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 The Pivotal Lotus Story and Dōgen's Worldview

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This chapter begins with a discussion of Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), the most prolific writer among the historical Zen masters and considered the founder of the Soto Zen tradition in Japan. Examples of ... More

This chapter begins with a discussion of Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), the most prolific writer among the historical Zen masters and considered the founder of the Soto Zen tradition in Japan. Examples of Dōgen's view of space are offered as introductory background for the explorations to follow of how he uses references to the Lotus Sutra story in Chapters 15 and 16 to express his views of space, as well as of time and of the earth itself. Broader awareness of Dōgen's worldview and its implications illuminate the possibilities for contemporary approaches to understanding primary Mahāyāna practices and outlook and shifts in these in East Asia.Less

 Hermeneutics and Discourse Styles in Studies of the Lotus Sutra and Dōgen

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This chapter presents a range of hermeneutical and methodological considerations related to Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, discussing approaches particularly relevant to Dōgen: skillful means; Tathāgata ... More

This chapter presents a range of hermeneutical and methodological considerations related to Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, discussing approaches particularly relevant to Dōgen: skillful means; Tathāgata garbha, or Buddha womb teaching; and practice as enactment of realization. This is followed by considerations from Paul Ricoeur's Western hermeneutical perspectives on use of metaphor and wordplay as contexts for appreciating Dōgen's creative use of language, and Ricoeur's writings about proclamation that are illuminating of Dōgen's discourse style, which to a great extent explicitly draws from the Lotus Sutra. New interest in the strong role of imagery and imagination in Buddhism is also discussed, which is important for both Mahayana sutras and for Dōgen.Less

 Selected East Asian Interpretations of the Story

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This chapter traces responses and commentaries to the Lotus Sutra, especially to Chapters 15 and 16, from a series of prominent East Asian Buddhist teachers. Included are early Chinese teachers ... More

This chapter traces responses and commentaries to the Lotus Sutra, especially to Chapters 15 and 16, from a series of prominent East Asian Buddhist teachers. Included are early Chinese teachers Daosheng, Zhiyi, and Zhanran; Dōgen's rough contemporaries in Japan, Saigyō, Myōe, and Nichiren; and the commentaries of later Japanese Zen figures Hakuin, Ryōkan, and the modern master Shunryū Suzuki. Among the major issues that these contrasting responses address are the nature of the earth and the practice relationship to this world; the manner in which this Lotus Sutra story applies to later, ongoing practice; and the nature of the Buddha himself in the light of this story.Less

 Dōgen's Interpretations of This Lotus Sutra Story

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This chapter gives a close reading of a range of references throughout Dōgen's writings on Lotus Sutra Chapters 15 and 16, organized in terms of earth, space, and time. It also looks in to how Dōgen ... More

This chapter gives a close reading of a range of references throughout Dōgen's writings on Lotus Sutra Chapters 15 and 16, organized in terms of earth, space, and time. It also looks in to how Dōgen uses these citations as practice encouragements for his students. These commentaries reveal Dōgen's strong lifetime allegiance to the Lotus Sutra text, and also his approach to awakening as a function of the nature of reality, intimately connected with the dynamic support of the earth, space itself, and a multidimensional view of the movements of time.Less

 Dōgen's View of Earth, Space, and Time Seen in Mahāyāna Context

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This chapter discusses Mahāyāna imagery concerning earth and space, and their confluence and related Buddhist backgrounds on temporality, and how these may have served as a wider context for Dōgen's ... More

This chapter discusses Mahāyāna imagery concerning earth and space, and their confluence and related Buddhist backgrounds on temporality, and how these may have served as a wider context for Dōgen's worldview beyond the Lotus Sutra as his major Mahāyāna source. Discussions of the spatialization of time help further reveal how Dōgen's view of the spiritual potential of space and earth influenced his more celebrated teachings of being-time and his exhortations to inhabit time fully.Less

Afterword: Implications of Dōgen's Mahāyāna Worldview

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Visions of Awakening Space and Time: D=ogen and the Lotus Sutra

This Afterword speculates about the potential implications of Dōgen's Mahāyāna worldview to contemporary 21st-century concerns. These include making parallels to modern cutting-edge physics and ... More

This Afterword speculates about the potential implications of Dōgen's Mahāyāna worldview to contemporary 21st-century concerns. These include making parallels to modern cutting-edge physics and string theory, this worldview's relationship to a spiritual perspective on ecology and the struggle to sustain the environment, and then to social engagement and a modern, socially active Buddhist ethic.Less

Dōgen, Zen Master, Zen Disciple: Transmitter or Transgressor?

Steven Heine

in Zen Masters

Chan/Zen Buddhism is a tradition known for the transmission of lineages whereby a current master at once pays obeisance to and severely criticizes the patriarchs. East Asian training traditions ... More

Chan/Zen Buddhism is a tradition known for the transmission of lineages whereby a current master at once pays obeisance to and severely criticizes the patriarchs. East Asian training traditions generally emphasize that a disciple needs to be able to surpass his teacher, who must be magnanimous enough to encourage and acknowledge the value of the comeuppance. The literary works of Dōgen (1200–1253) epitomize this process. This chapter examines the various ways Dōgen’s image and sense of self-identity is formed by his twofold approach to his predecessors. First, it surveys the full extent of Chan masters cited by Dōgen and what this indicates about his view of sectarian transmission; for example, who he cites and why he praises or refutes their teachings. Next, it focuses on the ways that Chinese Caodong school masters Hongzhi (1091–1157) and Rujing (1163–1228) influenced Dōgen’s philosophy and literary style and helped shape his view of monastic institutional administration and practice.Less

The Zen of Books and Practice: The Life of Menzan Zuihō and His Reformation of Sōtō Zen

David Riggs

in Zen Masters

Menzan Zuihō (1683–1769) was one of the most illustrious writers and reformers of the Tokugawa period. However, despite his accomplishments, Menzan is not remembered in Sōtō Zen circles as an ... More

Menzan Zuihō (1683–1769) was one of the most illustrious writers and reformers of the Tokugawa period. However, despite his accomplishments, Menzan is not remembered in Sōtō Zen circles as an innovative figure, and the Tokugawa period was for many years dismissed as a backward embarrassment. In the Sōtō Zen community, Dōgen is taken as the source of all authority, and today, as if to emphasize that attitude, the school often refers to itself as “Dōgen Zen.” Menzan is perhaps the beginning of the modern understanding of Dōgen. His approach to learning and his emphasis on historical sources continue to this day to be characteristic of the Sōtō school, and his writings about doctrine and details of monastic practice are the foundation of the contemporary school.Less

 Is Dōgen's Eiheiji Temple “Mt. T'ien‐t'ung East”?: Geo‐Ritual Perspectives on the Transition from Chinese Ch'an to Japanese Zen

Steven Heine

in Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Theory in Practice

Chapter 4 approaches the formative period of the establishment of Zen ritual in Japan based on sources from China by way of the sacred space within which it is conducted. Although it has long been ... More

Chapter 4 approaches the formative period of the establishment of Zen ritual in Japan based on sources from China by way of the sacred space within which it is conducted. Although it has long been thought that Dōgen sought to design his new Eiheiji temple after the Sung dynasty Chinese model of Mt. T'ien‐t'ung, a study of the ritual layout of both plans reveals more differences than similarities. The “geo‐ritual” perspective taken in this study compares how the geographical settings and social environments of the two temple sites affect the way in which they implement Zen ritual. The author's conclusion is that Dōgen did not attempt to duplicate the Chinese model in rural Japan, but instead “adjusted it to the Japanese context” by taking local social, political, and economic conditions into account. These differences in the structural layout of the monasteries underscore the conclusion drawn elsewhere that Japanese Zen ritual diverged in a variety of significant ways from the models available in medieval China, even though Zen leaders in Japan typically proclaimed otherwise for the purpose of legitimation.Less

 Zazen as an Enactment Ritual

Taigen Dan Leighton

in Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Theory in Practice

Chapter 5 addresses what many today would consider the central ritual of Zen—zazen—or seated meditation. Although zazen is commonly understood by way of instrumental logic as a means or method for ... More

Chapter 5 addresses what many today would consider the central ritual of Zen—zazen—or seated meditation. Although zazen is commonly understood by way of instrumental logic as a means or method for attaining enlightenment, from the Sōtō Zen perspective initiated by Dōgen and featured in this essay, the order of cause and effect is reversed—zazen is “the practice‐realization of totally culminated awakening.” In developing this approach to meditation, Leighton traces its roots to Vajrayana teachings that were influential not simply in Japanese Shingon, but also in Nichiren, Tendai, Jōdo, and Zen. Upon that Buddhist foundation, the essay develops the “unity of practice and realization” by showing how this theme appears in Dōgen's instructions for meditation ritual (Eihei shingi), in his extended essays (Shōbōgenzō), and in direct teachings to his monks (Eihei kōroku). The essay claims that when meditation is taken as “the expression or function of buddhas,” rather than as a technique of spiritual acquisition, an emphasis on meditative awareness in everyday life is made possible.Less

An Analysis of Dōgen's Eihei Goroku: Distillation or Distortion?

Steven Heine

Dale S. Wright (ed.)

in Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism

This chapter analyzes whether the abbreviated text, Eihei Goroku, represents an effective distillation or a contrived distortion of the source materials. The two main works by Dōgen are the ... More

This chapter analyzes whether the abbreviated text, Eihei Goroku, represents an effective distillation or a contrived distortion of the source materials. The two main works by Dōgen are the Shōbōgenzō, consisting mainly of informal jishu-style sermons delivered in Japanese vernacular, and the Eihei Kōroku, consisting mainly of formal jōdō-style sermons recorded in kanbun or Sino-Japanese sermons. However, these monumental texts, which are so crucial for understanding Dōgen’s life and thought, have generally been less known and less studied than abbreviated versions constructed by later editors. The primary abbreviated version of the Eihei Kōroku is the Eihei Dōgen Zenji Goroku (Recorded Sayings of Dōgen, Founder of Eiheiji Temple), a one-volume edition that consists of sermons, lectures, kōan commentaries, and lyrical verse culled from the 10 volumes of the original text. Throughout most of the history of Dōgen Zen, the role of the abbreviated texts has eclipsed the much more substantive writings on which they are based.Less

“Rules of Purity” in Japanese Zen

T. Griffith Foulk

Dale S. Wright (ed.)

in Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism

This chapter outlines the history of the Japanese Zen appropriation and adaptation of Chinese rules of purity attributed to master Baizhang, from the Kamakura period down to the present. The ... More

This chapter outlines the history of the Japanese Zen appropriation and adaptation of Chinese rules of purity attributed to master Baizhang, from the Kamakura period down to the present. The so-called transmission of Zen from China to Japan in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) was a complex event with many facets, but it is convenient to analyze it as having two distinct dimensions: (1) the communication to Japan of Chan mythology, ideology, and teaching styles, accomplished largely through the media of texts such as Chanyuan qinggui (Rules of Purity for Chan Monasteries), in which the distinctive rhetorical and pedagogical forms of Chan were re-enacted; and (2) the establishment in Japan of monastic institutions modeled after the great public monasteries of Southern Song China. This was facilitated by the travels of mainly Myōan Eisai, Enni Ben’en, and Dōgen to China, who brought various “rules of purity”.Less

Meditation for Laymen and Laywomen: The Buddha Samādhi (Jijuyū Zanmai) of Menzan Zuihō

David E. Riggs

Dale S. Wright (ed.)

in Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism

The text that is discussed in this chapter is about meditative practice and it confronts this misunderstanding in its very title, which emphasizes the ultimate realm of the awakening of the Buddha, ... More

The text that is discussed in this chapter is about meditative practice and it confronts this misunderstanding in its very title, which emphasizes the ultimate realm of the awakening of the Buddha, not the details of meditation technique. The Buddha Samadhi (Jijuyū zanmai) is an informal piece written by Menzan Zuihō (1683-1769) during the early years of his teaching career at the request of laymen and laywomen, and was published some twenty years later in 1737. Menzan was a learned monk and a leading figure in the comprehensive reforms, which were sweeping the Sōtō schools during the eighteenth century. The expressed intention of the text is to help ordinary people to practice meditation, but the text is in fact an extended sermon in praise of the teaching of Dōgen (1200-1255), who is now regarded as both the founder and the source of all teachings for the Sōtō school.Less

Dōgen Studies on Both Sides of the Pacific

Steven Heine

in Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies

This introductory chapter first sets out the primary purpose of the book, which is to inform the reader regarding the nature of Zen Master Dōgen's writings as a whole, including various versions of ... More

This introductory chapter first sets out the primary purpose of the book, which is to inform the reader regarding the nature of Zen Master Dōgen's writings as a whole, including various versions of his texts, especially the Shōbōgenzō and several of its fascicles, in particular, as well as the sermons and discourses in the Eihei kōroku that express his views on core practices and rituals, such as reading the sutras (kankin), diligent training in zazen meditation (shikan taza), or the kōan realized in everyday life (genjōkōan), or using supranormal powers (jinzū). A background of Dōgen studies and an overview of the subsequent chapters are also presented.Less