Dogen never even dreamt
Whatever you review about Zen master Dogen (12001253) you cannot interpretation which seated imagining (zazen) was not important for him. Indeed, seated meditaton is central for Dogen. According to Dogen it is a hint of Buddhism or shobogenzo meaning a treasury of a eye of loyal dharma which was handed down in a Zen lineage from a single Patriarch to another.
If this strikes some complicated readers as being a departure from Buddhisms idea of imagining (dhyna), to some border it is. Simply put, seated mediation (zazen) is not during a core of Buddhism as Dogen believes it is, during least not in a Pali as well as Mahayana canon. It competence be loyal which seated imagining is a valuable apparatus or aid which helps us to get to a threshold of awakening to Buddha Mind, yet a act of only sitting (J., shikantaza) cannot itself be interpreted to be a same as a fulfilment of Buddha Mind. Far from it.
Mind, in Buddhism, both in a Pali as well as Mahayana canon is what is defiled then liberated from a bewitching power of conditioned life which includes a fleshly body which sits upon a imagining pillow in zazen.
In a Dhammapada you read: Mind to immateriality has gone (vi-sankhara-gatam cittam), desires finish is accomplished (154). Specifically, this Mind which has gone to immateriality, we dive to emphasize, is fundamentally incorporeal. Yes, even yet it is coordinate with a earthy or fleshly body, it is not of italthough in ignorance you believe it is. If a chairman sits or stands, lies down or walks, Mind is present yet unblushing for a reason which Mind transcends earthy postures as well as actions. Most importantly, Mind transcends bieing born as well as genocide hence, a great importance in Buddhism.
Dogen, similar to those of his time such as Shiran as well as Nichiren, was immersed in Tendai hongaku didactic discourse (the didactic discourse of strange enlightenment) in which it was believed which use as well as note have been nondual. (We competence even call Dogens Zen, T! endai Ze n.) For example, a immediacy of sitting is also a immediacy of finish enlightenment. But this errs in assuming which phenomena have been a absolute or by example, a clay pot shape, i.e., pot-ness, is clay when some-more precisely, clay is eccentric of all shapes which competence be assembled from it by causation.
Later upon Dogens Zen is discharged by Rinzai Zen Buddhists similar to Hakuin as well as Mujaku Dochu (16531744).
This Zen said Mujaku, simply clung to a notion which a deluded thoughts was itself Buddhahood (mjin soku butsu) as well as ignored a tranformative knowledge of awakening (satori). Dogen never even dreamt of a state of satori which was a meaning of a advent of a Buddha, a role of Bodhidharmas goal to China, as well as a summary of a primogenitor of kanna, or koan Zen, Ta-hui (Bielefeldt, Dogens Manuals of Zen Meditation, p. 4).
