Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra

by Taigen Dan Leighton

As a religion concerned with universal liberation, Zen grew out of a Buddhist worldview very different from the currently prevalent scientific materialism. Indeed, says Taigen Dan Leighton, Zen cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, dynamic agent of awareness and healing. In this book, Leighton explicates that worldview through the writings of the Zen master Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), considered the founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen tradition, which currently enjoys increasing popularity in the West.

The Lotus Sutra , arguably the most important Buddhist scripture in East Asia, contains a famous story about bodhisattvas (enlightening beings) who emerge from under the earth to preserve and expound the Lotus teaching in the distant future. The story reveals that the Buddha only appears to pass away, but actually has been practicing, and will continue to do so, over an inconceivably long life span.

Leighton traces commentaries on the Lotus Sutra from a range of key East Asian Buddhist thinkers, including Daosheng, Zhiyi, Zhanran, Saigyo, Myōe, Nichiren, Hakuin, and Ryōkan. But his main focus is Eihei Dōgen, the 13th century Japanese Sōtō Zen founder who imported Zen from China, and whose profuse, provocative, and poetic writings are important to the modern expansion of Buddhism to the West.

Dōgen's use of this sutra expresses the critical role of Mahayana vision and imagination as the context of Zen teaching, and his interpretations of this story furthermore reveal his dynamic worldview of the earth, space, and time themselves as vital agents of spiritual awakening.

Leighton argues that Dōgen uses the images and metaphors in this story to express his own religious worldview, in which earth, space, and time are lively agents in the bodhisattva project. Broader awareness of Dōgen's worldview and its implications, says Leighton, can illuminate the possibilities for contemporary approaches to primary Mahayana concepts and practices.

Genres: Buddhism, Zen, Philosophy, Religion, The World, Belief

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Elizabeth Pyjov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dogen expresses his worldview through references to and interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, focusing his reading on chapters 15 and 16. According to Dogen, the fact that the Buddha has an inconceivable lifespan (see Chapter 16 of Lotus Sutra) stretches notions of earth, space, and time. Leighton interprets the Lotus Sutra as pointing to “the vastness and the immanence of the sacred in space as time” and as breaking with “limited, conventional, linear perspectives of both space and time” (Leighton 7).

Chapter 16: According to Dogen’s reading of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha has an enduring presence. Furthermore, Dogen believes that “the buddha nature of the sky, or space itself, offers ‘transforming guidance’ throughout the vastness of time” (Leighton 87)

Dogen believes reality is an agent of awareness and healing, and that earth, space, and time themselves are awakening agents. “Zen Buddhism developed and cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, ephemeral agent of awareness and healing” (Leighton 3).
“Dogen used the Lotus Sutra especially to express his worldview of earth, space, and time themselves as awakening agents in the bodhisattva liberative project” (Leighton 4).

According to Dogen’s reading of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha only appears to be born, awaken, and pass away as a skillful means so that people listen to him better. Dogen uses this story to show that space and time itself are liberative. According to Dogen, “spatiality and temporality” itself has liberative qualities. “the resulting revelation that the Buddha only appears to pass away as a skillful means, but actually has been practicing and will continue to do so, over an inconceivably lengthy life space. I explore Dogen’s interpretation of this story and how he treats its images and metaphors to express his own religious worldview of the liberative qualities of spatiality and temporality” (Leighton 4).

It’s funny that “historically many Lotus Sutra devotees have identified their own period with the “evil age” that in chapter 15 the Buddha said would come in the distant future, including Dogen’s contemporaries who thought they entered mappo, the final decline of the Dharma (Leighton 5).

According to Dogen, the climactic teaching of the whole sutra is the parable in Chapter 16 of the physician who sends a false report of his death to his sons to get them to take the right medicine for them. Dogen interprets the parable as the revelation that the Buddha only appears to be born, awaken, and pass away as a teaching tool (skillful means). The Buddha is actually present always. He only appears to be within the bounds of time to get people to pay attention to his teachings and to their own practice. The Buddha passing away is just “a false report” (Leighton 6). According to Dogen’s interpretation of Chapter 16, Sakyamuni could be alive and present now. “The question leads to the climactic teaching of the whole sutra, the revelation in chapter 16 by Sakyamuni Buddha that he only seems to be born, awaken, and pass away as a teaching expedient. He declares that, in actuality, he has been awakened and practicing through an inconceivably long life span, and for many ages past and future is present to awaken beings. The extent of this time frame is depicted with vast astronomical metaphors. The Buddha explains that he appears to live a limited life and pass away into nirvana only as a skillful means for the sake of all those beings who would be dissuaded from their own diligent conduct, and miss the important of their own attentive practice, by the knowledge of the Buddha’s omnipresence” (Leighton 5-6).

To Dogen, Chapters 15 and 16 are the most important chapters “the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the sutra are pivotal chapters… [that] present central aspects of the Lotus Sutra teachings about the meaning of bodhisattva activity and awareness in space and time” (Leighton 6).

Leighton points out two different views in the Lotus Sutra of how awakening is achieved. The first half of the Lotus Sutra talks about awakening as something that is achieved through practice over many lifetimes. One cultivates oneself today, knowing that awakening is in the distant future. However the the second part of the Lotus Sutra referred to as the “fruit of the practice phase of the sutra” suggests the possibility of rapid awakening which comes from “a full realization of the inconceivable life span of Buddha and thus his omniprescence” and stands “beyond stages of development” (Leighton 7). This “shortening of the path” interpretation of the Lotus Sutra became the inspiration for East Asian Mahayana practices that emphasize the possibility of enlightenment happening rapidly: an “immediate, unmediated, and intuitional realization of the fundamental ground of awakening” (Leighton 7). According to Dogen, time is “ephemeral and multidimensional” (Leighton 82) meaning that the linear amount of time that a person has practiced, in the conventional sense, is a limited way to think about enlightenment. The purpose of practice “is not to obtain some future acquisition of awakening, but in the practice of enlightenment already present in the continuing presence of the Buddha” (Leighton 92). “The practice or cause portion of the sutra reflects the traditional Indian approach or rigorous bodhisattva cultivation over numerous lifetimes as the precursor to eventual buddhahood in the distant future. This is presented in the first half of the sutra itself via numerous predictions by Sakyamuni of future buddhahood in named buddha lands for his specific disciples, all set in the far distant future after a great many lifetimes of their practice. This cause section of the sutra emphasizes the diversity of skillful means in the variety of teachings presented by the Buddha, all directed at the great One Vehicle and the single great cause for buddhas appearing in the world: to lead suffering beings into the path of awakening. / On the other hand, the full realization of the inconceivable life span of Buddha, and thus his omnipresence in the subsequent fruit of practice phase of the sutra, can be seen as a significant inspiration for sudden or rapid awakening practice beyond stages of development. The teaching of rapid awakening becomes a major Mahayana approach to practice in East Asia” (Leighton 7).

The teaching of rapid awakening can be found in in Chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra by the “speedy arrival at enlightenment of the eight-year-old Naga princess” (Leighton 7). The young girl achieves buddhahood “as quickly as Sakyamuni can accept her offering” (Leighton 97). However, rapid awakening is “most fully revealed in the story in chapters 15 and 16, with its depiction of Buddha’s omniprescence throughout vast reaches of time” (Leighton 8).

Dogen cares very much about skillful means in Chapter 2 (that buddhas appear and use skillful means to lead beings to the way of awakening) and Chapter 16 (where the Lotus Sutra talks about the Buddha’s life span). According to Dogen, Buddha’s life span as treated by the Lotus Sutra “transforms the very earth and time itself” (Leighton 68). Referencing the Buddha’s life span, Dogen calls reality “profound, great, and everlasting” (Leighton 69).

The Lotus Sutra reveals Buddha’s vast life span as “the one Time in which the Buddha is living” (Leighton 82). If there is only one Time in which the Buddha lives, the Buddha is alive always. Coming and going to and from this earth is just an illusion within conventional time, while the Buddha exists perpetually, ever-present in ultimate time. Dogen uses the command in the Lotus Sutra: “we should realize the one Time in which the Buddha is living” to conclude that “inevitably, the father is young and the son is old” (Leighton 82).

“This open, multidirectional, ultimate Lotus Sutra buddha time, within which the variability of our own limited time frames are set, is important to Dogen” (Leighton 82).

Dogen believes in the enduring presence of both buddhas and the Lotus Sutra (Leighton 85). According to Dogen “that which allows one corner of a buddha’s awesome presence is the entire universe, the entire earth, as well as the entirety of birth and death, coming and going, of innumerable lands, and lotus blossoms” (Leighton 85).

Dogen quotes Sakyamuni from chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra: “To expound this Lotus Sutra is to see me.” So those who sustain the expounding of the sutra are maintaining Buddha’s life span (Leighton 86).



Dogen quotes chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra directly: ‘’With full exertion lift up this single stone, and call it the lifespan of as many ages as the atoms in five hundred worlds’’ (Leighton 88).
‘The image here is of a stone that is placed as one move in the game Go. This passing away is a simple skillful means of an inconceivably long-lived buddha, and simultaneously the full exertion of life and death’’ (Leighton 88).

There is a ‘’creative tension for Dogen between Buddha’s historic absence and his spiritual presence’’ (Leighton 89).

“For Dogen, the significance of the enduring Sakyamuni is not merely that Buddha is immanent in the world, but that his vigorous, inspiring practice continues and “converts the whole universe” (Leighton 90). It sounds like, according to Dogen, the universe is a healing agent because the Buddha is doing his practice in the universe; time is a healing agent because the Buddha is doing his practice through time; space is a healing agent because the Buddha is doing his practice in space.

After quoting the Buddha’s statement at the very end of Chapter 16 in the Lotus Sutra, “I have always given thought to how I could cause all creatures to enter the highest supreme Way and quickly become Buddhas,” Dogen comments, “This [statement] is the Tathagata’s lifetime itself” (Leighton 90).
“For Dogen the inconceivable life space is exactly this intention to help all beings awaken, which mysteriously creates the ongoing life of the Buddha. As long as this vow and direction to universal awakening persists in the world and has the potential to spring forth in current practitioners, Dogen sees that the Buddha is alive” (Leighton 90).

Dogen interprets the statement in Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra that when beings with unified or “undivided mind, desire to meet buddha, without attaching to their own body and life,” at that time he appears with the assembly at Vulture Peak and expounds the Lotus Sutra.

“Thus the whole of the Lotus Sutra and the inconceivable life span of Sakyamuni is also an embodiment of the wholehearted, single-minded practice Dogen advocates for in his instructions for zazen, or sitting meditation” (Leighton 91).

“In ‘Meeting Buddha’ he equates the Buddha’s extraordinary life span with the undivided wholeheartedness of single-minded practice” (Leighton 91).

“Rather than the Nichiren veneration of a symbolic object and mantra as an embodiment, Dogen promotes meditative practice as a physical, ritual enactment and expression of the enduring Buddha” (Leighton 91).

“Dogen often emphasizes that the purpose of practice is not to obtain some future acquisition of awakening, but is the practice of enlightenment already present in the continuing presence of the living Buddha” (Leighton 91).

Dogen describes “the enduring Sakyamuni” as “reality itself” (Leighton 91).

“Practice becomes the requisite ritual performance-enactment of an active faith in this awakened reality as already, and continually, being expressed and present in this conditioned world” (Leighton 91).

According to Dogen, “Budda’s inconceivable life space” (Leighton 92) is somehow accomplished “through the dedicated practice of current practitioners” (Leighton 92). The two are not separate. Leighton refers to “the undivided wholeheartedness of single-minded practice in all aspects of everyday activity” (Leighton 92). The practice somehow supports Buddha’s infinity.

According to Dogen, there is no distinction between the Lotus Sutra and everything else, because “all other things become sutras whole purpose is to expound the ultimate truth of the Dharma flower [sutra]” (Leighton 92). All things are the Lotus Sutra (as reality is also a teacher), and the Lotus Sutra is all things (the Lotus Sutra is reality).

Conclusion: Dogen’s reading of the Lotus Sutra proclaims the awakening capacity of eart and space.

Dogen “affirms this world and the earth as receptive and supportive of the ever-present potential for awakening” (Leighton 101).

Dogen believes in the “unity of all time” (Leighton 115). Dogen calls this “ultimate temporality” (Leighton 15) and believes this ultimate temporality is “representend… in the long life span of Sakyamuni” (Leighton 15). Reading the Lotus Sutra with Dogen, we access an “enduring, unified time” (Leighton 115) which is the only time in which the Buddha is living. This one time is a “shifting, multidirectional time” (Leighton 115) in which Dogen, quoting the Lotus Sutra, says “the father is young and the son is old” (Leighton 115). Dogen reads the Lotus Sutra to mean that there is an “enduring Buddha” (Leighton 115) who is “inhabiting all times, and awakening these times” (Leighton 115).

“Dogen uses the image of the enduring Buddha to show the present moment as a dynamic process inclusive of all times” (Leighton 115).
“Awakening is not something that can occur in a nonpresent future. It is a dynamic process that happens in the present experience of practice, but without excluding past or future, or any other aspect of this time of going beyond any fixed time” (Leighton 115).
Awakening happens “in the concrete, present time that includes all times” (Leighton 115).

Dogen quotes from Chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra: “For countless eons Sakyamuni has practiced difficult and painful practices, accumulated merits, and sought the Way of the bodhisattva,and thus even though he is now a Buddha, he still practices diligently” (Leighton 115).

The Buddha himself is still practicing, still doing his meditation practice: “even though he is perfectly enlightened, he still practices vigorously, and he continues forever even though he converts the whole universe” (Visions of Awakening and Space, 116).

“Above all, Dogen emphasizes that enlightenment, like Buddha, is not an event that happens only at one particular time, once and for all. Rather, it is an ongoing, vigorous activity that awakens time itself, just as with the zazen practitioner’s upright presence ‘all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment’” (Leighton 116).

[Grand Logothete · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some reviewers below dismissed "Visions of Awakening Space and Time" as either too "academic" or "dry", the truth is that the book is not as off-putting as it has been described so far. In fact, while it is mostly an informative account of the inspiration drawn from the Lotus Sutra by Dogen, concerning his Shobogenzo lectures and other writings, it bears plenty of information concerning various sutras such as the Heart Sutra and Avatamsaka Sutra, and medieval zen authors like Ryokan, Nichiren, Saigyo, all of these of particular importance to the theme and to contextualize the hermeneutic approach during the period. An intriguing textual interpretation by the theory of Paul Ricoeur is added and coherently explored in the discussion, acting as a valuable aid as well for the studies of specific Shobogenzo entries dealt by the author. Since this work literally stands as an hermeneutic study, one is struck surprisingly by the baffling expectations of readers of perhaps thought it should have turned out different from a stylistic perspective. Nevertheless, the jargon and structure of the text is always perfectly accessible (this is coming from a non-native English speaker), while the undeniable, obvious difficulties are represented by Dogen's immense, sometimes apparently abstract or even paradoxical, yet imposing, illuminating wisdom, typical of all the great ch'an/zen masters.

"Visions of Awakening Space and Time" succeeds in pinpointing precisely many of the Lotus Sutra's main ideas present in Dogen's texts, therefore establishing a history and evolution within the author's writings, while clearly exposing the importance and meaning of the Lotus Sutra itself and Dogen's interpretation of it from a zen standpoint, adding as well a relevant description of the context of the period and of other authors from the same theme, all in a balanced manner that doesn't shun casual readers with unnecessary abstruse complexity.

[Reenah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like a mediocre seminar paper.

[Sparrow Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too academic for me. I read it all, I understood it, but I didn't enjoy the experience.

[Taylor Kight · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although extremely well researched, this books is about as dry and unreadable as they come. I kept waiting for some kind of takeaway, something worthwhile, and literally all there is to know is that Dogen liked the Lotus Sutra.

[Duarte Grilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In terms of books on the Lotus Sutra this is a very good one to start with. It gives some background to what the Lotus Sutra meant for Japanese buddhism in Dogen's time and shows the many views of chinese and japanese monks, it was very enlightening and showed how Dogen viewed the Lotus Sutra, as a inclusive text that accepts every path.
The book itself is easy to read, there are not too many unfamiliar words or terms and you should only know beforehand the many stories and parables and similes of the Lotus.

[Paschalis]

elibrary

[Jon Norimann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leighton describes how a monk called Dogen living 800 years ago explained Zen Buddhism. It probably is a redundant book unless you already know Dogen and is keen to know more about his views about Buddhism.