Summer 2002 — Genjo-koan
Venue: Earth Spirit
What the series says (short overview)
Across these five talks on Genjo-koan, Mike treats written understanding as a window onto the lifetime of effort behind it, so that the effort to understand matters more than reaching a quick understanding. He approaches the chapter through theoretical, concrete or material, action, and poetic or symbolic viewpoints, but returns to action as their recurring centre. There body and mind are one in an actual present action, not a theory applied from outside, and realisation is neither a special spiritual condition nor a possession the intellect can secure. Rather, it may be present amid delusion: noticing and admitting delusion may allow someone to begin again, while clarity can also develop through years of practice and study.
Present action does not waive moral judgment: Mike calls murder terrible and says the man should be punished, even though the next moment is the only moment in which one can act rightly. Nor does its presentness erase ordinary planning or history, which he distinguishes as humanly useful from the reality of the act now being done. Focused perception can leave a person blind to another side, whereas whole action gives no room to stand apart and reflect on a separate perception. His account of firewood and ash holds each real in its present place while retaining that each can be spoken of as having a past and a future, and he connects it to rejecting rebirth as the continuation of a separate mental essence after death. The moon in water and the whole sky in a dewdrop describe realisation as wholeness: no inner or outer interface remains, yet description cannot capture the state. The ocean and the myriad dharmas show that human perception reaches only as far as learning and practice, while acting and practising zazen are ways to experience things as they are. Accordingly, every action is valuable in itself, although society still requires people to order their tasks. Fish need water and birds need sky, so human action cannot be separated from circumstances and freedom is complete expression within the limits of this moment. People still need strategy, but cannot wait for a completely clear picture before acting; they must find a way as they move and correct their picture of reality. Goals can draw them forward, although a goal is an idea while the place reached is real, without guaranteeing a fixed comfort or a perfect self-image. In another way, realisation is not something a definition or a discussion can deliver: teaching has to enter practice, and sitting in zazen matters more than successfully grasping it in words. In zazen, ideas of how to sit can fall away so that one finds oneself just sitting, without a need to measure the result. That sitting can hold happiness and disappointment, and its contentment is not a clear mental possession.
Talks in this series
Genjo-koan — Session 1 — Why Practice Cannot Be Forced: Four Views, Balance, and Present Action
Mike opens by warning that written understanding of Genjo-koan is only a window onto Dogen's lifetime of effort. Knowledge can be exciting, but it can conceal the long work that made it possible; therefore the effort to understand matters more than quick understanding. He says the chapter moves through four viewpoints: theoretical, concrete or material, action, and a poetic or symbolic view of reality. The first paragraph contains these views, he says, rather than offering an easily grasped single doctrine.
Genjo-koan — Session 2 — Realising Delusion Without Seeking Perfection: Attention, Action, and the Forgetting of Self
Mike opens by reading the claim that those who greatly realise delusion are buddhas, rather than beings who have ceased to be deluded. He uses it to resist a perfect self-image: noticing and admitting delusion can be a way to begin again. He also holds together two apparently contradictory senses of realisation, the one present now and the clarity that years of practice and study can develop. A buddha, he says, does not need to recognise itself as a buddha.
Genjo-koan — Session 3 — Action Here and Now: Reality, Time, and Realisation in zazen
Mike reads this part of Genjo-koan as a practical account of reality: real action is only here and now, rather than a story about a past or future action. In a whole action, he says, there is no separate self at the centre that can stand aside and observe it. This is why he treats the myriad dharmas as not-self and questions a permanent mind, essence, or soul. He does not use the present to deny ordinary planning or history, but distinguishes their human usefulness from the reality of the act now being done.
Genjo-koan — Session 4 — Wholeness in Action: Realisation, Perception, and the Ordinary Present Moment
Mike reads Dogen’s image of the moon in water as an attempt to speak of realisation as wholeness, not a special spiritual condition. The moon neither gets wet nor breaks water; likewise, he says, realisation neither breaks nor obstructs the individual. When the inner and outer sides are equal, he uses the balloon image to say that no inner or outer interface remains. The whole moon and sky in a dewdrop lets him name the infinite in the infinitely small, while insisting that the state can be experienced but not captured by description.
Genjo-koan — Session 5 — Action as Place: Freedom, Reality, and Finding the Way as We Move
Mike begins with Dogen’s fish and birds to describe action as something in which action and circumstances cannot be separated. Fish need water and birds need sky, just as human action occurs only where a person and the circumstances meet. For him, freedom exists in this moment, not as an escape from its limits but as complete expression within them. Abstract judgments about good and bad therefore differ from the concrete action in which they arise.