Dogen Kigen: Mystical Realist. Hee Jin Kim. Foreword by Roshi Robert Aitken. University of Arizona Press, Tuscon 1975, rev.ed. 1987. xviii, 324pp. $18.95.

: Presented here is a comparative analysis of spatiotemporal concepts in the thought of Nishida and Dogen, arguing that both thinkers articulate fundamental notions about being and self/subject through them. It starts with an analysis of the notions of 'world' (sekai) and 'place' (basho) as well as time and order in Nishida's work, which is followed by an effort to elucidate his philosophical position by comparing his views to those of Dogen and by demonstrating their similarity in several (...) important aspects, thus showing that Nishida's philosophy, regardless of its debt to Western influence, is firmly embedded in the tradition of Asian thought. (shrink)

Applies Dogen Kigen's religious philosophy and the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro to the philosophical problem of personal identity, probing the applicability of the concept of non-self to the philosophical problems of selfhood, otherness, and temporality which culminate in the conundrum of personal identity.

Dogen Kigen (1200-1253) tritt uns in seinem Werk in vielfaltigen Aspekten entgegen: als Praktiker buddhistischer Lebensform und Experte fur Meditationstechniken, als Lehrer, um den sich Anhanger sammelten, als gebildeter Scholastiker, der sich bestens in buddhistischer Dogmatik auskannte, als Theoretiker, der diese Lehren und die mit ihnen verbundene Begrifflichkeit kritisch hinterfragte und auf seine Situation hin adaptierte, sowie als Neuerer, der traditionelle Konzepte auf eigenwillige Art interpretierte, und schliesslich als Dichter, der seine philosophischen Erkenntnisse auch in poetische Formen zu (...) fassen wusste. Um diese verschiedenen Facetten des Wirkens einzufangen, wird Dogens Werk aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven und unter Einbeziehung verschiedener philosophischer Methoden betrachtet. Zusatzlich sind zwei seiner beruhmtesten Texte, Genjokoan und Bussho, in deutscher Neuubersetzung wiedergegeben. (shrink)

It is argued here that metaphysics is an overlooked but fruitful category for cross-cultural philosophy, and this hypothesis is demonstrated with the writings of Dōgen Kigen. A definition of metaphysics is introduced that, although drawn from the Western philosophical tradition, should be useful for the study of philosophy elsewhere, and its application to Dōgen is defended against popular interpretations that Dōgen's Zen is phenomenological rather than metaphysical.

“Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Shamon Dogen makes available in a clear and fluid translation an early classic in modern Japanese philosophy. Steve Bein’s annotations, footnotes, introduction, and commentary bridge the gap separating not only the languages but also the cultures of its original readers and its new Western audience.” —from the Foreword by Thomas P. Kasulis In 1223 the monk Dogen Kigen came to the audacious conclusion that Japanese Buddhism had become hopelessly corrupt. He undertook a dangerous (...) pilgrimage to China to bring back a purer form of Buddhism and went on to become one of the founders of Soto Zen, still the largest Zen sect in Japan. Seven hundred years later, the philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro also saw corruption in the Buddhism of his day. Watsuji’s efforts to purify the religion sent him not across the seas but searching Japan’s intellectual past, where he discovered writings by Dogen that had been hidden away by the monk’s own sect. Watsuji later penned Shamon Dogen , which single-handedly rescued Dogen from the brink of obscurity, reintroducing Japan to its first great philosophical mind. Purifying Zen is the first English translation of Watsuji’s landmark book. A text intended to reacquaint Japan with one of its finest philosophers, the work delves into the complexities of individuals in social relationships, lamenting the stark egoism and loneliness of life in an increasingly Westernized Japan. In addition to an introduction that provides biographical details on Watsuji and Dogen, the translation is supplemented with a brief guide to the themes and ideas of Shamon Dogen, beginning with a consideration of the nature of faith and the role of responsibility in Watsuji’s vision of Dogen’s Zen. It goes on to examine the technical terms of Dogen’s philosophy and the role of written language in Dogen’s thought. (shrink)

“Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Shamon Dogen makes available in a clear and fluid translation an early classic in modern Japanese philosophy. Steve Bein’s annotations, footnotes, introduction, and commentary bridge the gap separating not only the languages but also the cultures of its original readers and its new Western audience.” —from the Foreword by Thomas P. Kasulis In 1223 the monk Dogen Kigen came to the audacious conclusion that Japanese Buddhism had become hopelessly corrupt. He undertook a dangerous (...) pilgrimage to China to bring back a purer form of Buddhism and went on to become one of the founders of Soto Zen, still the largest Zen sect in Japan. Seven hundred years later, the philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro also saw corruption in the Buddhism of his day. Watsuji’s efforts to purify the religion sent him not across the seas but searching Japan’s intellectual past, where he discovered writings by Dogen that had been hidden away by the monk’s own sect. Watsuji later penned Shamon Dogen , which single-handedly rescued Dogen from the brink of obscurity, reintroducing Japan to its first great philosophical mind. Purifying Zen is the first English translation of Watsuji’s landmark book. A text intended to reacquaint Japan with one of its finest philosophers, the work delves into the complexities of individuals in social relationships, lamenting the stark egoism and loneliness of life in an increasingly Westernized Japan. In addition to an introduction that provides biographical details on Watsuji and Dogen, the translation is supplemented with a brief guide to the themes and ideas of Shamon Dogen, beginning with a consideration of the nature of faith and the role of responsibility in Watsuji’s vision of Dogen’s Zen. It goes on to examine the technical terms of Dogen’s philosophy and the role of written language in Dogen’s thought. (shrink)

Zen advocates returning to a childlike state of mind, unburdened by the conceptual baggage that marks what people typically call “adult” and “mature” thinking – baggage that includes concepts of the self, of the future, and of hoarding worldly goods so one's future self will live comfortably. This chapter begins with a Zen master whose own life story is worthy of a Disney movie. His name is Dogen Kigen. Dogen chose the monastic path because he wanted the (...) opposite of escape: liberation. If the three marks of existence are the problem, the solution is not to flee them. Rather, it is to make peace with them. Rather, it is to make peace with them. If one can do that, maybe he/she can even reach a deeper level of insight: they were never the problem in the first place. (shrink)

Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253 ce) is one of the most revered figures in the history of Japanese culture. A Zen master regarded by the Sōtō School as its spiritual founder, Dōgen is also considered by many to be Japan's greatest philosopher. (The other major contender is kūkai, with whose philosophy Dōgen's shares a number of features.) Possessed of a prodigious and subtle intellect, and master of a strikingly poetic style, he surely ranks among the world's most formidable thinkers.

In this paper, I try to show how Japanese practices of self-cultivation found in the so-called “ways” can be interpreted as embodied forms of “caring for oneself ” 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. (shrink)

Die naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis nimmt die Trennung in ein erkennendes Subjekt und erkanntes Objekt vor, um die Gesetzmäßigkeit natürlicher Abläufe zu erforschen und menschlichen Zwecken dienlich zu machen. Die Naturgegenstände werden zwar begrifflich und funktional bestimmt, jedoch nicht ganzheitlich erfasst. Mit dem Blick auf Mahāyāna-Lehren in Indien und Japan wird eine neue Sicht eröffnet: Nāgārjuna (ca. 2. Jahrhundert) lehrt als Weiterführung des Herz-Sūtras das abhängige Entstehen aller Dinge aufgrund der Leerheit. Der japanische Zen-Denker Dōgen Kigen (1200 -1253) erfasst die Phänomene (...) als Verkörperung der allumfassenden Lehre dharma. In der Einsicht prajñā ist das wahre Wesen der konkreten Wirklichkeit, die Buddha-Natur, mit dem Erkennenden im Augenblick untrennbar verbunden. (shrink)

Dans la philosophie japonaise, le temps, traditionnellement, n’a jamais été pensé comme séparé de l’espace. Plutôt que de concevoir l’espace-temps de manière abstraite, elle a toujours eu tendance à penser l’expérience d’une temporalité indissociable de la spatialité, une « temporalité spatiale ». À partir de deux créations conceptuelles japonaises, l’une médiévale et l’autre contemporaine, l’une ontologico-existentielle et l’autre esthétique, uji et kire respectivement, nous explorerons deux façons d’exprimer la nature vivante du temps à partir du flux du devenir, celles de (...) Dōgen Kigen et Ōhashi Ryōsuke. Elles ne traitent pas le temps comme une succession d’instants ou comme le récipient neutre du flux des événements, mais comme le cours de la vie appréhendé à partir d’une situation et d’un moment spécifiques. (shrink)

A core project for deep ecologists is the reformulation of the concept of self. In searching for a more inclusive understanding of self, deep ecologists often look to Buddhist philosophy, and to the Japanese Buddhist philosopher Dōgen in particular, for inspiration. I argue that, while Dōgen does share a nondualist, nonanthropocentric framework with deep ecology, his phenomenology of the self is fundamentally at odds with the expanded Self found in the deep ecology literature. I suggest, though I do not fully (...) argue for it, that Dōgen’s account of the self is more sympathetic to one version of ecofeminism than to deep ecology. (shrink)

A core project for deep ecologists is the reformulation of the concept of self. In searching for a more inclusive understanding of self, deep ecologists often look to Buddhist philosophy, and to the Japanese Buddhist philosopher Dōgen in particular, for inspiration. I argue that, while Dōgen does share a nondualist, nonanthropocentric framework with deep ecology, his phenomenology of the self is fundamentally at odds with the expanded Self found in the deep ecology literature. I suggest, though I do not fully (...) argue for it, that Dōgen’s account of the self is more sympathetic to one version of ecofeminism than to deep ecology. (shrink)

This book addresses the question of how to properly handle Dōgen’s texts, a core issue that became critical during the Meiji period in which the philosophical appropriation of Dōgen became apparent inside and outside of the monastery. In present day Dōgen studies, most scholarship is informed by a number of factions representing Dōgen. The chapters herein address: the Zennist (j. zenjōka) emphasising practice, the Genzōnians (j. genzōka) shifting the attention to the close reading of Dōgen’s texts, the laity movement opening (...) up both the texts and the practice to people in modern society, and the Genzō researchers (j. genzō kenkyūka) searching for the authenticity and truth of Dōgen’s writings. The book aims to clarify the rightful place of Dōgen: in the monastery, in denominational studies, or in modern academic philosophy? It brings forth various viewpoints on Dōgen, and analyzes the relations of these viewpoints from the premodern to modern times. The collected volume appeals to students and researchers in the field while establishing hermeneutic standards of reading and proposing new, original, and critical interpretations of Dōgen’s texts. Chapter From Uji to Being-time (and Back): Translating Dōgen into Philosophy is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. (shrink)

Are Derrida’s critique of presence and Dōgen’s emphasis on presence incompatible? I argue that they are not—and, in fact, that there is a deep connection between the projects of the two thinkers. In showing this I hope to combat some serious misconceptions about essential aspects of both Zen Buddhism and deconstruction.

This study argues that one of Dōgen Zenji’s most renowned essays, the “Genjōkōan” of 1233, can be read as an exposition of interpretive sensibilities. By drawing a comparison between the function of the principle of the “dharma position” (法位) and that of interpretive charity as formulated in the Judaic tradition, I argue that the “Genjōkōan” initiates the reader into Dōgen’s dialectical interpretive perspective. As he elaborated on this theme throughout his life in many writings, Dōgen strived to creatively pacify the (...) lasting tensions between authority and interpretation, textual closure and hermeneutical openness. Thus, I propose that examining the dialectics of the “dharma position” as a hermeneutical framework expressed in pivotal passages of the “Genjōkōan”, may deepen our appreciation of the image of Dōgen the interpreter. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies is an impressive volume that marks a significant leap forward in the study of Zen Master Eihei Dōgen, founder of the Japanese Sōtō School. Dōgen’s life and thought are closely examined in light of the wider historical and religious contexts of Song dynasty China and the Kamakura era in Japan. This collection offers a careful consideration of Dōgen’s rich literary legacy by examining his significance situated as he was at the historical crossroads between the Chinese (...) Chan tradition and the birth of Japanese Zen. In particular, the volume contemplates the manner in which Dōgen’s historical — perhaps mythological — figure has been endorsed and cultivated by the Sōtō.. (shrink)

Wie denkt Dogen (1200-1253) Sprache im Horizont der sprachkritischen Tradition des Zenbuddhismus? Die vorliegende Studie widmet sich dieser Frage und rekonstruiert umfassend das Sprachdenken des philosophisch fruchtbarsten Autors der japanischen Vormoderne. Dazu wählt der Autor einen doppelten Zugang: zum einen rezeptionsgeschichtlich unter Einschluss von Philosophen des modernen Japans, zum anderen systematisch mithilfe der Symboltheorie Ernst Cassirers in der Theoretisierung eines adäquaten Sprachbegriffs. So verschränken sich mit Interpretationen zum Hauptwerk Dogens, dem Shobogenzo, Außen- und Innenperspektive auf ein zenbuddhistisches Sprachdenken und (...) erweisen es in seiner Kommensurabilität zum philosophischen Diskurs. (shrink)

Busshō, one of the central fascicles of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō, is dedicated to the problematic of Buddha-nature, the understanding of which in Dōgen’s thought is fairly different from previous Buddhist philosophy, but concordant with his views on reality, time and person. The article will present a close reading of several passages of the fascicle with comment in order to argue that Dōgen’s understanding of Buddha-nature is not something that entities have, but a mode of how they are, neither in itself nor (...) for us, but in the total world-process. The relation between totality and particularity is not hierarchical, nor one of opposition, but conceived of a matter of perspective, which, as Dōgen shows, is both mediated and circumscribed by language. As a result, we can see that particularity of being is precisely what makes the totality of being accessible to every existent, not an obstacle to be overcome. (shrink)

Thinkers like Slavoj Žižek and Tim Morton have heralded the end of our ideological constructions of nature, warning that popular “ecology” or the “natural” is just the latest opiate of the masses. Attempting to think what I call Nature after Nature, I turn to the Kamakura period Zen master Dōgen Eihei (1200–1253) to explore the possibilities of thinking Nature in its non-ideological self-presentation or what Dōgen called “mountains and rivers (sansui).” I bring Dōgen into dialogue with his great champion, the (...) American poet Gary Snyder (who understands the process of sansui as “the wild”), as well as with thinkers as diverse as Schelling, Kundera, Žižek, Agamben, and Muir. Beyond Nature being any one thing, what Badiou derides as the “cosmological one,” I argue for the reawakening and sobering up to multiple Nature, beyond its appearance as an object to a discerning subject, as the bioregions which give us our interdependent and dynamic being. (shrink)

Continental philosophy, beginning with Kant, has found itself exposed to the abyss of reason. This crisis makes it a more ready dialogue partner with some of the Zen tradition. I explore this opening by bringing Eihei Dōgen into an encounter with Continental thought, broadly construed. Rather than demonstrate how Dōgen already fits within Continental thought or re-engineering the latter so that he can fit, I argue that this encounter, already precipitated by Continental philosophy’s own acknowledgement of the felix culpa of (...) Western philosophy’s otherwise indefensible overreach, transforms and expands the manners in which thinking counts as philosophical. This is no less than to recover a sense of philosophy as genetic and creative, rather than a shopworn tool kit of universal insights. (shrink)

While there have been numerous claims of a resemblance between the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism, few studies of the philosophy of Wittgenstein in detailed comparison with specific Zen thinkers have emerged. This paper attempts to fill this gap by considering Wittgenstein’s philosophy in relation to that of Eihei Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō school of Zen. Points of particular confluence are found in both thinkers’ approaches to language, experience, and practice. Through an elucidation of these points, this (...) paper argues that both Dōgen and Wittgenstein can be understood as putting forth a philosophy of transcendent ethics. (shrink)

The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shōbōgenzō) is the masterwork of Dōgen (1200–1253), founder of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist sect in Kamakura-era Japan. It is one of the most important Zen Buddhist collections, composed during a period of remarkable religious diversity and experimentation. The text is complex and compelling, famed for its eloquent yet perplexing manner of expressing the core precepts of Zen teachings and practice. This book is a comprehensive introduction to this essential Zen text, offering a textual, (...) historical, literary, and philosophical examination of Dōgen’s treatise. Steven Heine explores the religious and cultural context in which the Treasury was composed and provides a detailed study of the various versions of the medieval text that have been compiled over the centuries. He includes nuanced readings of Dōgen’s use of inventive rhetorical flourishes and the range of East Asian Buddhist textual and cultural influences that shaped the work. Heine explicates the philosophical implications of Dōgen’s views on contemplative experience and attaining and sustaining enlightenment, showing the depth of his distinctive understanding of spiritual awakening. Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye will give students and other readers a full understanding of this fundamental work of world religious literature. (shrink)

This study argues that Dōgen’s “Leaving Home Life” fascicle is not simply about leaving home/lay life to become a practicing monk. At first glance, the fascicle might not appear philosophically significant. To help bring the themes of that work into greater focus, I juxtapose Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō and John Dewey’s later works on aesthetic experience and education. Both the teachings of Dōgen and the later Deweyan works on aesthetic experience are similar in the sense that both describe nature as a radically (...) plural and interdependent world without recourse to an underlying substance ontology or reality antecedent to and outside of experience. Both Dōgen and Dewey also claim that the experience of nature as... (shrink)

Zen principles and concepts are often taken as mystical statements or poetical observations left for its adepts to use his/her “intuitions” and experience in order to understand them. Zen itself is presented as a teaching beyond scriptures, mysterious, transmitted from heart to heart, and impermeable to logic and reason.

Since Nāgārjuna's proclamation of the emptiness of all things,1 Mahāyāna Buddhism has been faced with the question of how to reconcile emptiness with its commitment to compassion and altruism. While the latter would seem to require the existence of moral facts, the former would seem to destroy any basis for moral facts. In the vocabulary of contemporary metaethics, it would seem that any Buddhist who accepts Nāgārjuna's formulation of emptiness is committed to moral anti-realism,2 but it remains controversial whether anti-realism (...) is a position suited to Buddhism and its ethical focus.3In this essay, I will show that Dōgen 道元, founder of the Sōtō school of Japanese Zen Buddhism, responds to this problem... (shrink)

Originally published in 1980. Dogen was the founder of the Soto School of Zen and one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Japanese Buddhism. When originally published, this historical and textual study was the first to examine in detail the line of continuity between Dogen and his Chinese predecessors, through his Chinese master, Ju-ching.

Beyond Personal Identity. Dogen, Nishida and a Phenomenology of No-Self. Gereon Kopf. Curzon Press, Richmond 2001. xx, 298 pp. 40.00. ISBN 0-7007-1217-8.

This chapter focuses on modern commentators close to or from the Kyoto school. According to Müller, there have been two approaches within the so-called Kyoto school regarding Dōgen's work. Initially, there were philosophically ambitious interpretations, such as those by Watsuji Tetsurō and Tanabe Hajime. They were ambitious insofar as they attempted to bridge the gap between philosophy and religion. However, from the 1940s onwards, these seminal works tended to recede into the background since they were criticised for assimilating a medieval (...) monk into modern secular thought. Müller discusses the second approach that was put forward by thinkers such as Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945), Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990) and Ueda Shizuteru (1926-2019). They furthered the questioning of religion and philosophy by developing a specific style of reading Dōgen. (shrink)

Although the planet is currently facing an unprecedented array of environmental crises, those who are in a position to do something about them seem to be paralyzed and the general public apathetic. This pathological situation derives in part from a particular concep­tion of the human relationship to nature which is central to anthro­pocentric traditions of thought in the West, and which understands the human being as separate from, and superior to, all other beings in the natural world. Traditional East Asian (...) understandings of this relationship are quite different and remarkably un-anthropocentric, especially as exemplified in the ideas of Chinese Daoism and Japanese Buddhism—even though Western conceptions now predominate in both China and Japan. Nevertheless, these ideas and understandings are experientially accessible to any contemporary person who has full contact with the natural world, regardless of which tradition that per­son stands in.This essay examines the understanding of the human-nature rela­tion that we find in the philosophies of Kūkai and Dōgen, from whom we can learn much that is ben­eficial in the context of our current environmental predicament. The ideas of both thinkers are firmly rooted in practice, and especially bodily or somatic practice, designed to bring about a transformation of experience. The argument is not that we should appropriate their conceptions of nature in order to solve our environmental problems; rather, since they both practice “philosophy as a way of life,” the sug­gestion is that we can learn from the practices they advocate in the light of what they say about natural phenomena and would benefit from emulating their ways of engaging the world ecologically. (shrink)

アテネのデモクラシーは、自由ゆえに平等であった古代イオニアのイソノミア(無支配)の成功しなかった再建の企てであった。滅びゆくイソノミアを記憶し保持するものとしてイオニアの自然哲学を読み直し、アテネ中心 主義的に形成されたデモクラシーの神話を解体する。『世界史の構造』を経て初めてなった政治的想像力のみずみずしい刷新。.