Probably towards the end of his life, Master Dogen wrote in Shobogenzo-Doshin of the transition from one life to the next:
... during the interval between abandoning this life and not yet taking up the next life, there is what we call ‘the intermediate existence’. That existence lasts for seven days ... When we have passed beyond the intermediate world, we draw near to a father and mother, readying ourselves bit-by-bit through Right Knowledge to entrust ourselves to a womb.
It is likely that Master Dogen wrote so because he truly believed so. Perhaps he believed so only in his later years, as he neared his own death, perhaps he believed so all his life. He was a traditional man of the 13th century with many traditional beliefs. It is possible that, in this writing, Master Dogen only emphasized such a teaching because of a particular audience (e.g., ordinary folks needing ordinary teachings, for Doshin is written in a straight and no frills style unlike most of Dogen's other writings.) Perhaps he sought to bring comfort to a dying someone (I have sometimes done much the same, telling a friend in hospice to chant to Amida or Kannon for the simple reason that it brings comfort at such times.) Perhaps he said it for such reason, but did not believe it strongly. However, I think that, based on this and some other passages in Master Dogen's writings, that the old boy believed in literal, post-life rebirth in the traditional way, for that is what Buddhists believed through the centuries.
But just because Dogen believed so, need we believe so? Although Buddhists through the centuries believed so, although many Buddhists today believe so ... even if the Buddha taught so in Iron Age India some 2500 years ago ... need we believe so? Some can if some wish, but ...
... no, we need not all believe so.
Or, perhaps, one can choose to take such teachings as representative of something more, not quite literally. Dogen had subtle beliefs about rebirth and Karma, many layers beyond just the simple and obvious. He noted, for example (in Shoaku-Makusa), that causes do not only come before effects! ("Although depending upon the cause we feel effects, it is not a matter of ‘before and after’, because ‘before’ and ‘after’ are merely ways of speaking.") I myself feel that we are each reborn, and our actions have effects, as every baby and blade of grass, star and atom, past and future, here, now or anywhere. When they are born, I am born (and you too.)
Perhaps we should just focus on this life, keeping an open mind to any possibility but not taking a strong opinion on the matter. After all, next life or not, let us live gently in this one! (That is my personal stance.)
Dogen taught many, many wise things, but he also could be wrong sometimes, narrow sometimes, ill-informed sometimes, a man of medieval mentality That does not take away from the value of his teachings all the times he was right! It is not necessary to believe everything, for at the heart of the Buddhist Way there is Wisdom True, with or without such literal believes and "side issues."
Even if Dogen taught so, believed so, need we believe so?
No.
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