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Study of Dōgen: His Philosophy and Religion
"This book is about the central ideas of the most important Buddhist spokesman in Japanese history and is written by one of the most respected and authoritative of his interpreters. It reflects a lifetime of knowledgeable and concerted thinking about Dōgen." -- Francis H. Cook, University of California, Riverside
"It is a truly outstanding contribution to Dōgen scholarship as well as East-West comparative philosophy by one of the most distinguished modern Japanese thinkers of our time. This makes for a powerful and truly illuminating volume." -- Steve Odin, University of Hawaii
This complete translation of Masao Abe's essays on Dōgen probes the core of the Zen master's philosophy and religion. This work analyzes Dōgen's formative doubt concerning the notion of original awakening as the basis for his unique approach to nonduality in the doctrines of the oneness of practice and attainment, the unity of beings and Buddha-nature, the simultaneity of time and eternity, and the identity of life and death. Abe also offers insightful, critical comparisons of Dōgen and various Buddhist and Western thinkers, especially Shinran and Heidegger.
"This is a crystal-clear handling of extremely difficult subject matter. The analyses are subtle and at the same time lucid. The author has a profound and brilliant understanding of Dōgen and Shinran and is also well-grounded in Western philosophy and religion." -- Joan Stambaugh, Hunter College
Masao Abe is Professor Emeritus of Nara University of Japan, and has taught Buddhism and Japanese philosophy at Columbia University, University of Chicago, Princeton University, Claremont Graduate School, University of Hawaii, Haverford College, among others. Steven Heine is Assistant Professor of Religion at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Existential and Ontological Dimensions of Time in Heidegger and Dōgen also published by SUNY Press, A Blade of Grass: Japanese Poetry and Aesthetics in Dōgen Zen, and A Dream Within a Dream: Studies in Japanese Thought.
251 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
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About the author
Masao Abe
27 books4 followersMasao Abe (Japanese: 阿部 正雄 Abe Masao) was a leading exponent of Zen Buddhism in the West after the death of his mentor D.T. Suzuki.
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January 25, 2016
From my blog post on time here.
Dogen Kigen is credited traditionally as the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen school and is widely recognized as one of the most profound, and also one of the most enigmatic, of the philosopher zen men. He lived in the thirteenth century and was trained from the age of thirteen in Tendai monasteries in or around Kyoto. He spent years studying at a Tendai temple in Kyoto where the priest Myoan Eisai had been teaching the practice and methods of the Chinese Lin-Chi (Rinzai in Japanese) school. At the age of twenty three he traveled with Eisai’s student Myozen to Sung Dynasty China.
Dogen himself says of this,
“After the thought of enlightenment arose, I began to search for the dharma, visiting teachers at various places in our country. Then I met priest Myozen, of Kennin Monastery, by whom I was trained for nine years. Thus I learned a little about the teaching of the Rinzai School. Priest Myozen alone, as a senior disciple of ancestor Eisai, correctly transmitted the unsurpassable buddha-dharma; no one can be compared with him.
Later I went to Great Song China, visiting masters on both sides of the Zhe River, and heard the teachings of the Five Schools. Finally I studied with Zen master Rujing of Taibo Peak and completed my life’s quest of the great matter.” (On the Endeavor of the Way, Bendo-Wa, in Moon in a Dewdrop, writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi, this fascicle translated from the Japanese by Lew Richmond and Kazuaki Tanahashi)
This quote is contained in the Japanese collection of Dogen’s essays and talks titled the Shobogenzo, or Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. One of the more famous of the fascicles in this collection, and one of them most puzzling, is the fascicle titled Uji, variously translated as The Time Being, Being Time or Being-Time. This fascicle has been translated into English (differently) by Tanahashi (in Moon in a Dewdrop), Norman Waddell and Masao Abe (in The Heart of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Thomas Cleary (in Shobogenzo, Zen Essays by Dogen; and by Rein Raud (in ‘The Existential Moment: rereading Dogen’s Theory of Time’, Philosophy East and West, Volume 62, Number 2).
Uji starts out (in Waddell and Abe’s English translation) as follows:
“An old Buddha said:
For the time being, I stand astride the highest mountain peaks.
For the time being, I move on the deepest depths of the ocean floor.
For the time being, I’m the three heads and eight arms.
For the time being, I’m eight feet or sixteen feet.
For the time being, I’m staff or a whisk.
For the time being, I’m a pillar or a lantern.
For the time being, I’m Mr. Chang or Mr. Li.
For the time being, I’m the great earth and heavens above.
The “time being” means time, just as it is, is being, and being is all time.
The sixteen-foot golden Buddha-body is time; because it is time, it has time’s glorious golden radiance. You must learn to see this glorious radiance in the twelve hours of your day. The [demonic ashura with] three heads and eight arms is time; because it is time, it can be in no way different from the twelve hours of your day. Although you never measure the length or brevity of the twelve hours, their swiftness or slowness, you still call them the twelve hours. As evidence of their going and coming is obvious, you do not come to doubt them. But even though you do not have doubts about them, that is not to say you know them. Such sentient being’s doubting of the many and various things unknown to him are naturally vague and indefinite, the course his doubtings will take will probably not bring them to coincide with this present doubt. Nonetheless, the doubts themselves are, after all, none other than time.”
What to make of this? Ramblings of a mad zen man? Deep understanding of the contradictory nature of time and life? Which will it be? Cleary says of this in the introduction to his translation,
“This essay has provoked the interest of most modern writers on Dogen, presenting what seems to be his most original idea: the identity of being and time. This might be represented by the statement that time is a necessary factor of all manifestations of being. But Dogen is less abstract. In effect, time here is seen as being concrete, being is seen as concrete, and the two are seen as inseparable in this concreteness. Ordinary definitions of time, understood in terms of duration of objects or events, or as differentiations of velocity and distance, demand a concrete context so the notion of the inseparability of being and time, arresting though it may be when expressed as being-time, is not especially difficult for the modern reader to acknowledge. What is more, Dogen’s idea of being time bears a degree of resemblance to the concept of space-time in the relativity theory of modern physics. In space-time, time is the fourth dimension, or fourth coordinate in terms of which, along with three space-like coordinates, events are described.”
Raud is anxious to point out the difference between the durational view of time characteristic of Aristotle and the momentary time of Dogen and Zeno’s argument. He thinks that interpretation of Dogen has been infected with too much of that durational bias: “There is also an important conceptual difference between ‘time’ and ‘moments’ flying by. When we read the text in the durational mode, we have to assume that some of the time that flies by is constantly present, while some of it has passed (Abe / Waddell: ‘if time were to give itself to merely flying past, it would have to leave gaps’; Cleary; “if time only were to fly, then there would be gaps’; it remains unclear where the gaps come from — the reading of Tanahashi, ‘If time merely flies away, you would be separated from time,’ although more logical, is not supported by the text). But the problem is solved if we assume that what are seen to fly by are moments: if we would, indeed, against the text’s admonition, presume that moments fly past, one after another, like the stages of the movement of Zeno’s arrow, it would be logical to ask what is present during the almost imperceptible interval when one moment has passed and another one is still not here.”
Raun is speaking of a passage translated by Waddell and Abe as, “Hence, pine trees are time. So are bamboos. You should not come to understand that time is only flying by. You should not only learn that flying past is the virtue inherent in time. If time were to give itself to merely flying past, it would have to leave gaps.” Raun’s translation of this is: “This being so, the pines are momentary and the bamboos are momentary as well. You should not conceptualize a moment as something that flies by, nor study ‘flying by’ merely as the capacity of a moment. If moments could be fully defined by the capacity to fly by, there would be gaps in between them.” Raun insists on the translation of the Japanese word, kyokyaku, as “shifting”, rather than the Waddell and Abe translation of this word as “seriatum passage,” and Tanahashi’s translation as “flowing.” Raun insists that this better gets at what Dogen was saying: “What it requires is dismissing the notions of ‘today’, ‘yesterday’, and ‘tomorrow’ from among the categories of our direct experience, and assigning them the role of merely linguistic devices to help us approach reality but are never able to completely fully refer to it.” Raun translates “Uji” itself as “existential moment,” and maintains that if we so translate it, “as opposed to measurable and divisible time, we obtain much more lucid reading of many of the passages of the fascicle.”
Maybe, but what exactly IS Dogen getting at here? Masao Abe, who is probably the most prominent Dogen scholar of the twentieth century, starts the chapter, ‘Dogen’s View of Time and Space’ in his book, A Study of Dogen, with the words, “Dogen’s view of time and space cannot be understood apart from his standpoint of Buddha-nature.” OK. We have been reading in the wrong place, if we are trying to figure Dogen out simply by reading Uji.
But what is “his standpoint of Buddha-nature?” Abe writes, “Dogen’s standpoints of Buddha-nature and continuous practice are based primarily on subjectivity that was forged in his encounter with and overcoming of his doubt concerning Tendai original-enlightenment thought and his formulation of the doctrine of the oneness of practice and attainment.” To roughly summarize, the Tendai thinking was that you already have perfect enlightenment, you just need to realize it. Dogen was puzzled by this. Why am I studying the Way if I am already enlightened? What was his answer? Abe points to a passage from the fascicle, ‘Bendowa’ translated by Waddell and Abe as ‘Negotiating the Way’:
“When just one person, one at a time, sits in zazen, he becomes imperceptibly, one with each and all of the myriad things, and permeates completely all time, so that within the limitless universe, throughout past, future and present, he is performing the eternal and ceaseless work of guiding beings to enlightenment. It is, for each and every thing, one and the same undifferentiated practice, and undifferentiated realization.”
This seems to be a succinct summary of Dogen’s view. Abe quotes the entire passage twice in his essay. Our experience of time is subjective, as needs be from our perspective as an impermanent living being, but with connection to ‘the myriad things,’ including past and future. Abe goes on to identify what he suggests are three points to ‘clearly establish’ Dogen’s view of time and space:
1) “Each and every being as it is realizes all other beings, and each and every time as it is realizes all other times. It is in and through the self that being and time in the above sense are identical. This is the truth of being-time.”
2) “Each and every being does not sequentially turn into or become (naru-seiseisuru) another being, and in the same way, each and every time does not continuously pass away (naru-seiseisuru) into another time. Rather, each and every being is the spontaneous manifestation (genjo) of all beings while maintaining its particular dharma-stage, and in the same way, each and every time makes a passageless-passage (kyoryaku) to other times while maintaining its particular dharma-stage at this very moment.”
3) “The truth of being-time is never realized apart from this very place (absolute here) and this very time (absolute now).”
Note the change in Abe’s English translation here from his 1992 book of the term “kyoryaku” as “passage-less passage” to “seriatum passage” or simply “passage” in the Waddell translation of Uji, originally published in the Eastern Buddhist magazine and in book form in 2003. Abe emphasizes the subjective standpoint in Dogen’s thought of the “self-liberating Self that has cast off body and mind.” This is a classic image from Dogen’s writing. Another is the image of contradiction. In Abe’s words, “Uji is not realized apart from mind and the body-mind that have been cast off. In this sense uji cannot be sufficiently grasped from the standpoint of being-time. Uji must be grasped from the standpoint of muji, that is nothingness-time. It is only when grasped from the standpoint of muji, or nothingness-time, that uji, being-time, can be truly grasped as uji, being-time.”
The depths and great fun of Dogen’s writing cannot be conveyed in a single blog post. The English reader is very much encouraged to delve into the English translations of Dogen’s Japanese by Waddell and Abe, Cleary and Tanahashi that I have referenced above. I was introduced to Dogen first by listening to the audio cassettes published by North Point Press and read by the poet Gary Snyder. I can still hear Snyder’s voice reading Tanahashi’s translations. Actually, I can hear them right now, since the Walkman that I purchased in Singapore in 1993 still works! Snyder reads, “On the Endeavor of the Way – Bendowa. All buddha tathagatas, who directly transmit inconceivable dharma and actualize supreme, perfect enlightenment, have a wondrous way, unsurpassed and unconditioned. Only buddhas transmit it to buddhas without veering off; self-fulfilling samadhi is its standard. Sitting upright, practicing Zen, is the authentic gate to the unconfined realm of this samadhi.” (Also listen to Snyder here.)
Let’s give the last word to Dogen in Uji (from Tanahashi’s English translation):
“Mind is the moment of actualizing the fundamental point; words are the moment of going beyond, unlocking the barrier. Arriving is the moment of casting off the body; not arriving is the moment of being one with just this, while being free from just this. In this way you must endeavor to actualize the time-being.”
Dogen Kigen is credited traditionally as the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen school and is widely recognized as one of the most profound, and also one of the most enigmatic, of the philosopher zen men. He lived in the thirteenth century and was trained from the age of thirteen in Tendai monasteries in or around Kyoto. He spent years studying at a Tendai temple in Kyoto where the priest Myoan Eisai had been teaching the practice and methods of the Chinese Lin-Chi (Rinzai in Japanese) school. At the age of twenty three he traveled with Eisai’s student Myozen to Sung Dynasty China.
Dogen himself says of this,
“After the thought of enlightenment arose, I began to search for the dharma, visiting teachers at various places in our country. Then I met priest Myozen, of Kennin Monastery, by whom I was trained for nine years. Thus I learned a little about the teaching of the Rinzai School. Priest Myozen alone, as a senior disciple of ancestor Eisai, correctly transmitted the unsurpassable buddha-dharma; no one can be compared with him.
Later I went to Great Song China, visiting masters on both sides of the Zhe River, and heard the teachings of the Five Schools. Finally I studied with Zen master Rujing of Taibo Peak and completed my life’s quest of the great matter.” (On the Endeavor of the Way, Bendo-Wa, in Moon in a Dewdrop, writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi, this fascicle translated from the Japanese by Lew Richmond and Kazuaki Tanahashi)
This quote is contained in the Japanese collection of Dogen’s essays and talks titled the Shobogenzo, or Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. One of the more famous of the fascicles in this collection, and one of them most puzzling, is the fascicle titled Uji, variously translated as The Time Being, Being Time or Being-Time. This fascicle has been translated into English (differently) by Tanahashi (in Moon in a Dewdrop), Norman Waddell and Masao Abe (in The Heart of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Thomas Cleary (in Shobogenzo, Zen Essays by Dogen; and by Rein Raud (in ‘The Existential Moment: rereading Dogen’s Theory of Time’, Philosophy East and West, Volume 62, Number 2).
Uji starts out (in Waddell and Abe’s English translation) as follows:
“An old Buddha said:
For the time being, I stand astride the highest mountain peaks.
For the time being, I move on the deepest depths of the ocean floor.
For the time being, I’m the three heads and eight arms.
For the time being, I’m eight feet or sixteen feet.
For the time being, I’m staff or a whisk.
For the time being, I’m a pillar or a lantern.
For the time being, I’m Mr. Chang or Mr. Li.
For the time being, I’m the great earth and heavens above.
The “time being” means time, just as it is, is being, and being is all time.
The sixteen-foot golden Buddha-body is time; because it is time, it has time’s glorious golden radiance. You must learn to see this glorious radiance in the twelve hours of your day. The [demonic ashura with] three heads and eight arms is time; because it is time, it can be in no way different from the twelve hours of your day. Although you never measure the length or brevity of the twelve hours, their swiftness or slowness, you still call them the twelve hours. As evidence of their going and coming is obvious, you do not come to doubt them. But even though you do not have doubts about them, that is not to say you know them. Such sentient being’s doubting of the many and various things unknown to him are naturally vague and indefinite, the course his doubtings will take will probably not bring them to coincide with this present doubt. Nonetheless, the doubts themselves are, after all, none other than time.”
What to make of this? Ramblings of a mad zen man? Deep understanding of the contradictory nature of time and life? Which will it be? Cleary says of this in the introduction to his translation,
“This essay has provoked the interest of most modern writers on Dogen, presenting what seems to be his most original idea: the identity of being and time. This might be represented by the statement that time is a necessary factor of all manifestations of being. But Dogen is less abstract. In effect, time here is seen as being concrete, being is seen as concrete, and the two are seen as inseparable in this concreteness. Ordinary definitions of time, understood in terms of duration of objects or events, or as differentiations of velocity and distance, demand a concrete context so the notion of the inseparability of being and time, arresting though it may be when expressed as being-time, is not especially difficult for the modern reader to acknowledge. What is more, Dogen’s idea of being time bears a degree of resemblance to the concept of space-time in the relativity theory of modern physics. In space-time, time is the fourth dimension, or fourth coordinate in terms of which, along with three space-like coordinates, events are described.”
Raud is anxious to point out the difference between the durational view of time characteristic of Aristotle and the momentary time of Dogen and Zeno’s argument. He thinks that interpretation of Dogen has been infected with too much of that durational bias: “There is also an important conceptual difference between ‘time’ and ‘moments’ flying by. When we read the text in the durational mode, we have to assume that some of the time that flies by is constantly present, while some of it has passed (Abe / Waddell: ‘if time were to give itself to merely flying past, it would have to leave gaps’; Cleary; “if time only were to fly, then there would be gaps’; it remains unclear where the gaps come from — the reading of Tanahashi, ‘If time merely flies away, you would be separated from time,’ although more logical, is not supported by the text). But the problem is solved if we assume that what are seen to fly by are moments: if we would, indeed, against the text’s admonition, presume that moments fly past, one after another, like the stages of the movement of Zeno’s arrow, it would be logical to ask what is present during the almost imperceptible interval when one moment has passed and another one is still not here.”
Raun is speaking of a passage translated by Waddell and Abe as, “Hence, pine trees are time. So are bamboos. You should not come to understand that time is only flying by. You should not only learn that flying past is the virtue inherent in time. If time were to give itself to merely flying past, it would have to leave gaps.” Raun’s translation of this is: “This being so, the pines are momentary and the bamboos are momentary as well. You should not conceptualize a moment as something that flies by, nor study ‘flying by’ merely as the capacity of a moment. If moments could be fully defined by the capacity to fly by, there would be gaps in between them.” Raun insists on the translation of the Japanese word, kyokyaku, as “shifting”, rather than the Waddell and Abe translation of this word as “seriatum passage,” and Tanahashi’s translation as “flowing.” Raun insists that this better gets at what Dogen was saying: “What it requires is dismissing the notions of ‘today’, ‘yesterday’, and ‘tomorrow’ from among the categories of our direct experience, and assigning them the role of merely linguistic devices to help us approach reality but are never able to completely fully refer to it.” Raun translates “Uji” itself as “existential moment,” and maintains that if we so translate it, “as opposed to measurable and divisible time, we obtain much more lucid reading of many of the passages of the fascicle.”
Maybe, but what exactly IS Dogen getting at here? Masao Abe, who is probably the most prominent Dogen scholar of the twentieth century, starts the chapter, ‘Dogen’s View of Time and Space’ in his book, A Study of Dogen, with the words, “Dogen’s view of time and space cannot be understood apart from his standpoint of Buddha-nature.” OK. We have been reading in the wrong place, if we are trying to figure Dogen out simply by reading Uji.
But what is “his standpoint of Buddha-nature?” Abe writes, “Dogen’s standpoints of Buddha-nature and continuous practice are based primarily on subjectivity that was forged in his encounter with and overcoming of his doubt concerning Tendai original-enlightenment thought and his formulation of the doctrine of the oneness of practice and attainment.” To roughly summarize, the Tendai thinking was that you already have perfect enlightenment, you just need to realize it. Dogen was puzzled by this. Why am I studying the Way if I am already enlightened? What was his answer? Abe points to a passage from the fascicle, ‘Bendowa’ translated by Waddell and Abe as ‘Negotiating the Way’:
“When just one person, one at a time, sits in zazen, he becomes imperceptibly, one with each and all of the myriad things, and permeates completely all time, so that within the limitless universe, throughout past, future and present, he is performing the eternal and ceaseless work of guiding beings to enlightenment. It is, for each and every thing, one and the same undifferentiated practice, and undifferentiated realization.”
This seems to be a succinct summary of Dogen’s view. Abe quotes the entire passage twice in his essay. Our experience of time is subjective, as needs be from our perspective as an impermanent living being, but with connection to ‘the myriad things,’ including past and future. Abe goes on to identify what he suggests are three points to ‘clearly establish’ Dogen’s view of time and space:
1) “Each and every being as it is realizes all other beings, and each and every time as it is realizes all other times. It is in and through the self that being and time in the above sense are identical. This is the truth of being-time.”
2) “Each and every being does not sequentially turn into or become (naru-seiseisuru) another being, and in the same way, each and every time does not continuously pass away (naru-seiseisuru) into another time. Rather, each and every being is the spontaneous manifestation (genjo) of all beings while maintaining its particular dharma-stage, and in the same way, each and every time makes a passageless-passage (kyoryaku) to other times while maintaining its particular dharma-stage at this very moment.”
3) “The truth of being-time is never realized apart from this very place (absolute here) and this very time (absolute now).”
Note the change in Abe’s English translation here from his 1992 book of the term “kyoryaku” as “passage-less passage” to “seriatum passage” or simply “passage” in the Waddell translation of Uji, originally published in the Eastern Buddhist magazine and in book form in 2003. Abe emphasizes the subjective standpoint in Dogen’s thought of the “self-liberating Self that has cast off body and mind.” This is a classic image from Dogen’s writing. Another is the image of contradiction. In Abe’s words, “Uji is not realized apart from mind and the body-mind that have been cast off. In this sense uji cannot be sufficiently grasped from the standpoint of being-time. Uji must be grasped from the standpoint of muji, that is nothingness-time. It is only when grasped from the standpoint of muji, or nothingness-time, that uji, being-time, can be truly grasped as uji, being-time.”
The depths and great fun of Dogen’s writing cannot be conveyed in a single blog post. The English reader is very much encouraged to delve into the English translations of Dogen’s Japanese by Waddell and Abe, Cleary and Tanahashi that I have referenced above. I was introduced to Dogen first by listening to the audio cassettes published by North Point Press and read by the poet Gary Snyder. I can still hear Snyder’s voice reading Tanahashi’s translations. Actually, I can hear them right now, since the Walkman that I purchased in Singapore in 1993 still works! Snyder reads, “On the Endeavor of the Way – Bendowa. All buddha tathagatas, who directly transmit inconceivable dharma and actualize supreme, perfect enlightenment, have a wondrous way, unsurpassed and unconditioned. Only buddhas transmit it to buddhas without veering off; self-fulfilling samadhi is its standard. Sitting upright, practicing Zen, is the authentic gate to the unconfined realm of this samadhi.” (Also listen to Snyder here.)
Let’s give the last word to Dogen in Uji (from Tanahashi’s English translation):
“Mind is the moment of actualizing the fundamental point; words are the moment of going beyond, unlocking the barrier. Arriving is the moment of casting off the body; not arriving is the moment of being one with just this, while being free from just this. In this way you must endeavor to actualize the time-being.”
April 18, 2019
I came to this book already familiar with Dogen; my impression was that Abe's was an important perspective to consider if I wanted to explore Dogen further.
I don't have any substantial criticism against Abe's interpretation, but neither did I find his account all that different from what I had already gathered re: Dogen. Perhaps this is because Abe's reading was and is influential; what is "obvious" about Dogen now might not have been when these essays were first published. Perhaps I can thank Abe for being able to take certain aspects of Dogen's philosophy for granted. So, I'll leave that to one side.
My only "complaint," really, is that the anthology lacks variety. I write in my books; if someone were to read through my copy, they'd notice that my notes and underlines gradually thin out. The first few essays offer several precise, excellent formulations of Dogen's thought... but they keep returning (albeit in slightly altered forms). I underlined it the first time. Maybe the second. The third? The fourth? By the end, I didn't bother to underline anything, and felt as though I could predict what Abe would say on any given subject.
Two explanations: (1) it could be an editing problem; including different essays and/or arranging them in a different order may render a different experience. However, I think it more likely that it's because (2) Abe tends more toward exposition than to argument. He structures his essays as though they were argumentative, as if he has a "claim to make," while in fact his aim is usually just to "discuss" certain ideas in Dogen's thought. This means that a bulk of his efforts are spent in exposition; because the essays all concern the same thinker and the same cluster of ideas, that means that this exposition isn't going to change much from essay to essay.
If you have an academic interest in reading or writing about Dogen, I still recommend Abe for scholarly/historical reasons. If you're struggling to understand Dogen and are seeking a bit of clarity, I recommend this book--up until you feel it gets repetitive (then put it down). If you've already spent time with Dogen and are looking for a challenging, unexpected reading of his thought, I unfortunately cannot recommend this collection.
I don't have any substantial criticism against Abe's interpretation, but neither did I find his account all that different from what I had already gathered re: Dogen. Perhaps this is because Abe's reading was and is influential; what is "obvious" about Dogen now might not have been when these essays were first published. Perhaps I can thank Abe for being able to take certain aspects of Dogen's philosophy for granted. So, I'll leave that to one side.
My only "complaint," really, is that the anthology lacks variety. I write in my books; if someone were to read through my copy, they'd notice that my notes and underlines gradually thin out. The first few essays offer several precise, excellent formulations of Dogen's thought... but they keep returning (albeit in slightly altered forms). I underlined it the first time. Maybe the second. The third? The fourth? By the end, I didn't bother to underline anything, and felt as though I could predict what Abe would say on any given subject.
Two explanations: (1) it could be an editing problem; including different essays and/or arranging them in a different order may render a different experience. However, I think it more likely that it's because (2) Abe tends more toward exposition than to argument. He structures his essays as though they were argumentative, as if he has a "claim to make," while in fact his aim is usually just to "discuss" certain ideas in Dogen's thought. This means that a bulk of his efforts are spent in exposition; because the essays all concern the same thinker and the same cluster of ideas, that means that this exposition isn't going to change much from essay to essay.
If you have an academic interest in reading or writing about Dogen, I still recommend Abe for scholarly/historical reasons. If you're struggling to understand Dogen and are seeking a bit of clarity, I recommend this book--up until you feel it gets repetitive (then put it down). If you've already spent time with Dogen and are looking for a challenging, unexpected reading of his thought, I unfortunately cannot recommend this collection.
January 2, 2018
Interesting collection of essays from one of the Japanese philosophers that are commonly grouped together with the Kyoto School.
The most interesting essay I say that helped me understand Dōgen and Heidegger was Abe’s essay on Dōgen and Heidegger’s views on being and time (latter being on time and being for later Heidegger) and Dōgen concept of U-ji (有時) Being-time. The two philosophers, although coming from two very different cultures and time periods hold similar views of being having to be connected to time or a better way of saying it, without temporarily there wouldn’t be a “being”.
Give it a read if you have grounding in Mahayana/Zen (mainly Dōgen and his Shobogenzo) and some basics of Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), if you’re reading it for the comparative aspect of the book. The book also has a glossary of Japanese Buddhist terms used and their rough translation.
The most interesting essay I say that helped me understand Dōgen and Heidegger was Abe’s essay on Dōgen and Heidegger’s views on being and time (latter being on time and being for later Heidegger) and Dōgen concept of U-ji (有時) Being-time. The two philosophers, although coming from two very different cultures and time periods hold similar views of being having to be connected to time or a better way of saying it, without temporarily there wouldn’t be a “being”.
Give it a read if you have grounding in Mahayana/Zen (mainly Dōgen and his Shobogenzo) and some basics of Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), if you’re reading it for the comparative aspect of the book. The book also has a glossary of Japanese Buddhist terms used and their rough translation.
December 2, 2025
Finished chapter 2
Not a fan of Abe's writings here, though the ideas discussed are interesting.
Not a fan of Abe's writings here, though the ideas discussed are interesting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2008
Essential read for Soto Zen.....
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews