Karma and Rebirth

[Jundo]

Is there a treeleaf opinion/viewpoint on the Shushogi? It does mention rebirth, specifically how fortunate we are to have a human birth and ability to practice the Dharma.


Personally I love it as something that encapsules the three vows, precepts, attonement for past mistakes and commitment to help others as part of our practice.

Oh, there sure is! That's a story ...

The "Shushogi" (much more important in Japan than in the West) has been described as an attempt in the 19th century (when Christian missionaries were in Japan, and Buddhism was on the defensive) to make Soto shu and Dogen more approachable to lay folks, basically by taking out all the Zazen and "cutting and pasting" Dogen so he made some sense as an ethical teaching primarily. Jiryu, an American priest with experience in Japan, put it this funny way ...

The Shushogi authors and editors ended up resolving these debates through a Dogen text cut-and-paste job that would have made William Burroughs proud. The logic the text ended up expressing was roughly as follow:

Dogen says the practice of zazen is itself the expression of enlightenment.

BUT

He isn’t really just talking about zazen, which anyway is too hard and boring. So let’s just say practice in general is enlightenment.

AND

Reciting repentance formulas is a practice, and haven’t the Catholics had good luck pushing that whole thing? They seem to be successful. Also precepts are good. No, no, not precepts – way too hard – but the precept ceremony is pretty nice, right?

SO THEREFORE

A repentance formula and the precept ceremony are enlightenment!

TA-DA!

Zazen removed, weirdly mystical repentance power affirmed, plenty of preceptors instantly employed, and the Way just got a TON easier. Now we won’t lose so many people to the Pure Land sects!

Gassho, J

STLah

[Gregor]

Ah I had a feeling. . . I still like it though despite the "interesting" history. It really hit me hard the 1st time I read it.

Gassho, G



ST

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[Rich]

In moment world, each moment is a rebirth. So it’s natural that what you do now (cause) has an effect

Sat/lah


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[Jundo]

In moment world, each moment is a rebirth. So it’s natural that what you do now (cause) has an effect

Sat/lah


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This is a flavor of rebirth that I fully believe in: We are constantly born, pass away and are reborn in each moment, ever new.

I also feel that every birth of every baby, human or ant, blade of grass pushing through the soil, star in a nebula, wave on the sea, on this planet or any other, in the past or future or today, is also "my birth" (yours too).



Gassho, J

STLah

[Rousei]

This is a flavor of rebirth that I fully believe in: We are constantly born, pass away and are reborn in each moment, ever new.

I also feel that every birth of every baby, human or ant, blade of grass pushing through the soil, star in a nebula, wave on the sea, on this planet or any other, in the past or future or today, is also "my birth" (yours too).



Gassho, J

STLah

We contain the whole universe in us!

This is the Mahayana way of looking at rebirth? I feel like I've read that somewhere. Is this not related to dependent arising/dependent origination? Do you have any recommended reading on this Jundo? I feel like I know I contain the universe but only on a very superficial level, if I wanted to explain or talk about it further I wouldn't know what to say.

Gassho
Mark
ST

[Jundo]

We contain the whole universe in us!

This is the Mahayana way of looking at rebirth? I feel like I've read that somewhere. Is this not related to dependent arising/dependent origination? Do you have any recommended reading on this Jundo? I feel like I know I contain the universe but only on a very superficial level, if I wanted to explain or talk about it further I wouldn't know what to say.

Not particularly on the topic of "rebirth," but on the experience that all things are all things, and the wonderous vistas of Hua-yen Buddhism so influential on Zen and other corners of the Mahayana, I would very much recommend this book ...

Hua-Yen Buddhism
The Jewel Net of Indra
By Francis H. Cook

https://books.google.co.jp/books/about/Hua_Yen_Buddhism.html?id=MibyUr_a29sC&redir_esc=y

This other is very good too:

The Buddhist Teaching of Totality
The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism
By Garma C C Chang

https://www.google.co.jp/books/edition/The_Buddhist_Teaching_of_Totality/1ygODDGeXdsC?hl=en&gbpv=0

Beyond that, then go on to taste and experience such on the cushion.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Suuko]

Are past lives or rebirths just not another way of distracting ourselves from what is happening right now?

Gassho,
Guish.

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[Gregor]

Likely it is a distraction. Also not a question we can awnser in this life. I prefer to focus on the fact that our time is short, time passes quickley, this life is a blessing and we must use the time we are given well.



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[Bion]

Likely it is a distraction. Also not a question we can awnser in this life. I prefer to focus on the fact that our time is short, time passes quickley, this life is a blessing and we must use the time we are given well.



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What other moment is there to answer a question but now? And when can we be distracted but now? What “real” moment is there but now? [emoji3526]

[emoji1374] Sat Today


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[Jundo]

We contain the whole universe in us!

This is the Mahayana way of looking at rebirth?

Just to clarify ... this is "a" Mahayana way of looking at rebirth, that all things are born as all things because all things are all things ... I am you over here, you are me over there.

Another is that there is actually no rebirth (no "birth" or "death" in fact) because, at an ultimate sense, nothing actually comes or goes ... like waves that rise and fall on the sea, yet the sea is never anything but the sea.

Another Mahayana view of rebirth, common in the Pure Land sects, is that even an instant of faith in Amida Buddha guarantees rebirth in the Pure Land upon death ... very much like the Christian belief regarding Heaven and faith in Jesus.

But also in the Mahayana, is a pretty standard view of rebirth as found elsewhere in Buddhism ... that the heart stops in this life, one heads to the Bardo for some days, then one's "causal stream" finds a new mommy and daddy and is reborn in one of the "Six Realms" (hells, animals, hungry ghosts, fighting Asura, human, deva heavens) based on one's past good and bad Karmic bank account ... Master Dogen, in some of his later writings, professed such a belief very clearly:

Dogen’s Shobogenzo Doshin, “Mind of the Way” (translated by Peter Levitt & Kazuaki Tanahashi):

“When you leave this life, and before you enter the next life, there is a place called an intermediary realm. You
stay there for seven days. You should resolve to keep chanting the names of the three treasures without ceasing
while you are there. After seven days you die in the intermediary realm and remain there for no more than seven
days. At this time you can see and hear without hindrance, like having a celestial eye. Resolve to encourage
yourself to keep chanting the names of the three treasures without ceasing: ‘I take refuge in the Buddha. I take
refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha.’ After passing through the intermediary realm, when you
approach your parents to be conceived, resolve to maintain authentic wisdom. Keep chanting refuge in the three
treasures in your mother’s womb. Do not neglect chanting while you are given birth. Resolve deeply to dedicate
yourself to chant and take refuge in the three treasures through the six sense roots. When your life ends, your
eye sight will suddenly become dark. Know that this is the end of your life and be determined to chant, ‘I take
refuge in the buddha.’ Then, all buddhas in the ten directions will show compassion to you. Even if due to
conditions you are bound to an unwholesome realm, you will be able to be born in the deva realm or in the
presence of the Buddha. Bow and listen to the Buddha.”

The traditional Soto Zen funeral is based on such traditional beliefs ...

Zen Buddhist Ceremonies for the Dead (most of which originated in tenth-century China, before Dogen):

Funeral ceremonies performed by the living can help the intermediate realm being (stream of consciousness) to
realize complete awakening, birth in a pure land, or at least rebirth in the upper realms of gods or humans. In
Soto Zen, the funeral for laypeople begins with ordaining the deceased as a Zen priest (shukke tokudo)—
receiving the bodhisattva precepts (jukai), initiation into awakening (abhisheka/kancho), and the blood lineage
document (kechimyaku) as a blessed talisman. Then there are words of guidance and encouragement (insho) for
the deceased, recitation of the ten names of buddha (nenju), and dedication of merit to adorn the deceased’s
place of destination (whatever it may be). Incense is offered as nourishment for the intermediate realm scenteater (gandharva).
Since nobody can know the destination of the deceased person’s stream of consciousness, the
living just encourage and assist it toward awakening. It is taught that the intermediate realm beings, and other
non-physical beings such as hungry spirits, can “hear” speech, perceive thoughts and intentions, and meet the
living in various ways imperceptible on the gross level, with their subtle immaterial bodies and sense faculties.

Memorial ceremonies are performed every 7 days after death, calling on different buddhas and bodhisattvas to
help the deceased realize awakening or birth in a pure land, for each of the 7 weeks of the intermediate realm up
to 49 days—when the intermediate being has either realized complete awakening, been born in a pure land,
been born into one of the six realms as a bodhisattva, or been born into one of the (hopefully upper) six realms
as an ordinary being. Annual memorials in Japan are traditionally performed up to 33 years, the maximum time
(in human years) it takes for a bodhisattva in a pure land to realize complete awakening (buddha).
https://kokyohenkel.weebly.com/uploa...th_-_kokyo.pdf

In fact, ALL such views may be true in their own way, at once, depending at how one views things.

In any case, just be good, live gently, in this life.

Gassho, J

STLah

Sorry to run long.

[Rousei]

Just to clarify ... this is "a" Mahayana way of looking at rebirth

Thank you for this, it was very helpful. On the cushion I never think about such things but when off the cushion such thoughts do sometimes peak my interest.

Gassho
Mark
ST

[Doshin]

Jundo,

I have always ignored discussions on rebirth/reincarnation in my readings of Buddhism (personal biases) but have listened to the discussions here. I was surprised by the perspective in Dogen’s Shobogenzo Doshin. Was this his restatement of buddhist views of the time that he accepted? Also has this been ignored as Sōtō Zen migrated West? Ignored out of a differing beliefs. Specifically I have not seen or heard those discussions on rebirth in my wandering around Zen.

Thank you

Doshin
S

[Jundo]

Jundo,

I have always ignored discussions on rebirth/reincarnation in my readings of Buddhism (personal biases) but have listened to the discussions here. I was surprised by the perspective in Dogen’s Shobogenzo Doshin. Was this his restatement of buddhist views of the time that he accepted? Also has this been ignored as Sōtō Zen migrated West? Ignored out of a differing beliefs. Specifically I have not seen or heard those discussions on rebirth in my wandering around Zen.

Thank you

Doshin
S

Hi Doshin, asking about the other Doshin.

Well, there is some debate about it. I can only surmise, but belief in traditional Rebirth can be found many places in Dogen's writing. I think it has been ignored by some folks who wish to say "Dogen did not believe in traditional rebirth," when he clearly did. The statement in Doshin is clearer than most of his comments, and may have been aimed at a lay audience or at his priests to try to encourage them to moral behavior. However, Dogen always said that we cannot ignore Karma in this life, and if we do bad things we will pay for it later, in this or a later life. I do believe that Dogen's belief in traditional rebirth is not surprising, and very common for a Buddhist of his time.

I am still skeptical myself even if Dogen was not. However, I agree with Dogen that we should be good and gentle in this life.

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Rich]

Well, Dogen was a master of expedient means so what he said to his laypeople may be slightly different than what he might say to you or me
Sat/lah

[Tomás ESP]

And yet, and yet, it is still and quiet somehow.

Gassho, J

STLah

Jundo, your replies hit the nail on the head, thank you for that

Gassho, Tomás
Sat&LaH