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Dogen


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HapaxFeb 3, 2005 12:43pm
Does anyone here have suggestions about the best way to approach Dogen work? I'm not in a position to find a teacher, it appears, and the various translations of his work seem to do less than justice to its complexity.

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OgminFeb 3, 2005 5:17pm
Read Dogen on rainy days, by the light of a window, while sipping tea.

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HapaxFeb 3, 2005 5:40pm
Hah! How's your mediaeval Japanese these days, Og! Seriously, though, did you try figuring the various translations?

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OgminFeb 3, 2005 5:48pm
Here's what i got: they are all quite useful

A Primer of Soto Zen: a translation of Dogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki by Reiho Masunaga/ U of Hawaii 1971

Rational Zen: The Mind of Dogen Zenji, trns&edited by Thomas Cleary, Shambhala, 1993

Enlightenment Unfolds: The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi, Shamabala, 1999

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HapaxFeb 3, 2005 6:14pm
Thanks. Don't have *any* of those. I'll hit my nearest Amazon at once.

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OgminFeb 3, 2005 10:35pm
"The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the dharma gate of enjoyment and ease. It is the practice-realization of complete enlightenment. Realize the fundamental point free from the binding of nets and baskets. Once you experience it, you are like a dragon swimming in the water or a tiger reposing in the mountains. Know that the true dharma emerges of itself, clearing away hindrances and distractions."

-Zen Master Dogen
(1200-1253)

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gyatzDec 14, 2005 5:48pm
The people in our country are twisted, and still lack virtue and wisdom. Teach them the honest truth and they manage to turn its heavenly nectar into poison. They are quick to go running after fame and fortune, slow to dissolve their confusion and attachments. However, the worldly knowledge of men and angels is not the vessel in which we make the voyage to entering and affirming the Buddha's truth. When the Buddha was alive, someone attained the fourth stage by being struck by a ball; while someone else illuminated the great way when she put on an monk's robe as a joke, even though both were stupid, crazy animals. True belief was what helped them leave confusion behind. There was the lay woman who experienced satori when she offered a meal to a senile old priest that just sat there saying nothing; this was not based on knowledge, not based on learning, not relying on words, not relying on stories, just sustained by true faith.

Shakyamuni's teachings have now been spreading throughout the billion worlds for more than two thousand years. The many lands they have reached include some where virtue and wisdom do not prevail and some where the people are not necessarily sages. But the miraculous great power of good intrinsic to the true law of the tathagata will allow it to spread in each land when the right time arrives. People of true faith and diligent practice will obtain the way, regardless of their level of intelligence. Do not think that our people should not encounter Buddhism because they are stupid or our country is short on virtue and wisdom. The seeds of true wisdom are abundant in all of us. It's just that we rarely acknowledge that they are and have not yet taken them up and made them our own.

-Dogen Zenji
213129Dec 15, 2005 6:01pm
I really don't think it matters which translation you read as long as you get something out of it.
But damn, japanese is a complicated language.

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OgminDec 28, 2005 7:17am
Even if there is perplexed or troubled thinking, it is not apart from the bright jewel. It is not a deed or thought produced by something that is not the bright jewel. Therefore, both coming and going in the Black Mountain's Cave of Demons [that is, in delusions] are themselves nothing but the one bright jewel.

Dogen

Goatboy77Mar 22, 9:24pm
Gudo Nishijima's translation is the only one worth reading.


Dogen

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