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Eihei Dogen (1200 - 1253), credited as the founder of the Soto Zen sect in Japan, left behind a considerable amount of writings about his thoughts on Buddhist practice. The most famous of which is the collection called the Shobogenzo, the opening essay being "Genjokoan."
I am not a member of the Soto Zen community, nor of any branch of the Mahayana, but I am interested in both to one degree or another, and helpful things are where you find them. None of the essays is very long, but all of them are very complicated/thought-provoking/fascinating....etc. I may have read a dozen in twenty-five years, but mostly just two or three time and again.
Shohaku Okumura, a Soto priest who has taught in Japan and the U.S. for many years, has written a book entitled Realizing Genjokoan, the key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. Except for three short appendices, the book is devoted exclusively to his personal commentary on the single essay, "Genjokoan." I gather from this book and comments about it that he has returned to this essay throughout his life.
I thought at first that this might be a book like Dr. Kim's books on Dogen, really engaging but definitely of an academic nature; and, thus, requiring something like a willingness of study. Okumura's book, while certainly the work of a very erudite man, has more the feeling of accompanying someone on an exploration...which is not to suggest that it is a stroll, however.
This is not in the line of a book review as much as simply a recommendation to give a look. I finished it last night, taking two or three weeks to read it in bits, and I feel that I received very personal benefit from Okumura's commentary. And I would expect to be looking at it from time to time in the future.
Incidentally, one of the appendices (#3) is on Dogen's life, and short as it is, it is a helpful and interesting commentary in its own right.
Here are no less than 8 translations of GenjoKoan. I find the first one flows very naturally and poetically. I cannot resist quoting the first part. It takes me back to a long ago time when I was reading Suzuki and Watts and everything was new.
Quote:
As all things are buddha-dharma, there are delusion, realization, practice, birth and death, buddhas and sentient beings. As myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. The buddha way, in essence, is leaping clear of abundance and lack; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.
Here are no less than 8 translations of GenjoKoan. I find the first one flows very naturally and poetically. I cannot resist quoting the first part. It takes me back to a long ago time when I was reading Suzuki and Watts and everything was new.
This comment is not apropos the Genjokoan, but aside from a magnificently taught course and great textbook on World Religions in my college sophomore year (1957-58), I did not cross paths with Buddhism until I started to teach a reading course on college campuses in the mid-Sixties. Buddhism, but specifically Zen, was something that was a current interest and, therefore, I boned up on it. I did read Watts for starters, and then another book, but missed Suzuki. Interesting to think back to those beginnings.
Dogen had to wait for me to discover him in the mid-Eighties. Even if reading the entire commentary I posted on does not interest you, Alt Thinker, you might enjoy Chap. 1 where the author discusses the part you have quoted. That chapter hooked me into the whole book, and I am glad to have read it.
This comment is not apropos the Genjokoan, but aside from a magnificently taught course and great textbook on World Religions in my college sophomore year (1957-58), I did not cross paths with Buddhism until I started to teach a reading course on college campuses in the mid-Sixties. Buddhism, but specifically Zen, was something that was a current interest and, therefore, I boned up on it. I did read Watts for starters, and then another book, but missed Suzuki. Interesting to think back to those beginnings.
Dogen had to wait for me to discover him in the mid-Eighties. Even if reading the entire commentary I posted on does not interest you, Alt Thinker, you might enjoy Chap. 1 where the author discusses the part you have quoted. That chapter hooked me into the whole book, and I am glad to have read it.
Wow, you are even older than me.
I have a stack of books that I am working through but I will consider adding the book you mention to that stack. Having gone to a Catholic University, I learned essentially nothing there about Zen, Buddhism, Taoism etc. It was all my own reading, which I did at every opportunity on a wide range of subjects, a habit I continue to this day.
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