Taigen Dan Leighton - Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness

What a delight to have this thorough, wise, and deep work on the teaching of Zen Master Dongshan from the pen of Taigen Dan Leighton! As always, he relates his discussion of traditional Zen materials to contemporary social, ecological, and political issues, bringing up, among many others, Jack London, Lewis Carroll, echinoderms, and, of course, his beloved Bob Dylan. This is a must-have book for all serious students of Zen. It is an education in itself.

Norman Fischer,
author of Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

A masterful exposition of the life and teachings of Chinese Chan master Dongshan, the ninth century founder of the Caodong school, later transmitted by Dgen to Japan as the St sect. Leighton carefully examines in ways that are true to the traditional sources yet have a distinctively contemporary flavor a variety of material attributed to Dongshan. Leighton is masterful in weaving together specific approaches evoked through stories about and sayings by Dongshan to create a powerful and inspiring religious vision that is useful for students and researchers as well as practitioners of Zen. Through his thoughtful reflections, Leighton brings to light the panoramic approach to kans characteristic of this lineage, including the works of Dgen. This book also serves as a significant contribution to Dgen studies, brilliantly explicating his views throughout.

Steven Heine, author of Did Dgen Go to China?What He Wrote and When He Wrote It

In his wonderful new book, Just This Is It, Buddhist scholar and teacher Taigen Dan Leighton launches a fresh inquiry into the Zen teachings of Dongshan, drawing new relevance from these ancient tales. His inclusive and wide-ranging commentary applies these ancient Tang dynasty teachings of sentience and suchness to the problems of materialism and climate change that we face on our planet, today. Time-traveling from Dongshan to Dgen to Bob Dylan, by way of Rimbaud and others, Leightons approach brings this old Zen ancestor to life with immediacy and intimacy, strengthening our vital connections through lineage and across time.

Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being

ABOUT THE BOOK

The joy of suchnessthe absolute and true nature inherent in all appearanceshines through the teachings attributed to Dongshan Liangjie (807869), the legendary founder of the Caodong lineage of Chan Buddhism (the predecessor of St Zen). Taigen Dan Leighton looks at the teachings attributed to Dongshanin his Recorded Sayings and in the numerous koans in which he is featured as a characterto reveal the subtlety and depth of the teaching on the nature of reality that Dongshan expresses. Included are an analysis of the well-known teaching poem Jewel Mirror Samadhi and of the understanding of particular and universal expressed in the teaching of the Five Degrees. The teachings embedded in the stories about Dongshan provide a rich legacy that has been sustained in practice traditions, says Taigen. Dongshans subtle teachings about engagement with suchness remain vital today for Zen people and are available for all those who wish to find meaning amid the challenges to modern life.

TAIGEN DAN LEIGHTON is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and has taught widely elsewhere, including at the University of Chicago, the California Institute of Integral Studies, Loyola University, the University of San Francisco, and Otani University in Kyoto. He's also a priest and dharma teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki and a dharma heir of Tenshin Reb Anderson. He is the author or translator of numerous academic books on Zen, along with others that straddle the line between scholarly and popular, most prominent among which is his Bodhisattva Archetypes (Penguin, 1998, reissued by Wisdom in 2003 as Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression).

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2015 by Taigen Dan Leighton

Cover art The Priest Dongshan Wading across a Stream by Ma Yuan, courtesy of the Tokyo National Museum (TNM) Image Archives.

Cover design by Mary Belibasakis

FRONTISPIECE: Traditional Chinese Woodcut of Dongshan Liangjie.

Dongshan Looking into the Stream (Horayama Do-sui View, partial; in Japanese: ) image reproduced by permission of TNM (Tokyo National Museum, ) Image Archives.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Leighton, Taigen Daniel, author.

Just this is it: Dongshan and the practice of suchness / Taigen Dan Leighton.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-0089-2

ISBN 978-1-61180-228-3 (paperback)

1. Liangjie, 807869Teachings. 2. Caodong (Sect) I. Title.

BQ9449.L527L45 2015

294.3420427dc23

2014019630

This work is Gratefully Dedicated to my Teacher,

Tenshin Reb Anderson Roshi,

who adeptly introduced me to the depths

of Dongshans subtle teachings.

I am not him, but he actually is me.

Contents

I first express appreciation to all the students at Mountain Source Sangha in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1995 to 2006, as well as the students at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago from 2007 through the present. In both sanghas I spoke on many occasions about Dongshans stories and his teaching, and their various responses certainly have benefited this book. Thanks to Jennifer Obst of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate for transcribing a number of talks of mine related to Dongshan, which helped with the writing of this book.

I am deeply grateful to the anonymous donor whose generous grant allowed me to initiate and make significant progress on this project. A number of readers or others who heard portions of this material helped clarify and improve this work in various ways with their suggestions and encouragement. These included especially Tonen OConnor, Gib Robinson, Douglas Floyd, Roy Wyman, Rosalind Leighton, Nyozan Eric Shutt, Keizan Titus OBrien, Alan Senauke, Tenkei Coppens, Naomi Leighton, Harry Miller, Norman Fischer, Brook Ziporyn, and my bright late student Harry Jackson. Kenshu Shimada of DePaul University and Paul Mayer of the Field Museum provided helpful information about echinoderms and their history. I am very grateful to Steven Heine, Paul Copp, and Andy Ferguson for a variety of valuable scholarly and historical assistance. Of course, any errors regarding source information, and all misguided or misleading interpretations or commentaries concerning Dongshans teachings, are solely my own responsibility.