Genjokoan 4a: Realization Beyond Realization

Before I get to that, a story comes to mind. I don’t remember if I heard this from a friend or read it, probably in Crooked Cucumber. And instead of looking it up, I’ll tell it from memory – so please regard it as such.

Soon after Tassajara was established, Suzuku Roshi invited Yasutani Roshi and his attendant/assistant teacher, Phillip Kapleau to come by. Other teachers might have been there too. I believe Katagiri Sensei, Chino Sensei (they were not yet Roshi’s) and maybe the Rinzai teacher Edo Shimano were there as well.

Yasutani was well known for being openly critical of the straight Soto school and suggested that he was the most qualified person with whom students should train, given his kensho and training in koans. There was an indirect suggestion, I believe, that the Soto teachers present weren’t even realized. This sentiment was amplified by Kapleau.

A number of the Tassajara students, invested as they were in their teachers’ realization, took some offense and some of the conversation was quite heated.

Suzuki, Katagiri and Chino didn’t appear to be bothered by the suggestions but the students went on talking about who they felt was the best teacher.

That night all the teachers attended zazen and when the monitor went around with the kyosaku (awakening stick) every one of the teachers was asleep – some snoring softly.

That brings me to realization beyond realization and/or delusion within delusion and this next sentence from the Genjokoan:

Furthermore, there are those who attain realization beyond realization and those who are deluded within delusion.

This is the next sentence of the Genjokoan and on Thursday night we’ll be discussing it along with those I posted earlier:

Those who greatly realize delusion are buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded in realization are living beings.

Delusion and realization, living beings and buddhas – heads and tails of the same coin, the directly manifesting the identity and difference within the total function. Phew!

I’ve been reading Nishiari Bokusan’s commentary (one of Suzuki Roshi’s teacher’s teacher) and have been impressed with how much he emphasizes realization given the rough treatment that Yasutani in his Flowers Fall: A Commentary on Zen Master Dogen’s Genjo Koan dishes his way for not emphasizing realization.

Brousing around the web I was surprised to learn that Yasutani studied with Bokusan when Yasutani was a young man. So maybe it was just one of those student “reaction” th’angs.

Anyway, here’s a little taste of Bokusan’s commentary:

“It is said that to still be able to se the self at the time of the ultimate fruition, you need to be enlightened on top of being enlightened. Then what is this enlightenment? It is to annihilate all traces of enlightenment….

“Nevertheless, we do need a place to enter at the beginning where we have great realization of delusion. But if you stop there, you will have the disease of enlightenment, so whatever enlightenment you have, you should let go of all traces of that enlightenment….

“When we say “attaining realization beyond realization” and “delusion within delusion” it is the activity of delusion and realization. Those who are deluded are deluded thoroughly…. If you are deluded through and through, you become one with an enlightened person. When you are realized through and through, you become one with a deluded person. Thus it is said, “Great realization furthers delusion….

“What is called delusion is as it is and what is called realization is as it is on the scale of Genjokoan. Delusion should not be detested and realization does not need to be devoured.”