practice Zazen and attain awakening, those who appreciate Dogen’s “’refreshingly ecumenical’ universal outlook embracing laypersons and women” and see a change in Dogen’s later works, as well as those who support women as practitioners and teachers, should not make too much of the universalism expressed in these lines. I believe the opposite is true: there are reasons for the latter group to make much of Dogen’s ringing proclamation in the Bendowa. The Bendowa is Dogen’s way of setting the tone and the rules for his incipient practice community, his way of revealing who he is and will be as a teacher. As American Zen teacher Myoan Grace Schireson writes of the Raihai tokuzui (Bowing [to the Teacher] and Obtaining the [Teacher’s] Marrow): “Raihai tokuzui was written early in Dogen’s teaching career (1240) and represents the foundational teaching in Dogen’s Zen that all beings, without exception, fully express Buddha nature. More specifically, in Raihai tokuzui, Dogen uses gender equality itself as an example of the complete expression of Buddhism in all beings. In 1240, Dogen was engaged in an attempt to build a community based on this very teaching. It was to be a community that not only taught equality, but also actually functioned based on respect for the equality of all beings, including women, as Buddhist teachers. Beginning with the Buddha himself, many great Buddhist teachers had to work around customs and laws of their times and cultures that placed women in the position of second class citizens. In this context, Raihai tokuzui was more than simply a statement of and about equality; Dogen wanted to go further to establish an actual community based on this teaching. Without enacting his understanding of equality in his community, full and true expression of the Buddha’s teaching would be compromised.”
Even more than the Raihaito kuzui essay of 1240, we can see the Bendowa of 1231, Dogen’s first surviving written statement, as proclaiming the nature of the practice he intended to encourage in his new community and the Buddhist insights he thought essential to enact there. It is very significant that in the Bendowa Dogen clearly states the instruction he has received from the ancestors: “When it comes to realizing the Buddha Dharma, make no distinction between male and female, or between the exalted and the lowly.” This proclamation affirms the commitment of true Chan and Zen masters to teaching lay women and men and supporting their practice, and declares it to be a necessary commitment for one who wants to teach and practice as the buddhas do. As Schireson writes: “Without enacting his understanding of equality in his community, full and true expression of the Buddha’s teaching would be compromised.” Following on this strong proclamation, in 1240 Dogen took a further step in the Raihai tokuzui: He proclaimed awakened women to be fully equal to awakened men as teachers for those not yet awakened. 2.Reading the Raihaitokuzui in conjunction with the Eihei koroku Another set of texts that predates the Raihai tokuzui essay is Dogen’s two, or possibly three, “Dharma Words” (J. hogo, Ch. fayu) to his nun disciple Ryonen. These were all probably written before the Raihai tokuzui, and they deploy language and themes that are developed at more length in that essay. Again we find in Dogen’s hogo to Ryonen references to stories and language that are brought up by Dahui and Hongzhi in support of women and their practice.
Some point out that at the beginning of the Raihai tokuzui, women are being compared to foxes and stone pillars. Steven Heine writes: “[In addition to affirming the role of women,] the Raihai tokuzui also suggests, perhaps ironically, that demons, pillars and foxes are worthy representatives of the Dharma.” To this reader, though, the apparent irony in comparing women to foxes and pillars lessens, and even disappears, if one knows to what Dogen refers when he brings up foxes and pillars, and if one reminds oneself about Dogen’s oft-used level-shifting, paradoxical, ever challenging “koan-like” writing strategy. Most important, Dogen’s message surely was that every single thing, however unremarkable or apparently mundane, can be one’s teacher. 3. “Getting the Marrow by Doing Obeisance”: A close reading The essay Raihaitokuzui is found in two versions. The short version is attested by many manuscript versions, while the long version, which contains the short version plus additional material, is attested by only one. The long version is found in the “Secret [Himitsu] Shobogenzo” in 28 chapters housed at the Eiheiji temple. Since the creation of the 95-chapter “Honzan” edition of the Shobogenzo in the early nineteenth century, the long version has been included in many subsequent editions and in English translations. William Bodiford argues that the contemporary almost universal inclusion of the additional material gives us a false idea that the additional material was important and well-known in the pre-modern period, and creates a chapter that disturbs the flow of the
With these facts in mind, we turn now to the second text to be considered in relation to the Raihaitokuzui essay, “The Merit of Leaving Home” (Shukke kudoku). Shukke kudoku and Raihaitokuzui The chapter called “The Merit of Leaving Home” contains the famous passage in which Dogen denies that the teaching that women can become buddhas in a female body is an authentic transmission of Shakyamuni’s golden words. Let us turn now to this famously puzzling passage that seems to contradict what Dogen sets out in his Raihaitokuzui essay: “Among all buddhas of the three times and ten directions there are no buddhas, not even a single buddha, who become buddhas as householders (zaike jōbutsu). Due to the existence of buddhas in the past, there is the merit of going forth from home and receiving the precepts (shukke jukai). The gaining of the Way (tokudō) by living beings always depends on going forth from home and receiving the precepts. In essence, because the merit of going forth from home and receiving the precepts is itself the constant norm (jōhō) of all buddhas, that merit is incalculable (muryō). Although within the holy/sagely teachings (shōkyō) there is talk of becoming a buddha as a householder, that is not an authentic transmission (shōden); although there is talk of becoming a buddha in a female body (nyoshin jōbutsu), that too is not an authentic transmission. What the buddhas and [Chan] ancestors authentically transmit (busso shōden suru) is becoming a buddha as a home-leaver (shukke jōbutsu).”
king, Indra, Mara, a Cakravartin king, and a buddha. The dragon daughter appears, but neither she nor Manjusri rebut Prajnakuta or Sariputra directly, for example, by pointing to the emptiness of the five barriers; the dragon princess rebuts the challengers only by demonstration. Thus it is never made perfectly clear in the story that the five barriers are irrelevant to women’s attainment of bodhi (awakening), given the tremendous power of the ultimate expression of the Buddha’s wisdom as revealed in the Lotus Sutra, as well as the potential for Buddha wisdom (=buddha nature) in all, which also revealed in the sutra. Surely the universalism of the Lotus Sutra is a major part of the story. In the Lotus Sutra Buddhahood is predicted for every last person. Even children who playfully build a stupa in the sand will become buddhas. And speedy attainment of Buddhahood,, another important part of the story, is also found elsewherein the sutra: in chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra the Buddha announces that his constant thought is how to help sentient beings quickly perfect their buddha bodies. In the assembly in chapter 12 someone asks whether Manjusri’s preaching of the Lotus Sutra has enabled any hearer to speedily accomplish buddhahood. Manjusri replies by describing the dragon girl. So to draw subitism out of this story, as the Chan teachers do, is justified, despite the detailed description of the stages via which the dragon girl attained buddhahood. Dogen concludes the shorter version of the Raihai tokuzui sermon as found in the seventy-five volume version of the Shobogenzo by alluding to the seven-year-old dragon girl (eight years old by Chinese reckoning) of the "Devadatta" chapter of the Lotus Sutra. He says: “But when someone practices the buddha dharma and expounds the buddha dharma, though such a person be a girl eight years of age, that person is a guide
audience. The merit of even that insincere wearing of the monk’s robe propelled her in future lives to become a nun, and then an arhat. Dogen also tells this part of the story in the Bendowa. Dogen continues the story here, relating how she, now a nun, visited still attractive women in their homes to persuade them to take ordination as a nun. By telling this story, Dogen added great support to his argument that home leaving produces much merit; but he also added support to the idea of women leaving home attaining the Way. Given the context provided by theses other passages in the Shukke kudoku, what can we make of the two lines “Although in the sacred writings there is talk of becoming a buddha in a female body (nyoshin jōbutsu), that too is not an authentic transmission. What the buddhas and [Chan] ancestors authentically transmit (busso shōden suru) is becoming a buddha as a home-leaver (shukke jōbutsu).” First, the two lines are not clearly related linearly. Is Dogen saying that nuns like his own successful disciple Ryonen may and do become buddhas, because they are not really in the body of a woman? Dogen in this and some other essays shows himself to be at odds—shockingly-- with Song dynasty Chan in the matter of recognizing awakening in lay people. Perhaps he means to say that lay women, like the dragon girl, must change their bodies before becoming buddhas, but not nuns. Or perhaps the passage is about the dragon girl story in the Lotus Sutra. In other Junikanon essays Dogen expresses his reverence for the Lotus Sutra, even saying that it is the only sutra that expresses the truth; all others are “skillful means” (hoben). However, the subitist interpretation of the story may not have seemed right to Dogen once he focused on monastic training. Perhaps he merely wanted to express that