Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Koan

4. Deep Faith in Causality

4 • Deep Faith in Causality Text-Shaping Deep Faith in Causality “Delusion,” “enlightenment”—just fox-words fooling Zen monks everywhere . —Daitò The multilevel ambivalence in Dògen’s writings, which embrace contradictory philosophical interpretations of the fox kòan as well as a flirtation with and repudiation of animistic beliefs in fox veneration , reveals the powerful effects of the folklore force field affecting the unfolding of the kòan tradition in the formative Sung Chinese/Kamakura Japanese period. In the commentary on the kòan in the early, 75-fascicle Shòbògenzò “Daishugyò” fascicle, which supports an equalization of karmic causality and the transcendence of karma in accord with standard Sung commentaries, Dògen makes two interpretive maneuvers that are characteristic of his style of reading kòans. First, he argues for the enlightened status of all parties involved at every stage of their interaction. Dògen asserts that the fox/monk spoke the truth in his original denial of causality and that these words, which in the narrative he regrets and repents , are of equal value to Pai-chang’s maintaining the importance of not obscuring causality. Second, Dògen recommends that the participants in the dialogue, including Master Pai-chang and disciple Huang-po, should ideally be able to continue their discussion beyond what is recorded in the case record. The combined effect is at once to cast doubt on as well as to praise Huang-po, the uncontested hero in most interpretations, for making the point that the fox/monk’s understanding of pu-lo yin-kuo may not have been mistaken. By taking the mainstream view of the paradoxical identity of opposite responses to its 105 logical conclusion in dismissing Huang-po as nothing more than a “wild fox spirit” for even doubting the ancient monk, Dògen devises a novel way of bypassing—rather than collapsing—the basic hermeneutic dilemma of choosing between causality and noncausality. Yet his ironic tone leaves open the possibility that he is dissatisfied with the moral implications of the paradoxical view he seems to support for unconventional reasons. The Literal Reading and Dògen’s Contradictory Interpretations To combat the antinomian tendency in the mainstream standpoint, the “Jinshin inga” fascicle seeks to clarify the meaning of pu-mei yin-kuo, not as a logical opposite to noncausality, but as an all-encompassing principle —at once embracing yet distanced from phenomenal reality—with a distinct moral imperative based on a commitment to the principle of karmic conditioning and retribution. “Daishugyò” and “Jinshin inga” actually have much in common. Both are critical, for different reasons, of the “Senika” or naturalist heresy, which advocates the spirit’s “return” to an original nature or primordial source and sees the release from the fox body as a symbol of the monk resuming his true nature. Both fascicles criticize the elements of superstition and supernaturalism in the kòan that may distract one from pursuing the dharma. Yet they also wonder why the case does not deal directly with the issue of the status of the fox/monk’s rebirth after the time of his release, thereby questioning the veracity of Pai-chang’s account of the death and burial. Although “Daishugyò” refrains from criticizing the ancient monk’s view of causality that earned him punishment, the literal reading in the 12-fascicle Shòbògenzò rejects the earlier position that “both transfiguration and release constitute the causality of the wild fox.”1 “Jinshin inga,” composed near the end of his life when Dògen apparently rewrote several fascicles from the 75-fascicle Shòbògenzò,2 remarks that seeing the states of not falling into and not obscuring causality as “one and the same” is a heretical (or non-Buddhist) view of naturalism that will inevitably result in “great misfortune.”3 “It is a pity,” Dògen writes, “that even though [Zen practitioners] encounter the true dharma of the Tathâgata correctly transmitted from patriarch to patriarch, they accept the views of those who would deny causality.”4 By negating causality in the name of transcending the opposition of causality and noncausality, this view violates 106 • Text-Shaping basic Buddhist moral precepts and reverts to a dualistic contrast between the pure and impure, flux and serenity, and freedom from and subjection to causation. Dògen apparently felt that the paradoxical view had infected the practices of Buddhism in China. He was also...