Dogen's Private Notes from the Hokyo Era: The Five and Six Hindrances

Overview

In this post, we'll share a passage from Dogen's Hokyo-ki, a passage that explores a standard teaching in both the individual and bodhisattva vehicles regarding karmic hindrances. We'll suggest that Dogen's master, Rujing, embraced the traditional Buddhist framework—with a twist of Zen. Rujing's approach reflects the full integration of samadhi and awakening, as well as the sudden within the gradual, and the gradual within the sudden.

These integrations are one of the major themes of Hokyo-ki. We'll also propose that for Rujing (and Dogen), shikantaza—single-minded just sitting—was not a method apart from other forms of diligent practice, but the essential ingredient in every form of diligent practice.

First, here's our translation of the passage at hand:

Hokyo-ki: Rujing on the Five and Six Hindrances

About the hindrances

First, the issue of hindrances is huge in all the various streams of the buddhadharma. Practitioners intent on stabilizing the mind and awakening are understandably very interested in what hinders them—as are their teachers. We're speaking with experience from both sides of the aisle. As teachers, it is sometimes down-right perplexing that someone who has received the instructions for the method and is applying the method with diligence, still doesn't see, despite knowing, as we do, that seeing simply takes as long as it takes.

One of the most common systems of hindrances is the five hindrances: grasping, aversion, lethargy, agitation, and skeptical doubt. The pairings here are important. We either grasp our experience or push it away. We either are too lax or too excited. And we also can be blocked by our negative story-line about the efficacy of the dharma or our own capacity.

It is also important to note what is hindered by the five hindrances:

What you see in the middle column, "What is hindered," are the five elements of the first dhyana. For those of you familiar with the Nine Stages for Calming the Body-Mind, the factors in the far-right column reflect the Nine Stages nomenclature. We present those now as foreshadow to the next Hokyo-ki post about the desire realm, pliancy, and the bodhisattva path.

We all–until we have the capacity to enter deeply into the ninth stage of calm abiding—have some degree of each of these five hindrances. Our allotment of each is due to our karma (i.e., our intentional actions from the past). So in order to stop, we all must deal with the five hindrances. We can deal with the five hindrances directly by seeing our grasping and aversion, lifting ourselves out of lethargy, letting go of excitement, and studying the buddhadharma to remove skeptical doubt.

We can also pray to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for relief, as in the often repeated "Formless Atonement" verse and "Dogen's Inspirational Vow:"

In order to see, we must be free of ignorance. The characters for ignorance used here are 無明, or "not illuminated." The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism has this for ignorance:

How can we be free of ignorance, the sixth hindrance? We can see things as they are. How are they? One way that Rujing taught to be free of ignorance was through the mu koan. Rujing said:

This is Rujing's single-minded just sitting dropping bodymind with the mu koan, as noted above, not a method apart from other forms of diligent practice, but the essential ingredient in every form of diligent practice. Another way Rujing taught, as in the case of Dogen, was to use turning words like, single-minded just sitting, bodymind dropped off.

About the passage

That we must deal with the five hindrances is Rujing's first point above, bringing him into alignment with many past masters from many dharma persuasions. Rujing continues, also in accord with many past masters, noting that we can remove the five hindrances—these have to do with "stopping" (aka, calming)—and still be blocked by ignorance, i.e., not having awakened and reached the cultivating verification (Japanese, shusho) of the Buddhas and Ancestors.

Being "free of ignorance" is another way to say "awakened." That is an important point–we need to awaken in order to cultivate verification. Therefore, removing the sixth hindrance, ignorance, is essential. To cultivate verification is how Rujing frames the post-awakening process.

Significantly, Rujing's teaching is diametrically opposed to the perspectives of some contemporary Soto Zen teachers who claim that cultivating verification has nothing to do with awakening. In adddition, awakening is not dependent on a certain pose, like the zazen posture. However, to reiterate, Rujing says that without awakening—being free of ignorance–one isn't cultivating verification. After all, how could you cultivate (i.e., practice) that which you are ignorant of?

The young Dogen is overjoyed at his old master's teaching. He says he's never experienced any direct pointing like it, and that it must be the result of good karma from past lives. A few years later, Dogen wrote the following in his "Universal Recommendations for Zazen," seemingly with this teaching in mind:

Back at Tiantong Monastery, Dogen wanted to be sure about how to do it and so asked his old master, "Yet, in order to free oneself from the five hindrances and the sixth hindrance, there is a secret method, no?”

Remember that late one night in the summer of 1225, Dogen was doing zazen and the monk next to him was sitting and sleeping. Rujing entered the zendo, hit the sleeping guy with his slipper and said, "Zazen is not sitting and sleeping. Just sit dropping body-mind."

These turning words precipitated Dogen's great awakening. In subsequent encounters, like the above, Rujing reminded Dogen of his awakening, "Single-mindedly just-sitting (Japanese, shikan taza) doing diligent practice (Japanese, kufu), body-mind have dropped off."

For more, see this:

Dogen’s Private Notes from the Hokyo Era: Introduction

Recently, I pulled the tattered translation of the Hokyo-ki translation that I studied with Katagiri Roshi (1928-1990) from the shelf, and was moved by the tender feeling tone in the interactions between Dogen and his old master.

Vine of Obstacles ZenDosho Port

The dialogue that is the focus of this post occurs about 3/5 of the way through Hokyo-ki. Presumably, Dogen was in the thick of his work with Rujing, perhaps a year or more following his awakening. Dogen reportedly did not lie down to sleep during the two years of his training with Rujing, including, of course, after his great awakening.

So when Dogen asks what the secret is to being free of the sixth hindrances, Rujing can only smile and say, in effect, you're kufu-ing the heck out of it (i.e., doing it through diligent practice). Rujing adds that this teaching and practice are not his, but all the Buddhas and Ancestors have "... directly pointed to the singular transmission free from the five hindrances and the sixth hindrance, renouncing the five desires, and so forth."

The five desires, in this context, refers to the attachments to the objects of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body. For more on the five desires and the five hindances, see:

Are You Ready for Urgent Practice? Twenty-five Considerations

“One-pointed creative application precisely distinguishes the Way.”

Vine of Obstacles ZenDosho Port

What is the singular transmission of the Buddhas and Ancestors?

The result is freedom from the six hindrances, five desires, and so on, but what is the method? Rujing could not be saying that it is not a certain type of meditation practice like shikan taza. After all, in Hokyo-ki Rujing is presented as a master with deep knowledge of the sutras and the lineage records. He would know that the methods employed by the various Buddhas and Ancestors (note that this isn't limited to the Chan/Zen school) varied according to the time, conditions, and people.

For example, the specific methods used even within the lineage of the Zen school by Ancestors ranging from Mahakasyapa, Ashvaghosha, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Hongren, Huineng, and Dongshan differed in method and explanation. Only a method within all the various methods could be said to be the singular transmission. What is this?

Another important teaching that Rujing offers the young Dogen is that the Way of Buddhas and Ancestors is to "... not await successive stages." This is another way of saying, single-mindedly just do diligent practice (i.e., kufu). Rujing is not rejecting either the stages of stopping and seeing, nor the 52 stages in the Bodhisattva path. His point is more subtle and powerful. Wherever you are on the path and whatever your form of diligent practice—single-mindedly just do it, dropping body-mind—cut through ignorance now.

Similarly, Dogen would write in his "Universal Recommendations for Zazen":

And this is certainly in accord with the teaching of the Buddhas and Ancestors. An example from the The Sutra on the Explication of the Secret Meaning, as translated by Kato Yasunari:

Notably, like any good teacher would, Rujing uses the turning words that precipitated Dogen's great awakening—single-mindedly just sitting–not to propose a new method distinct from other forms of diligent practice, but to highlight what is essential: wholehearted one-doing. Rujing doesn't focus solely on being free from ignorance, but included being free from the five hindrances, five desires, and so on—a reference to the whole tangle of obstacles that hinder illumination—while highlighting the power of being free of ignorance.

In sum

Dogen asks how to be free of the six hindrances. Rujing tells him, following his great awakening, that he's done it. And is doing the method for doing it—single-mindedly doing diligent practice. This is the essential method within all dharma methods, including being free from ignorance (i.e., awakening), but also "... for being free from the five hindrances, five desires, and so forth."

Rujing's kufu is what works in any dharma method to be free of any hindrance.

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