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Main Index
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for the master is the search for the buddha.
AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN DOGEN WAS FORMALLY INITIATED. It was not easy to be initiated, one had to prove one's capacity, potentiality, possibility. One had to prove that one will not betray on the path, that one will not waste the time of the master, that one will wait infinitely. So he had to wait until the age of thirteen, and then:
HE WAS FORMALLY INITIATED INTO THE MONKHOOD ON MOUNT HIEI, THE CENTER OF TENDAI BUDDHIST LEARNING IN JAPAN. FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS HE STUDIED THE SCHOOLS OF Mahayana AND Hinayana, VERSIONS OF BUDDHISM, UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF HIS TEACHER, ABBOT KOEN.
BY THE TIME HE WAS FOURTEEN DOGEN HAD BECOME TROUBLED BY A DEEP DOUBT CONCERNING ONE ASPECT OF THE BUDDHIST TEACHING.
This is the sutra that made him troubled to the very core of his being.
IF, AS THE SUTRAS SAY, "ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE ENDOWED WITH THE BUDDHA-NATURE," WHY IS IT THAT ONE MUST TRAIN ONESELF SO STRENUOUSLY TO REALIZE THAT BUDDHA-NATURE, TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT?
A very significant question. If everybody is a buddha, then to recognize it should be the simplest thing in the world. If you are potentially a buddha, then the barriers cannot be much; they cannot hinder you. Nothing can hinder you. A rose bush brings roses, a lotus seed brings the lotus. If every man is a seed buddha, then why so much discipline? He was only fourteen years of age, and just one year before he had been initiated, but this sutra disturbed him immensely.
It is obvious that if to be a buddha is our nature, then it should be the simplest thing ... without any discipline, without any effort -- just a natural phenomenon, as you breathe, as your heart beats, as your blood runs in the body. There is no need of all the nonsense that has been forced upon people to become buddhas, to achieve buddhahood.
At this point he left his teacher because the teacher could not answer him. The teacher was just a teacher. He could teach the sutras, but he could not answer. He could realize the great significance of the question. Either buddhahood is not everybody's nature ... it is some faraway mountaintop, that you have to
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