Dharma Talk, June 15, 2026, by Inmo Joe LaBrecque
- Johnson takes the opportunity in this introduction to “the world’s first volume of Buddhist fiction” to briefly explore the pull, and paradox, of expressing the dharma via artistic expression — and with all of the pieces in this collection, including fiction, to humbly attempt it himself.
- Johnson provides the passage from the Opammasamutta in which the Buddha warns of future followers of the Way who become entranced and knocked off course by the siren song of poets, whose “beautiful words and phrases” seduce those who hear them away from the dharma.
- If these expressions are so convincing, Johnson asks, what of the danger to the artist? He describes Martin Luther’s powerful attraction to a piece of furniture, and the (paradoxically beautiful) verse from a repentant poet found in the Vangisasamyutta: “Drunk on poetry, I used to wander / from village to village, town to town / Then I saw the Enlightened One / And faith rose within me.” (One wonders how much more dharma-inspired poetry this poet composed?)
- In addition to aesthetic concerns, a literary expression might be analogous to written teachings, or the sutras and the commentaries of ancestors. As he is so expert at doing, in Gabyo (Painted rice cakes) from Shobogenzo, Dogen explores the saying that “a picture of a rice cake cannot satisfy one’s hunger,” and turns it inside out to make the case that these supposedly inadequate painted rice cakes are nothing less than a complete and perfect expression of thusness, or inmo. He ends this essay this way:
“In sum, to be satisfied with being hungry, to be satisfied with not being
hungry, not to satisfy one’s hunger, and not to satisfy one’s not being hungry—all these would be impossible and inexpressible were it not for an image of hunger. You need to explore through your training that the concrete here and now at this very moment is a picture of a rice cake. When you explore the fundamental point of this through your body and mind, you will begin to master the meritorious function of ever so slightly setting things in motion and of your being set in motion by things. Prior to this meritorious function manifesting itself before your very eyes, your ability to learn the Way has not yet manifested fully. When you make this meritorious function fully manifest, you will fully realize just what a picture is. (http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Shobogenzo/039gabyo)
- Hokyo Zammai (Precious Mirror Samadhi) might be mistaken for upholding a similar dichotomy: “The meaning does not reside in the words / but a pivotal moment brings it forth,” and, “Turning away and touching are both wrong / for it is like a massive fire / Just to portray it in literary form is to stain it with defilement.” But Dongshan, founder of the Caodong (later Soto) school is credited with the “five ranks” teaching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ranks), which, as I understand it, concerns the integration and resolution of absolute and relative, or difference and equality (also explored in the Sandokai). As Dongshan’s dharma descendant, Dogen would no doubt be able to thoroughly express how this “defilement” is indeed thusness itself, unfolding.
- The topic brought to mind Buddha’s lute string teaching, from the Sona sutta: our practice “is like the strings on an instrument. If they are too slack, they will be out of tune when we try to play. Too tight, though, and they are liable to break. To make music, strings need to be not too loose, and not too tight, but at just the right tension in between.” (https://journal.obcon.org/article/right-effort-can-be-no-effort-at-all/) Note that on a stringed instrument, between too loose and too tight is a broad expanse of playable notes. (On a fretless instrument, these notes could be mathematically infinite!)
- Art is transfixing, and possibly seductive (delusions are inexhaustible), but it’s a fundamentally human activity — Chang’he expressed it perfectly during an earlier discussion: ‘Buddhist experience is the human experience in all its colors and complexities.’