SO TO ZEN - Shasta Abbey

The Key to the Doctrines 73training and begin to study the teaching.Ó Further, ÒWhere faithappears, the Buddha and Ancestors appear,Ó and ÒThe way todispel illusion can only be found with the help of correct faith.ÓGreat Master Keizan says in his Shinjin-mei Nentei, ÒOncecorrect faith has been awakened in one, who shall worry aboutnot having entered upon the road of religion? If doubt is notdispelled, it will never really be possible to enter upon the trueroad.Ó But what is this correct faith? We think it consists of threethings: taking refuge in Shakyamuni Buddha, practicing serenereflection meditation, which is the realization of our inherentenlightenment, and religious training which is the expression ofour gratitude. The object of veneration, the Buddha, is thesource whence our teaching is derived and the guarantor of ourbelief and therefore has the greatest significance in our school.At the conclusion of the Shush‡gi by D‡gen it is written, ÒAllthe Buddhas are within the one Buddha Shakyamuni, and all theBuddhas of past, present and future become ShakyamuniBuddha when they reach Buddhahood.Ó In Buddhist doctrinewe often come across such Buddhas as Amida (Skt. Amitabha),Dainichi (Skt. Mahvairocana) and others. However, these areonly manifestations of Shakyamuni Buddha.History informs us that Shakyamuni became a monk attwenty-nine and realized enlightenment at thirty-five. AsBuddhist thought developed and expanded, many others likewiseattained enlightenment. Both Mahyna and Hinayna