Two issues came up during last night's discussion of our reading of Dogen's Zuimonki:

1. Dogen is NOT saying that you shouldn't plan for the future or make arrangements in advance for food and shelter.  He is saying that those who've left home, declared themselves Zen monks, and have chosen to live in a Zen monastery shouldn't plan for the future or make arrangements in advance for food and shelter.  At the time the words in Zuimonki were written, he was speaking to an audience of Zen monks and his words were meant as encouragement for Zen monks.  Advise for Zen monks does not necessarily apply to laypersons and householders.


2. That, however, brought up the question, what is so bad about Zen monks planning for the future or making arrangements for food and shelter?  Dogen tells us the answer right in the text.  Monks are prohibited from hoarding food for themselves or storing their own goods.  In a monastery, everything is communal, and storing or hoarding are exercises in protecting or indulging one's own ego-self at the expense of others.  Making your own arrangements for a benefactor to provide you with food or clothing is similar in nature to storing or hoarding, Dogen argues, and should not be done.
   
   Further, in Japanese culture, it was not unusual for a layperson to attempt to accrue merit for oneself by supporting a monk financially or otherwise.  In these arrangements, the monk did the zazen practice and the merit of that practice extended to those who provided the means to make this practice possible.  Dogen, however, noted elsewhere that this wasn't really true merit, as the layperson was just trying to accrue merit for his or her self.  As such, the good deeds weren't really good, as they were based on egocentric ideas of improving the self or one's lot in life.  As a result, the merit of the monk's practice would also be tainted, like fruit from an impure tree.

At the time Zuimonki was written (1235 to 1237), Dogen was living at Koshoji Temple in Fukakusa with only a handful of fellow monks.  They had no patrons, and obtaining alms and food was a difficult matter.  This was part of the feudal Kamakura Period of Japanese history, marked by the rise of the samurai class and a time of violence, disunity, and hardship.  Many monasteries procured favor and protection from one shogun or another; Dogen had chosen not to do so for Koshoji.  His monks undoubtedly faced grave dangers and the prospect of starvation or freezing was not remote.  Many of his words in Zuimonki, recorded during this period, were meant as encouragement for his monks to maintain their practice, to not despair in the face of these hardships, and to trust in the Buddha-Way.  They should not be considered as absolute rules for all people at all times.

Still, we should consider the example of Dogen and his sangha, and examine our own habits of planning, storing, and hoarding for ourselves at the expense of others.  Planning may be a necessity for a householder, but excessive planning or clinging to a plan can be a form of attachment, and attachment, the Buddha taught, leads to suffering.  Thus, Dogen's advice to a small band of desperate monks nearly 800 years ago still has relevance to us today.