Hoko's key messages about sokushin zebutsu 即心是佛 (Mind itself is Buddha)
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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”). |
Additional resources
See Chapter 1, "The Tenzo Kyokun and Shikan-taza," in Uchiyama Roshi's book From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment 
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