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Dōgen

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Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; also Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, or Eihei Dōgen 永平道元) (19 January 1200–22 September 1253) was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He was a leading religious figure of his time, as well as being an important philosopher. Zenji is a title meaning "Zen master", while the name Dogen means roughly "Source of the Way".

Dōgen Zenji

Early life

Dogen was born into a noble family. His father may have been Michichika Koga (道親久我), a high-ranking minister in the imperial court, while his mother was likely the daughter of Motofusa Fujiwara (基房藤原), who had once been a regent in the court[1]. Dogen's father died when Dogen was 3 years old, and his mother when he was 8, which strongly impressed Dogen with the Buddhist notion of impermanence (Japanese: 無常 mujō).

Early training

At the age of 13[2], affected by this early glimpse of impermanence and faced with the possibility of a career as part of the aristocratic Fujiwara family, Dogen decided to become a monk[3]. Initially, he went to Mount Hiei, which was the headquarters of the Tendai school of Buddhism. Here, while studying the Buddhist sūtras, he became possessed by a single question:

As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages—undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment—find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice?[4]

Receiving no answer to this question at Mount Hiei, Dogen left to seek an answer from other Buddhist masters. Dogen went to visit Kōin, the Tendai abbot of Onjō Temple (園城寺), asking him this same question. Koin said that, in order to find an answer, he might want to consider studying Chán in China[5]. Koin sent Dogen to Myōan Eisai in Kyoto, a leading Tendai monk who had been to China and brought back the practice of Rinzai Zen in 1191. In 1214, Dogen went to study with Eisai at Kennin Temple (建仁寺), and—upon Eisai's death the following year—he continued his study under Eisai's successor, Myōzen (明全). In 1221[6], Myozen conferred Dharma transmission upon Dogen, acknowledging that he had learned the teachings. Two years later, Dogen decided to make the dangerous passage across the East China Sea to China to try to find an answer. His teacher Myozen accompanied him on the trip.

Travel to China

In China, Dogen first went to the leading Chan monasteries in Zhèjiāng province. At the time, most Chan teachers based their training around the use of gōng-àns. Though Dogen assiduously studied the koans, he became disenchanted with the heavy emphasis laid upon them, and wondered why the sutras were not studied more. At one point, owing to this disenchantment, Dogen even refused Dharma transmission from a teacher[7]. Then, in 1225, he decided to visit a master named Rújìng (如淨; J. Nyōjo), the thirteenth patriarch of the Cáodòng (J. Sōtō) lineage of Zen Buddhism, at Mount Tiāntóng (天童山 Tiāntóngshān; J. Tendōzan) in Níngbō. Rujing was reputed to have a style of Chan that was different to the other masters whom Dogen had thus far encountered.

Under Rujing, Dogen realized liberation of body and mind upon hearing the master say, "Cast off body and mind" (身心脱落 shēn xīn tuō luò). This phrase would continue to have great importance to Dogen throughout his life, and can be found scattered throughout his writings, as—for example—in a famous section of his Genjōkōan (現成公案):

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.[8]

Shortly after Dogen had arrived at Mount Tiantong, Myozen had passed away. In 1227[9], Dogen received Dharma transmission and inka from Rujing, and remarked on how he had finally settled his "life's quest of the great matter"[10].

Return to Japan

Dogen returned to Japan in 1227 or 1228, going back to stay at Kennin Temple[11], where he had once trained under Eisai. Among his first actions upon returning was to write down the Fukan Zazengi (普観座禅儀; "Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen"), a short text emphasizing the importance of and giving instructions for zazen, or sitting meditation. However, tension soon arose as the Tendai community began taking steps to suppress both Zen and Jōdo Shinshū, the new forms of Buddhism in Japan. In the face of this tension, Dogen left the Tendai dominion of Kyoto in 1230, settling instead in an abandoned temple in what is today the city of Uji, south of Kyōto[12]. In 1233, Dogen founded the Kannon-dōri-in[13] in Uji as a small center of practice; he later expanded this temple into the Kōshō-hōrin Temple (興聖法林寺). In 1243, Hatano Yoshishige (波多義鎮) offered to relocate Dogen's community to Echizen province, far to the north of Kyoto. Dogen accepted due to the ongoing tension with the Tendai community, and his followers built a comprehensive center of practice there, calling it Daibutsu Temple (大仏寺 Daibutsuji). During this period, Dogen would also periodically teach at Yoshimine Temple in southern Kyoto. In 1246, Dogen renamed Daibutsu Temple, calling it Eihei-ji. This temple remains one of the two head temples of Soto Zen in Japan today.

Dogen spent the remainder of his life teaching and writing at Eihei Temple. In 1247, the newly installed shōgun's regent, Hōjō Tokiyori, invited Dogen to come to Kamakura to teach him. Dogen made the rather long journey east to provide the shogun with lay ordination, and then returned to Eihei Temple in 1248. In the autumn of 1252, Dogen fell ill, and soon showed no signs of recovering. He presented his robes to his main apprentice, Koun Ejō (孤雲懐弉), making him the abbot of Eihei Temple. Then, at Hatano Yoshishige's invitation, Dogen left for Kyoto in search of a remedy for his illness. In 1253, soon after arriving in Kyoto, Dogen died. Shortly before his death, he had written a death poem:

Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs.[14]

Writings

File:Sbgzhonzan1.jpg
Title page of an 1811 edition of Dogen's Shōbōgenzō

Dogen's masterpiece is the Shōbōgenzō ("Treasury of the True Dharma Eye"), talks and writings—collected together in 95 fascicles—on topics ranging from monastic practice to the philosophy of language, being, and time. In the work, as in his own life, Dogen emphasized the absolute primacy of shikantaza and the inseparability of practice and enlightenment.

While it was customary for Buddhist works to be written in Chinese, Dogen often wrote in Japanese, conveying the essence of his thought in a style that was at once concise, compelling, and inspiring. A master stylist, Dogen is noted not only for his prose, but also for his poetry (in Japanese waka style and various Chinese styles). Dogen's use of language is unconventional by any measure. According to Dogen scholar Steven Heine: "Dogen's poetic and philosophical works are characterized by a continual effort to express the inexpressible by perfecting imperfectable speech through the creative use of wordplay, neologism, and lyricism, as well as the recasting of traditional expressions"[15].

Legacy

Dogen's most notable successor was Keizan (瑩山; 1268–1325), founder of Sōjiji Temple and author of the Record of the Transmission of Light (傳光錄 Denkōroku), which traces the succession of Zen masters from Siddhārtha Gautama up to Keizan's own day. Together, Dogen and Keizan are regarded as the founders of the Soto school.

Notes

  1. ^ Tanahashi 3
  2. ^ Ibid. 4
  3. ^ Kim 19–20
  4. ^ Ibid. 22
  5. ^ Tanahashi 4
  6. ^ Ibid.
  7. ^ Ibid. 5
  8. ^ Kim 125
  9. ^ Tanahashi 6
  10. ^ Ibid. 144
  11. ^ Ibid. 6
  12. ^ Ibid. 39
  13. ^ Ibid. 7
  14. ^ Qtd. in Tanahashi, 219
  15. ^ Heine 1997, 67

References

  • Cleary, Thomas. Rational Zen: The Mind of Dogen Zenji. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992. ISBN 0-87773-973-0.
  • Dogen. The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo. Tr. Waddell, Norman and Abe, Masao. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002. ISBN 0-7914-5242-5.
  • Heine, Steven. Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. ISBN 0-7914-1773-5.
  • Heine, Steven. The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 1997. ISBN 0-8048-3107-6.
  • Kim, Hee-jin. Eihei Dogen, Mystical Realist. Wisdom Publications, 2004. ISBN 0-86171-376-1.
  • LaFleur, William R.; ed. Dogen Studies. The Kuroda Institute, 1985. ISBN 0-8248-1011-2.
  • Masunaga, Reiho. A Primer of Soto Zen. University of Hawaii: East-West Center Press, 1978. ISBN 0-7100-8919-8.
  • Tanahashi, Kazuaki; ed. Moon In a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen. New York: North Point Press, 1997. ISBN 0-86547-186-X.
  • Yokoi, Yuho. Zen Master Dogen. New York: Weatherhill Inc., 1990. ISBN 0-8348-0116-7.
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