Editing Dōgen (section)

=== Other Buddhist practices ===
[[File:Eiheiji34st3200.jpg|thumb|Dharma hall at Eihei-ji where various rites and recitations have been performed since Dōgen's time.]]
While Dōgen emphasized the importance and centrality of zazen, he did not reject other traditional Buddhist practices, and his monasteries performed various traditional ritual practices.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Foulk |first=T. Griffith |title="Just Sitting"? Dōgen's Take on Zazen, Sutra Reading, and Other Conventional Buddhist Practices |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/8467/chapter-abstract/154274555?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=2023-10-31 |website=academic.oup.com|date=2012 |pages=75–106 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199754465.003.0003 |isbn=978-0-19-975446-5 }}</ref><ref name=":6">Foulk, T. Griffith. 1999. [https://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/DogenStudies/History_Soto_Zen_School.html "History of the Soto Zen School."] from ''Dogen Zen and Its Relevance for Our Time: An International Symposium Held in Celebration of the 800th Anniversary of the Birth of Dōgen-zenji : Kresge Auditorium, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.''</ref> Dōgen's monasteries also followed a strict monastic code based on the Chinese Chan codes and Dōgen often quotes these and various [[Vinaya]] texts in his works.<ref name=":6" /> As such, monastic rules and decorum (saho) was an important element of Dōgen's teaching. One of the most important texts by Dōgen on this topic is the ''Pure Standards for the Zen Community'' (''[[Eihei Shingi]]'').<ref>{{harvp|Leighton|Okumura|1996}}{{pages needed|date=January 2025}}</ref>

Dōgen certainly saw zazen as the most important Zen practice, and saw other practices as secondary. He frequently relegates other Buddhist practices to a lesser status, as he writes in the ''[[Bendōwa]]'': "Commitment to Zen is casting off body and mind.  You have no need for incense offerings, homage praying, [[nembutsu]], penance disciplines, or silent sutra readings; just sit single-mindedly."<ref name="collcutt">{{cite book |last1=Collcutt |first1=Martin |title=Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan |publisher=Harvard University Asia Center |year=1996 |isbn=978-0674304987 |pages=49–50}}</ref> While Dōgen rhetorically critiques traditional practices in some passages, Foulk writes that "Dōgen did not mean to reject literally any of those standard Buddhist training methods".<ref name=":5" /><ref name="collcutt" /> Rather, for Dōgen, one should engage in all practices without attachment and from the point of view of the emptiness of all things. It is from this perspective that Dōgen writes we should not engage in any "practice" (which is merely a conventional category which separates one kind of activity from another).<ref name=":5" />

Indeed, according to Foulk:<blockquote>the specific rituals that seem to be disavowed in the ''Bendowa'' passage are all prescribed for Zen monks, often in great detail, in Dogen's other writings. In ''Kuyo shobutsu'', Dogen recommends the practice of offering incense and making worshipful [[prostration]]s before [[Buddhist art|Buddha images]] and [[stupas]], as prescribed in the sutras and Vinaya texts. In ''Raihai tokuzui'' he urges trainees to revere enlightened teachers and to make offerings and prostrations to them, describing this as a practice which helps pave the way to one's own awakening. In ''Chiji shingi'' he stipulates that the vegetable garden manager in a monastery should participate together with the main body of monks in sutra chanting services (fugin), recitation services (nenju) in which buddhas' names are chanted (a form of [[Nianfo|nenbutsu]] practice), and other major ceremonies, and that he should burn incense and make prostrations (shoko raihai) and recite the buddhas' names in prayer morning and evening when at work in the garden. The practice of [[Repentance|repentences]] (sange) is encouraged in Dogen's ''Kesa kudoku'', in his ''Sanji go'', and his ''Keisei sanshiki''. Finally, in ''Kankin'', Dogen gives detailed directions for sutra reading services (kankin) in which, as he explains, texts could be read either silently or aloud as a means of producing merit to be dedicated to any number of ends, including the satisfaction of wishes made by lay donors, or prayers on behalf of the emperor.<ref name=":6" /> </blockquote>