On Enlightenment: The Vision of the Infinite Unseen

Steven E. McDaniel

I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called the Supreme Enlightenment. -Buddha

Dogen was a Zen master from Japan who possessed great insight. Remarkably, he lived at about the same time as Rumi in the early 13th century. I have been reading Dogen the last few months and would like to share the incredible power of his study as it has come at a most astute time for me in parallel with some of my own observations of what I call a vision with no view. First, I want to set you up with a little background about Dogen with some help from Wikipedia.

"As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice?" -Dogen

"This question was, in large part, prompted by the Tendai concept of "original enlightenment" (本覚 hongaku), which states that all human beings are enlightened by nature and that, consequently, any notion of achieving enlightenment through practice is fundamentally flawed." -Dogen

The following passage is, perhaps, the most famous of Dogen's writings:

"To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever."

We must all come to terms with our true nature. Our perceptions including our judgments of the world are the fantasies and pretense of our lives. Most people believe that what they think is all they have. And so, they cling in fear to the objects of their affection instead of affection itself. In this, they never address the absolute reality of their own nothingness. At best, they philosophize with abstract thought (the process of negation) a reality they are afraid to approach. And so, it is rare that an individual transcends the world into truth.

One way, in the way that words cannot begin to describe, would be to intuitively absorb this:

At the pure state of enlightenment nothingness dissolves everything including nothing and even enlightenment is dissolved, hence everything as nothing is born in the infinite things. Someone wakes up and looks around to see the infinite things of the world to the infinite stars of the cosmos: the vision of the infinite Unseen. That someone who awakes is you. Right now. You are in the enlightened state. Accept it. Dogen implores us to, "Learn the nature of the myriad things. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening." Herein is the great truth exemplified also by the repeating mantra of the Upanishads and other teachings That: This is That, or That, the subject (you) and object (the things) are One because you, as a separate idea, have no real existence upon
awakening. "Thou art That."

It has been said that the greatest obstacle to enlightenment is the thinking that one is not enlightened. It is true more than you think. All we can know is nothing. In a nutshell, empty, still mind or no mind is clear mind void of abstract thoughts of separate things and suffering. We're here to wake up to our void and our a-void-ance. Then, we can have a-void-dance! . . . and be free.

Dogen's last poem written just hours before his death in 1253:

Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs.

May you go in peace.

The Editor


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Steven McDaniel is an award-winning video producer, writer and graphic artist. His upcoming documentary project on the mystic Richard Francis is slated for production in Spring 2008.

Letters to the editor: lighthousecolumn@yahoo.com