Considering sokushin zebutsu 即心是佛 (Mind itself is Buddha)
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Hoko's key messages
In order to understand this expression, one needs to understand what is meant by Mind and what is meant by Buddha. They don’t refer to the everyday meanings of these words.
Mind and its various names The Mind in “the Mind itself is Buddha” is not the everyday thinking mind of the individual, the psychological function that arises from the collection of five skandhas. Historically, conflating Mind with the operations of the brain led to the argument that practice is not necessary because we (our thinking minds) are already awakened. Dogen’s question about this teaching—if we’re already awakened, why do we have to practice?—led him to China and to his teacher Tendo Nyojo in search of an answer. Dogen eventually realized that practice and awakening are not two and are not separate from Mind, and this became one of the major themes of his writing. However, while the individual and his or her activities are certainly not outside of this one unified reality, and while the psychological operation is not separate from the total dynamic functioning of the universe, this is not Mind within the Soto Zen tradition. Mind is also not a “thing” that can be grasped or completely and accurately described because as soon as one conceives of it one is dealing with a copy of Mind itself. Mind is the action of experiencing this moment in the most simple, direct, pure and authentic way, completely without the covering of the individual perspective and before the personal thinking apparatus begins to color and shape that experience. Mind has no starting point or frame of reference – it’s living in the highest degree of non-attachment. As Dogen described it in the “Bukkyo” fascicle of the Shobogenzo, it’s the characters of the sutra without the paper on which they’re written. In translating the “Sokushin zebutsu” fascicle, Okumura roshi uses the term “to actualize sokushin zebutsu” to render what in Japanese is literally “to do sokushin zebutsu” (sokushin zebutsu suru). He points out that when a person penetrates sokushin zebutsu, the person and sokushin zebutsu are both something happening. At that point, speaking of Mind and mind or buddha and practice as different things doesn’t make sense. Because of the difficulty of using language to point students toward Mind, teachers have referred to it using terms like One Mind, Buddha Mind, Mind-ground or Ordinary Mind. Uchiyama Roshi called it simply life itself. "When the word mind is used in Buddhist texts, it often means the vivid life experience that I have been talking about. This is what the word mind means when Dogen talks about that which has been correctly transmitted in Buddhism. “One mind is myriad dharmas” means that the one mind includes the myriad dharmas, or my life experience of the world. This is the meaning of mind and dharma in Buddhism.” [The Wholehearted Way, p. 61] Buddha In our tradition there are three kinds of Three Treasures. The manifesting Buddha treasure was Siddhartha Gautama who was born into the world, practiced, experienced awakening and taught the dharma to others. The maintaining Buddha treasures are the representations we encounter in this world—whatever appears in front of us and teaches us the dharma—as well as the emptiness that is not separate from those forms. The absolute Buddha treasure is awakening itself. According to Dogen, this absolute Buddha is the Buddha of sokushin zebutsu. Because Mind is the activity or functioning of the true reality of all beings and not the state of consciousness of an individual, there is only one awakening. This is what Buddhas do and are, and it unites them all. They all meet within Mind or awakening, which is the same for everyone since there is no personal viewpoint or self involved and no separation between beings. In the “Sokushin zebutsu” fascicle, Dōgen writes, The buddhas spoken of here are none other than Shakayamuni Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha is sokushin zebutsu. When all buddhas in the past, present, and future are buddhas, they unfailingly become Shakyamuni Buddha. Okumura Roshi has written: In our usual way of thinking, when someone awakens to reality, there are three things: the person, reality, and the action of awakening. That’s not the reality to which Buddha awakened. The person isn’t separate; we are actually a part of reality. Awakening is also a part of reality, so it can’t be an object. The person is already included in reality, and can’t see reality as an object. If we are outside of the world, we can see the world objectively. If we’re already inside the world, we’re part of the world. The world sees the world, or reality sees reality. This seeing is the same as awakening. Reality awakens to reality, and this awakening is also reality. Awakening and reality are the same thing, and Buddha and dharma are the same thing. There’s no separation between subject and object and action. We need those three, but they’re just one reality. This supreme awakening is Buddha. The Buddha called Mind Itself As we’ve seen, the phrase sokushin zebutsu was in use before Dogen wrote about it, but he changes the meaning from simply “Mind itself is Buddha” to “the Buddha called sokushin zebutsu.” It’s commonly thought that aspiration, practice, awakening and nirvana are four stages in Buddhist training, but in his “Gyoji” fascicle, Dogen says they arise together. Where aspiration is present there is already practice; practice is already awakening; practice-awakening is nirvana. Thus “aspiration, practice, awakening, and nirvana” are not sequential stages. All are one. This complete functioning is Mind itself, which is not different from the activity of awakening. Dogen’s teaching is that Buddha as supreme awakening is the same as aspiration/practice/awakening/nirvana. Experiencing sokushin zebutsu in shikantaza Shikantaza is just sitting with nothing extra, including an individual or personal point of view. Uchiyama Roshi wrote that sitting in order to gain control of our minds, get rid of craving or delusion and reach Nirvana is not the pure zazen of life itself. It is flavored or colored with various kinds of profit and is developed from a worldly and utilitarian outlook. [Approach to Zen p. 70] By contrast, shikantaza in which we let go of thought, and thus the perspective of the small self, is the same as Mind and Buddha as we’ve described them here. The same descriptions used above for Mind apply to shikantaza: the activity of experiencing this moment in the most simple, direct, pure and authentic way, completely without the covering of the individual perspective, without a starting point or frame of reference, and before the personal thinking apparatus begins to color and shape that experience. This is why Sawaki Roshi teaches about sitting zazen beyond gain and beyond satori (mushotoku-mushogo 無所得 – 無所悟], translated by Okumura Roshi as “good for nothing”). |
Tonen's key points
The Sotoshu Constitution states: “Abiding by the true doctrine singularly transmitted by the Buddha ancestors, the Sotoshu doctrine is to realize shikantaza (just sitting) and sokushin zebutsu (Mind itself is Buddha).”
In March of 2026, nineteen practitioners joined me in three sessions to discuss together the meaning of sokushin zebutsu and discover why shikantaza is paired with it in the Sotoshu Constitution. This report expresses the understanding that I arrived at with the help of those participants. I am deeply grateful for their contributions. I approached the phrase with the intent of examining it from the universal perspective of “Mind” and “Buddha” and in addition the personal perspective of “mind” and “buddha.” The intent was not only to come to an understanding of each perspective, but also to see how they related to one another. A participant mentioned that this reminded her of Nagarjuna’s Two Truths. I heartily agreed and Nagarjuna’s statement became the framework for our work: “The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma Is based on two truths A truth of worldly convention And an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand The distinction drawn between these two truths Do not understand The Buddha’s profound truth. - trans. Jay L. Garfield My understanding of the ultimate truth, illustrated by the capitalized “Mind itself is Buddha,” is that Mind is a continual process of becoming that begins with the unlimited source of possibility that is Buddha’s Dharmakaya aspect. The Dharmakaya is quiescent, unchanging, and unknowable. Nothing can be found there, yet it is an infinite store of potential that is drawn upon in the process of cause and effect through which things constantly presence and interact within the interdependent becoming and disappearing of all things that Uchiyama Roshi called “life itself.” In this sense, Mind itself is Buddha describes an all-inclusive True Reality that is also known as Buddha-nature. At this point a jarring sense of disjunction arises, for we are taught that Buddha embodies infinite wisdom and compassion. Seen from this perspective, Buddha-nature should be harmonious, yet True Reality encompasses myriad kinds of evil. Dogen insisted in Bussho (Buddha-nature) that we humans are Buddha-nature, and it quickly becomes apparent that it is our intentions and choices that so often produce evil in the world. And Buddha -nature as True Reality includes it all. It is useful at this point to examine some further aspects of this word “Buddha” and a good place to begin is with the Trikaya, the Three Bodies, or Aspects, of Buddha: the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya. The Dharmakaya, or Reality Body, is an unfathomable, unknowable source of possibility. We cannot experience it. The Sambhogakaya, or Reward Body, expresses the joyous experience of Bodhisattvas whose deep understanding of impermanence and interdependence has liberated them from suffering. Finally, there is the Nirmanakaya, the Emanation Body, represented by the earthly presence of Shakyamuni. It is said that out of compassion for our suffering those enjoying the Reward Body sent a human teacher as a buddha to show us the Way out of suffering. It is Shakyamuni’s teaching of the Dharma that shows us that we can relieve our suffering by ridding ourselves of our ego-driven attempts to bend the world to our will. Most importantly, in so doing we create less evil and our new choices begin to create new harmony within Buddha-nature. Thus Shakymuni, the earthly buddha, can be thought of as an emissary of the Buddha of True Reality to teach us how to more beneficially participate in Buddha-nature. How do dharma teachings identify behavior that will bring True Reality closer to the ideal of harmonious process, to a definition of “buddha” as infinite wisdom and compassion? There are, of course, the Precepts and the Eightfold Noble Path as guidance in how to live. We also have the example of the Buddha in the Lotus Sutra whose compassion falls like rain, equally upon all without distinction. Most important of all is the arousing of bodhi-mind, the aspiration to arrive at the compassionate understanding of a buddha. How do we do this? A quote from Hotsubodaishin (Establishment of the Bodhi-mind) is helpful: “....the bodhi-mind is inevitably established relying upon thinking mind…….That is not to say that this thinking mind is the bodhi-mind itself, but we establish the bodhi-mind with this thinking mind. To establish the bodhi-mind means to vow that, and to endeavor so that, 'Before I myself cross over, I will take across all living beings.'” --trans. Nishijima and Cross There it is. Our loss of self-absorption and recognition of our interdependence with all beings leads us to forget the self and our mind to begin to function with the compassion of a buddha. This is why shikantaza shares pride of place in the Sotoshu constitution with Mind itself is Buddha, for shikantaza is the practice in which we experience a mind open and free enough from distracting thoughts to become bodhi-mind. It is in the clarity of those moments in shikantaza that Okumura Roshi describes as “beyond thinking” that our aspiration, our bodhi-mind, arises. To quote Dogen in Sokushin zebutsu: “Therefore, ‘mind itself is buddha’ refers to all buddhas who carry out arousing bodhi-mind, practice, awakening and nirvana.” Sokuhin zebutsu states further that “Shakyamuni is ‘mind itself is buddha’. All buddhas in the past, present and future, when they become buddha, unfailingly they become Shakyamuni Buddha. This is ‘mind itself is buddha.’” This is to say that they will offer us dharma teachings that enable us to establish bodhi-mind, the mind that aspires to itself be buddha. To conclude, ultimate True Reality, known as “Mind itself is Buddha”, is a process of infinite possibility being realized through constantly changing interaction among interdependent entities. Since True Reality includes both good and evil, we rely upon dharma teachers such as Shakyamuni and the practice of shikantaza to enable us to function as “mind itself is buddha” and thus move “Mind itself is Buddha” closer to the ideal of a harmonious Buddha-nature. 
Additional resources
See Chapter 1, "The Tenzo Kyokun and Shikan-taza," in Uchiyama Roshi's book From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment A short paper from Sotoshu on sokushin zebutsu |
