmic conditions that are going to keep us from practicing or from manifesting awakening.  We can’t see ourselves as vessels of the dharma because of all our bad habits or difficult life circumstances.  Dogen says we also need to have faith that just like everything else, our karma is impermanent.  If you make the effort to establish an ethical life, carry out skillful action and pay attention to what Buddha’s teaching, in this moment you influence the karma you’re creating.  We can’t act in the past or the future, but right now we can reaffirm our aspiration to be bodhisattvas rather than perpetuating unwholesome activities.  Karma doesn’t have any fixed and permanent self-nature, so at some point it arises and changes and unfolds.  You’re not stuck with the circumstances and position you’re in.  You can choose right now a life of practice and awakening. 

We often can’t see the unfolding of karma, so it takes faith to keep at it and trust that your good actions are helping the entire network of interdependent origination.  Sometimes we’ve got a big ship to turn -- a lot of harmful conditions to work with -- so faith is important.

From Sotoshu 

深信因果 - Jinshin Inga
(Deep Faith in Cause and Effect)

“The principle of causality is obvious and impersonal” is a familiar phrase that was adopted into the “General Introduction” to The Meaning of Practice and Verification (Shushogi).