Dogen

In this paper, I try to show how Japanese practices of self-cultivation found in the so-called “ways” (道 dō, michi) can be interpreted as embodied forms of “caring for oneself ” (epimeleia heautou) and, therefore, as part of a philosophical Lebenskunst or art of living. To this end, I refer to phenomenological accounts of the body as well as to a unique notion of practice found in the writings of Dōgen Kigen, a thirteenth-century Japanese Zen master. Central to this essay is a concern with embodying kata or pre-defined patterns of movement and posture used in nearly all practices of self-cultivation in Japan. To approach this question, I look at the etymological roots of the term kata and its use in the writings of Zeami, the foremost representative of classical Noh theater, both as author and as actor. This is followed by an analysis of certain aspects of the embodiment of kata and the way it is described in Japanese literature.

Drawing on Jesuit values as well as perspectives from disciplines across the humanities and sciences, this volume is oriented toward care for the people, communities, and ecosystems that make up our common home. Caring for our planetary home means responding to the multifaceted challenges of the current historical moment. As unprecedented changes are happening around the planet, the climate emergency poses an existential threat to humankind and to all life on Earth. This is a problem of survival and sustainability, but it is also more than that. It raises questions about justice. Ecological destruction cannot be adequately understood without addressing the systemic inequalities of social systems, and likewise, those inequalities cannot be understood apart from their ecological context. Engaging with a wide range of topics, from Pope Francis to Zen Buddhism, from the Global North to the Global South, from personal practice to systemic change, Integrating Ecology and Justice in a Changing Climate provides tools for thinking through these complex issues and facilitating the emergence of healthy, convivial, contemplative, and just ways of being in the world.

Is Dōgen a philosopher? Or even an example of what he scolds a “word-counting scholars”? Despite the difficulties of classifying Dōgen, many would still agree, at least with regard to his magnum opus, the Shōbōgenzō, that his writings are philosophical. This, however, requires some clarification, since there is not much left of this work if one were to exclude all the fascicles that are not explicitly cited for philosophical interpretation.  e philosophic scope becomes even smaller if one were to consider the respective passages of the few fascicles pertinent for explicit philosophical reading. At the risk of oversimplifying, the philosophical reception of Dōgen's works is almost entirely grounded in the fascicle “Uji”, which is...

This paper reflects on the character of Dōgen's writings in the Shōbōgenzō and their relation to philosophy. It analyses the semantic fields of key terms like dō ("the way"), kyō ("teaching") and ken ("view") to explore Dōgen's understanding of his own project, and demonstrates how it differs from common notions of philosophy. In conclusion, the Shōbōgenzō should not be read as a philosophical text, although it contains ideas that highly deserve philosophical scrutiny.

How should we view the relationship between language and Buddhist enlightenment? Must language be transcended? Is enlightenment experience necessarily ineffable? The purpose of this paper is to argue that language and enlightenment are intimately entwined. To show this we will look at potential problems with a number of dualisms seemingly at the heart of (Mahāyāna) Buddhism. These problems become apparent when applying Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Hilary Putnam’s views on the nature of, and the relationship between, mind, language and reality. A central problem concerns what seems to be the received Buddhist view of the relationship between language and enlightenment, language and silence. I will argue that the dualism of language and silence collapses under Wittgensteinian and Putnamian considerations. Further, we will sketch a picture of Eihei Dōgen’s Zen in which his understanding of the ineffable and language is one that does not engender the dualism of language and silence; moreover, within Dōgen’s philosophy, we witness the collapse of several other dualisms.

The Ichinichi ichiya gyōji shidai (A Daily Program of Monastic Practice from Morning to Night), a.k.a. Sokushin jōbutsu shō (A Commentary on Attaining Buddhahood in this Lifetime), is a text compiled by Kōen (1263–1317) and his disciple Echin (1281–1356). It gives instructions on the monastic practice followed in the medieval periods in the Kurodani area of Mt. Hiei, the traditional center of Japanese Tendai Buddhism. This text discusses concrete details of daily practice, such as meditation, meals, chanting, discussions, and bathroom usage. Since few texts of this kind survived the destruction of the Mt. Hiei monastery by Oda Nobunaga in 1571, this is a very precious record.
What is noteworthy to this author is that this text shows close similarities to the Eihei shingi, a work on Zen monastic regulations by Dōgen (1200–1253), the founder of the Japanese Sōtō tradition of Zen. Since Echin often mentions Zen monastic practice in his notes, it seems possible that Kōen and Echin referred to the Eihei shingi when they compiled their own regulations. It is conceivable that they were also influenced by earlier Tendai regulations, but since, as mentioned above, few cognate Tendai texts survive to this day, confirmation of this point is not easy. Judging from the surviving texts, it appears fairly likely that the Ichinichi ichiya gyōji shidai was heavily influenced by the Eihei shingi.
If this hypothesis is not too far off the mark, it might offer a significant finding on the relationship between Tendai and Zen in Japan. The close ties between Tendai and Zen have already been noted by scholars. But when their relationship is discussed, people have typically focused their attention on the influence exerted by Tendai on Zen. The textual analysis in this article suggests that influence in the other direction, i.e., from Zen to Tendai, was also possible. It is also noteworthy that concrete methods of monastic practice were shared beyond the boundaries between traditions. The author hopes that these possibilities will be further examined by specialists of Japanese Buddhism.

In this monograph, I analyse mystical truth claims and the epistemologies they are based on. I investigate the structural homologies between Christian Mysticism (Meister Eckhart, Nikolaus Cusanus, and Jakob Boehme) and Zen Buddhism (Huangbo, Dogen, Bankei) and demonstrate that their basis lies not in the fact of mystical experience, but in the presuppositions inherent to mystical thought. These presuppositions produce a certain logic of mysticism. Differences, however, of necessity remain because that logic cannot produce any content: it has to rely on what is already given by the religious world-view that forms the matrix from which a certain mystical position proceeds.

Japanese Zen master Dōgen 道 元 (1200—1253), founder of the Soto Zen school, was one of the first Buddhist teachers in Japan to produce original philosophical texts in a collection called Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, Shōbōgenzō 正法 眼 蔵 in Japanese. Essays in this collection are, in addition to their timeless thought content, exceptional in that they were written in a combination of contemporary Japanese and Chinese, and not strictly in literary Chinese, as was the custom not only at the time but also for several centuries to come. The essay "Being-Time", the first Slovak translation of which, together with the accompanying explanation, is provided by the following study, is one of the most complicated, but also the most frequently studied and annotated texts by Dōgen. In an effort to bring Dōgen's words and ideas closer to contemporary reader, the present translation of the text is enriched with explanation of some Buddhist terms and concepts that illustrate the richness and depth of Dōgen's Zen.

Satori Zen is of immense interest to anyone pursuing authentic metaphysical knowledge because it claims to offer an astonishingly straightforward path to full Spiritual Enlightenment. And in terms of outright simplicity and immediate applicability, there is no other spiritual technique quite like it, in any other tradition anywhere. But does it do what it claims to do ? Can you really ‘power your way into heaven’ by brute meditative force ? And does this then mean that satori is equivalent to Supreme Spiritual Enlightenment ? This essay will examine the key elements and claims of Satori Zen in the light of independent and objective metaphysical knowledge.

This book is meant to serve as an entry point for the English reader into the vast and profound ocean of East Asian philosophy. Focusing on China, it outlines the basic contours of the three major philosophical streams found in East Asia: Daoism (Taoism), Confucianism, and Buddhism. Beginning with the classical period, the book details the Daoist philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and the early Confucianism of Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi. Next, the book explains the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, and provides individual chapters on the Chinese Buddhist schools of Huayan and Chan (Zen). This is followed by chapters on the Neo-Confucian philosophies of Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming; and the modern “New Confucian” thought of Fung Yu-lan and Tu Wei-ming. The final two chapters turn to Japan and investigate the Zen philosophy of Dogen and the modern Kyoto School.

Japanese philosophy is now a flourishing field with thriving societies, journals, and conferences dedicated to it around the world, made possible by an ever-increasing library of translations, books, and articles. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy is a foundation-laying reference work that covers, in detail and depth, the entire span of this philosophical tradition, from ancient times to the present. It introduces and examines the most important topics, figures, schools, and texts from the history of philosophical thinking in premodern and modern Japan. Each chapter, written by a leading scholar in the field, clearly elucidates and critically engages with its topic in a manner that demonstrates its contemporary philosophical relevance.
      The Handbook opens with an extensive introductory chapter that addresses the multifaceted question, “What is Japanese Philosophy?” The first fourteen chapters cover the premodern history of Japanese philosophy, with sections dedicated to Shintō and the Synthetic Nature of Japanese Philosophical Thought, Philosophies of Japanese Buddhism, and Philosophies of Japanese Confucianism and Bushidō. Next, seventeen chapters are devoted to Modern Japanese Philosophies. After a chapter on the initial encounter with and appropriation of Western philosophy in the late nineteenth-century, this large section is divided into one subsection on the most well-known group of twentieth-century Japanese philosophers, The Kyoto School, and a second subsection on the no less significant array of Other Modern Japanese Philosophies. Rounding out the volume is a section on Pervasive Topics in Japanese Philosophical Thought, which covers areas such as philosophy of language, philosophy of nature, ethics, and aesthetics, spanning a range of schools and time periods. This volume will be an invaluable resource specifically to students and scholars of Japanese philosophy, as well as more generally to those interested in Asian and comparative philosophy and East Asian studies.

The central question this paper attempts to answer is: What is the role of emotion in the experience of one practicing Dōgen’s Zen Buddhism? As the question concerns experience we already come upon one of the main contentions of this paper, namely, that contrary to much of what has been written in the 20th century about Zen, both in Japan, and in the West, Dōgen’s Zen is not primarily concerned with cultivating the experience of enlightenment, but rather the enactment of enlightenment through bodily activities. One of the most central is zazen (seated meditation),  but the other, upon which we will focus, is compassion. Compassion, along with prajna or “wisdom beyond wisdom,” is one of the dual aspects of the heart of the bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism—in Dōgen’s Zen.  In answer to the central question above, I will argue that the Middle Way of Dōgen’s Zen is the expression of the two sides of reality, form and emptiness, through the single activity of embodied compassion. Thus, the first part of this paper will focus extensively on Dōgen’s views of emptiness and the way in which his Zen is not a matter of lingering in emptiness, but, as Bokusan comments, “There is a point in which you jump off both form and emptiness, and do not abide there.”  This “jumping off” is enacted, at least in part, through compassionate activity, or so I will argue.

Read widely in Zen Buddhism and it becomes clear: the majority of writers, with the notable exception of Dōgen, approach language as Wittgenstein does in the Tractatus. That is, they write as though language, concepts, and meaning are centered around the function of describing the facts. These writers do not offer a theory of how this is possible, as Wittgenstein did; instead, they offer a theory of how terribly inadequate language is for the task of describing the world as it really is. In fact, language not only fails to allow us to say how things really are, but it necessarily obscures reality from us. This is what I am calling the first dogma of Zen. The second dogma of Zen Buddhism is that enlightenment is centrally the cultivation of a certain kind of experience, e.g., the experience of realizing the true nature of reality, i.e., its emptiness. These two dogmas usually go hand in hand, the one supporting the other.

In the writings of the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Shinran 親鸞 (1173-1263) we read: “I, Shinran, do not have a single disciple of my own” (SZ Supplement: 10; Saitō 2010: 242). Is he simply being modest? Does Shinran defy discipleship? Does he rule out the possibility of the reception of his thought? The answer to these questions is not clear; nevertheless, what we do know is that the reader of his writings is supposed to arrive at the Buddha’s original teaching. Shinran’s voluminous works, however, exhibit more than an introduction to or simple interpretation of the Buddha’s preaching. We may say that Shinran has given us sermons and treatises that manifest an authentic and unique appropriation of the Buddhist tradition, and thereupon his works offer the possibility of a thoughtful reception for his interpreters and disciples.
RECEPTION AND ITS HISTORY: REMAINS AND REMINDERS OF THE PAST The philosopher KUKI Shūzō 九鬼周造 (1888-1941) wrote remarkable verses about
Shinran seven centuries after his death: “I will have no disciple, said Shinran; as for me [Kuki], I long to have his soul” (KSZ Supplement: 146; Saitō 2010: 242). Kuki’s
poetic reflections expresses Shinran’s quest for an authentic life, and echo back the existentialist aspect of his philosophy. More than this, his words commit him to Shinran as his teacher. Do these words not enact the most authentic discipleship possible? In fact, SAITŌ Takako takes Kuki’s verses as empirical evidence of his receiving the intellectual legacy of Shinran. Thus at the end of her article, the proof of historical facticity of reception retroactively justifies Saitō’s careful comparison of Kuki’s thought with Shinran’s, which began based on presuming similarities in content. In other words, the factual findings prove the validity of comparing Shinran and Kuki, although a truthful reading is impossible to verify historically.2 Be that as it may, Kuki’s poetic expression demonstrates the history of the reception of a pre- modern Buddhist by a modern philosopher in Japan; regardless of whether this discipleship was ultimately judged to be authentic and perfected, or an untimely failure.

This article offers an extended visual analysis of the Zen master Dōgen’s (1200-1253) Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen, arguing that Dōgen’s calligraphy is a carefully orchestrated performance. That is, it does precisely what it asks its readers to do:  it sits calmly, evenly, at poised attention in a real world field of objects. The brushstrokes, and the entire aesthetic layout of the manuscript, enact seated meditation. Most analyses of Dōgen’s text have focused on its use and adaptation of Chinese source material, its place in the foundation of the new school of Sōtō Zen in Japan, and the ramifications of its doctrinal assertions for our understandings of the development of Japanese religious history. Drawing attention, instead, to the material, aesthetic, art historical, and performative qualities of the text represents a completely new approach, one which foregrounds the ways in which the visual and material qualities of this Buddhist artifact are closely intertwined with its efficacy as a religious object. In pursuing this line of analysis, this article participates in the broader ritual turn in Buddhist studies, while also seeking to make a particular intervention into art historical qualifications of Zen art.

Surveys and contextualizes recent New Zealand artists' cinema by genre including, Landscape, Psychodrama, Identity Politics, Visual Music, Installed & Expanded Cinemas, and Animation. Touches on aspects of Asian and Western philosophy that resonate with cinema, art, perception and consciousness. From Diary of a Viewer, Part Three
Includes updates and revisions covering some work produced after the initial publication of this article in Illusions Magazine.

See also: Before Artists' Cinema

The “Sōtō Kyōkai Shushōgi [The Meaning of Practice-Realization in the Sōtō Fellowship],” known more widely simply as “Shushōgi,” first appeared in 1890, partly in response to the quickly evolving changes and tumult of the Meiji era.  It essentially consists of interwoven passages selected from Dōgen’s voluminous magnum opus, SHŌBŌGENZŌ [THE TRUE DHARMA EYE].  ENGAGING DŌGEN’S ZEN: THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICE AS AWAKENING offers series of critical reflections on "Shushōgi" and an extended commentary on Dōgen’s “Fukanzazengi” that would be helpful to those who are cultivating a Zen practice, other forms of Buddha Dharma practice, or even non-Buddhist spiritual practice. Opening with a series of introductory essays regarding various facets of “Shushōgi” and Dōgen more generally, this volume divides “Shushōgi” into thirteen sections and links each of these sections to the fascicles in SHŌBŌGENZŌ from which they are drawn. Thirteen scholar-practitioners provide commentaries on these sections that aim to speak to contemporary practice needs while at the same time being intellectually stimulating.

In recent decades, the concept of religion, and specifically its application to non-Western historic cultural formations has come unter critical scrutiny. This paper proposes the study of semantic fields as a method to explore the self-understanding of historic formations of what, in modern parlance, counts as religion, and thus, as a testing strategy for the concept of religion that is employed in scholarly analysis. It uses the said method to analyse three works by the medieval JapaneseIt uses the said method to analyse three works by the medieval Japanese Buddhist monk Dōgen (1200–1253), who came to be revered as founder of the still extant Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. By putting his notion of the ‘Buddha Way’ (butsudō) into strong relief, it provides a basis for comparison with modern concepts of religion. The conclusion is that Dōgen’s ideas conform to a surprisingly large extent with modern ideas. This may be one reason for his popularity in modern times. But Dōgen should not be taken to represent the general world-view of medieval Japan. Further comparative analyses of other corpora remain necessary to gauge the applicability of‘religion’ as a category for the analysis of medieval Japanese culture.

Auf den folgenden Seiten wird gezeigt, wie sehr das Motiv des Erlebens auch in der frühen Rezeption des Zen-Buddhisten Dōgen Kigen wirkt. Unter diesem Motiv werden hier verschiedensprachige Wörrter wie Erfahren, Erleben, experience oder jap. taiken, jikken u.a. zusammengefasst, die in drei Schriften zu Dōgen aus den Jahren 1903, 1912 und 1922 eine zentrale Funktion übernehmen. Steht im Mittelpunkt des Artikels die historische Darstellung eines in der japanischen Geistesgeschichte wirksamen Motivs, treten in dieser Darstellung zugleich Schwierigkeiten einer systematischen Klärung hervor. Im letzten Abschnitt werden einige dieser Schwierigkeiten aufgegriffen und an Dōgen selbst verdeutlicht.

Uncovering socio-religious amalgamations, it has been revealed that things such as meditation, ‘Zen art’ like the ensō, poems, and conveying certain moments of epiphany, were aesthetic additives to Zen developed though the Kamakura (1185–1333) to the Takugawa or Edo (1600–1868) periods. Most of these ideas were primarily introduced during the Heian era (794-1185) with the first Japanese imperial anthology, Konkishu. Such was left to permeate the religions of Japan and assimilate themes to the context of things such as Zen and satori. The Zen master then became a poetic figure and romanticized the idea of Jōshū’s ‘Ordinary Zen’. 
The Heian period precursors the time of Dōgen, and is usually described in such a way:

The last division of classical Japanese history. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height. The Heian period is also considered the peak of the Japanese imperial court and is noted for its art, especially poetry and literature.

It is here we begin to see the descriptions of satori and their quality as ineffable. The Zen tradition has a philosophical corpus which in the modern context has mostly been expressed through various arts. Within these arts, there is an underlying connotation for emotive expression. Therefore to ‘see’ Zen, one would not seek scholarly approach but look to sumi-e prints (Japanese ink wash), haiku, karenasui (dry landscaping), ukiyo-e (floating world prints), nanga or bunjinga (literati painting), or kōan introspection, which usually depicts nature and life in raw form. Even then, unless the art is embodied by the observer it can only be looked upon as a disconnected visual representation. What it represents is by its very definition is self-defeating in so much as the ‘beauty’ consists in its being ephemeral. The practitioner is attempting to capture a moment where the moment is already gone. The perspective of recalling an experience such as satori changes it leaving the faintest trace. Yet, the common notion of Zen relishes in the paradox of this contradicting gesture and is labeled as yūgen.

Daisetz Suzuki ist bekannt dafür, dass er Meister Eckharts Philosophie mit dem Zen-Buddhismus gleichgesetzt hat. Im Folgenden erbringe ich den Nachweis, dass ungeachtet ihrer Ähnlichkeiten, grundsätzliche Unterschiede zwischen Eckhart und dem Zen-Buddhismus zeigen, dass jeder Versuch, diese in Übereinstimmung miteinander zu bringen, sich unterhöhlt. Nichtsdestotrotz stimme ich Rudolf Otto zu, der in seinem Buch Mysticism: East and West mit Recht behauptet, dass der Westen das bestmögliche Verständnis des Zen-Buddhismus auf dem Wege des Denkens Eckharts' erlangen kann.  In seinem Buch Gottesgeburt bietet Prof. Ueda Shuzteru dem Westen eine Einführung in die Philosophie des Zen-Buddhismus durch seine sachkundige vergleichende Analyse der Unterschiede zwischen Eckharts spekulativem Mystizismus und der Zen-Philosophie.  Anstatt einfach mit Hilfe von Eckharts spekulativem Mystizismus in den Zen-Buddhismus einzuführen, ist Uedas eigene Philosophie zutiefst von seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Eckhart beeinflusst. So hebt James Heisig hervor: “Eckharts Bibellesart widerspiegelt sich in Uedas Deutung der Ochsen-Bilder.”  Entsprechend sind Uedas Kritik an und Aneignung von Eckharts Denken insofern ein Vorreiter der interkulturellen Theologie und Philosophie, als sie das Vergleichspotential von Eckharts Philosophie der ununterscheidbaren Vereinigung realisiert.