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Main Index
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travel through all kinds of hardships to reach. But if it is your very nature, then this very moment you can realize it -- there is no need even to wait for a single moment. But the teacher could not say that, because he himself had not realized buddhahood. He had been teaching Buddhist scriptures, and not a single student had ever said, "This sutra is contradictory."
IN SEARCH OF SOMEONE WHO COULD HELP RID HIM OF HIS DOUBT, DOGEN FOUND HIMSELF WITH ANOTHER TEACHER, MYOZEN.
Teachers are many. Just to graduate into a certain branch of knowledge is not anything unique or special. But to find a master is really arduous, in that they both speak the same language -- the teacher, the master. And sometimes it may be that the teacher speaks more clearly, because he is not worried about his own experience. The master speaks hesitantly, because he knows whatever he is saying is not perfectly appropriate, does not express the experience itself ... that it is a little way off.
The teacher can speak with full confidence because he knows nothing. The master either remains silent or, if he speaks, he speaks with a great responsibility, knowing that he is going to make statements which appear to be contradictory, but which are not.
But every teacher wants to be known as a master. For the seeker this creates a problem. Myozen also proclaimed himself a master, but time proved that he was not a master.
IN SPITE OF LONG YEARS OF TRAINING UNDER MYOZEN, DOGEN STILL FELT UNFULFILLED. AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE HE DECIDED TO MAKE THE JOURNEY TO CHINA WITH MYOZEN, IN ORDER TO STUDY ZEN BUDDHISM FURTHER. LEAVING THE SHIP, DOGEN FOUND HIS WAY TO T'IEN-T'UNG MONASTERY, WHERE HE TRAINED UNDER MASTER WU-CHI.
STILL UNSATISFIED, FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS HE VISITED NUMEROUS MONASTERIES. JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP HIS SEARCH AND RETURN TO JAPAN, HE HAPPENED TO HEAR THAT THE FORMER ABBOT OF T'IEN-T'UNG HAD DIED, AND THAT HIS SUCCESSOR, JU-CHING, WAS SAID TO BE ONE OF CHINA'S FINEST ZEN MASTERS.
He changed his plan to go back to Japan and went again to the same monastery where he had been.
The old master, who was just a teacher, was dead,
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