p. 383

Once Ejō asked: "What is meant by the expression: 'Cause and effect are not clouded'?"
　　 Dōgen said: "Cause and effect are immovable."
　　 Ejō asked: "If this is so, how can we escape?"
　　 Dōgen replied: "Cause and effect emerge clearly at the same time."
　　 Ejō asked: "If this is so, does cause prompt the next effect, or does effect bring about the next cause?"
　　 Dōgen said: "If everything were like that, it would be like Nan-ch'üan cutting the cat. Because the assembly was unable to say anything, Nan-ch'üan cut the cat in two. Later, when Nan-ch'üan told this story to Chao-chou, the latter put his straw sandal on his head and went out, an excellent performance. If I had been Nan-ch'üan, I would have said: 'Even if you can speak, I will cut the cat, and even if you cannot speak, I will still cut it. Who is arguing about the cat? Who can save the cat?'"
Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1.6 [1]

Zen Buddhism has often been attacked as an amoral, even immoral, religious tradition. In support of such claims, critics sometime cite anecdotes wherein a Zen Master's action is clearly immoral by conventional moral standards, such as the following passage from the Mumonkan titled "Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two":

Nansen Oshō [Chin: Nan-ch'üan] saw monks of the Eastern and Western halls quarreling over a cat. He held up the cat and said, "If you can give an answer, you will save the cat. If not, I will kill it." No one could answer, and Nansen cut the cat in two.
　　 That evening Jōshū [Chin: Chao-chou] returned, and Nansen told him of the incident. Jōshū took off his sandal, placed it on his head, and walked out. "If you had been there, you would have saved the cat," Nansen remarked. [2]

True story or not, this kōan does pose a challenge to those who would defend Zen Buddhism against its moralistic critics. As we shall see, in his appropriation of this kōan, Dōgen's own moral vision becomes manifest.

　　 Since Dōgen's commentary on the Nan-ch'üan story is embedded in section 1.6 of the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, we should actually start our close reading with the beginning of this passage in order to appreciate the context of his remarks. The opening line reads as follows:

Once Ejō asked: "What is meant by the expression: 'Cause and effect are not clouded'?"

This expression is found in the famous kōan known as "Hyakujō's [Chin: Po-chang or Pai-chang] Fox"; the following is the first part of the story as it appears in the Mumonkan:

p. 384 Who is Arguing about the Cat? Moral Action and Enlightenment according to Dōgen Philosophy East and West, Vol. 47, No. 3 (July 1997)

When Hyakujō Oshō delivered a certain series of sermons, an old man always followed the monks to the main hall and listened to him. When the monks left the hall, the old man would also leave. One day, however, he remained behind and Hyakujō asked him, "Who are you, standing there before me?" The old man replied, "I am not a human being. In the old days of Kāshyapa buddha, I was a head monk living here on this mountain. One day a student asked me, 'Does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?' I answered, 'No, he does not.' Since then I have been doomed to undergo five hundred rebirths as a fox. I beg you now to give the turning word to release me from my life as a fox. Tell me, does a man of enlightenment fall under the yoke of causation or not?" Hyakujō answered, "He does not ignore [cloud] causation [cause and effect]." No sooner had the old man heard these words than he was enlightened. [3]

"Causation" in this passage refers to "moral causation." The Buddhist concept of karma acknowledges that good/bad deeds, thoughts, and so forth result in good/bad effects. Thus the import of the question posed by the "fox" is whether or not the enlightened person is subject to karma. Hyakujō's answer, in effect, affirms that the enlightened person is subject to moral causation. Katsuki Sekida offers a common Zen interpretation of this passage in his comment: "Thus to ignore causation only compounds one's malady. To recognize causation constitutes the remedy for it." [4]

　　 Dōgen's employment of this story in the "Daishugyō" chapter of the Shōbōgenzō implies that, on one level, he thinks Hyakujō's answer indeed provides a "remedy" for the old man's predicament. [5] Yet Dōgen was rarely content with merely citing traditional Zen interpretations of passages; typically, he sought to push his students to a further understanding by a creative reinterpretation of a passage. Lest his disciple therefore think this not-ignoring/recognition of causation is de facto a release from it in an ultimate sense, Dōgen answers that the passage means "cause and effect are immovable." In other words, moral causation, for Dōgen, is an inexorable fact of human existence.

　　 Given this fact, Ejō then asks how we can ever "escape" moral causation. Dōgen's response is enigmatic: "Cause and effect arise at the same time." Nowhere in the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki does he further clarify this passage. However, the key to understanding this statement can be gleaned from his discussion of causation in the "Shoakumakusa" chapter of the Shōbōgenzō, wherein he observes that "cause is not before and effect is not after." [6] As Hee-Jin Kim explains, Dōgen saw cause and effect as absolutely discontinuous moments that, in any given action, arise simultaneously from "thusness." Therefore,