Steven Heine - Dogen: Japan’s Original Zen Teacher

Birds Singing and Boats Drifting: A Lifetime Studying Dogen

Dogens philosophy of Zen has long been with me.

I discover anew the teachings of Dogen nearly every day.

The core of my research during fifty years of teaching East Asian religions has involved reading and translating the multifaceted writings of master Dogen (12001253). As founder of the Soto sect, Dogen introduced to medieval Japan many different aspects of Zen Buddhist teaching that he learned and imported from China. I have attempted to decode and explain various prose and poetic works in light of his iconic personal story, which centers on a grave sense of doubt about the possibility of attaining enlightenment. He eventually overcame this doubt through attaining the transformative experience of casting off body-mind (shinjin datsuraku), or the shedding of all physical and mental impediments to authentic spiritual realization.

In this book, I analyze this fascinating narrative, which is expressed in Dogens masterwork, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobogenzo, hereafter Treasury), and other writings, as connected to the cultural background of premodern Japanese society as well as the contemporary significance of his innovative mode of contemplative training. Some of the major topics I examine include the following: Dogens nondual philosophy of time and death in relation to the unity of the human and natural realms; his creative renderings of dozens of Zen koan cases based on interpreting various Chinese collections; his views regarding the practice of seated meditation (zazen) and clerical discipline in connection to social ethics; questions about the historicity and veracity of traditional accounts of Dogens travels and monastic activities; and the poetry he wrote in both Japanese and Chinese styles.