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Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku
Eihei Dogen, the thirteenth-century Zen master who founded the Japanese Soto School of Zen, is renowned as one of the world's most remarkable religious thinkers. As Shakespeare does with English, Dogen utterly transforms the language of Zen, using it in novel and extraordinarily beautiful ways to point to everything important in the religious life.
He is known for two major works. The first work, the massive Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) , represents his early teachings and exists in myriad English translations; the second work, the Eihei Koroku , is a collection of all his later teachings, including short formal discourses to the monks training at his temple, longer informal talks, and koans with his commentaries, as well as short appreciatory verses on various topics. The Shobogenzo has received enormous attention in Western Zen and Western Zen literature, and with the publication of this watershed volume, the Eihei Koroku will surely rise to commensurate stature.
Dogen's Extensive Record is the first-ever complete and scholarly translation of this monumental work into English and this edition is the first time it has been available in paperback. This edition contains extensive and detailed research and annotation by scholars, translators and Zen teachers Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, as well as forewords by the eighteenth-century poet-monk Ryokan and Tenshin Reb Anderson, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center - plus introductory essays from Dogen scholar Steven Heine, and the prominent, late American Zen master John Daido Loori.
He is known for two major works. The first work, the massive Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) , represents his early teachings and exists in myriad English translations; the second work, the Eihei Koroku , is a collection of all his later teachings, including short formal discourses to the monks training at his temple, longer informal talks, and koans with his commentaries, as well as short appreciatory verses on various topics. The Shobogenzo has received enormous attention in Western Zen and Western Zen literature, and with the publication of this watershed volume, the Eihei Koroku will surely rise to commensurate stature.
Dogen's Extensive Record is the first-ever complete and scholarly translation of this monumental work into English and this edition is the first time it has been available in paperback. This edition contains extensive and detailed research and annotation by scholars, translators and Zen teachers Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, as well as forewords by the eighteenth-century poet-monk Ryokan and Tenshin Reb Anderson, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center - plus introductory essays from Dogen scholar Steven Heine, and the prominent, late American Zen master John Daido Loori.
- GenresBuddhismZenPhilosophy
720 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1995
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Dōgen
139 books240 followersDōgen Zenji (道元禅師; also Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, or Eihei Dōgen 永平道元, or Koso Joyo Daishi) was a Zen Buddhist teacher and the founder of the Sōtō Zen school of Buddhism in Japan.
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April 18, 2015Biographical notes
There’s a film on him (The life of Zen master Dogen) with an opening scene: a boy [Dogen] and a mother; they talk; she tells him “there’s not much time left”…[she knows she’ll die soon]…”you’ll reach paradise if you place your faith in Buddha”. He replied: “don’t say such a sad thing”. Mother talked about the “paradise,… here and now”; he will acknowledge: “you’re right, you must create paradise here on earth”. It is said that during the mother’s funeral he felt the sense of “impermanence”, as the incense was burning.
Born in Kyoto, of an aristocratic milieu, in 1200, he would attend the Tendai school; he entered his spiritual life at the age of 7. But Dogen will leave for China in 1223, to start his own quest of a master…and the practice; a way to “escape all suffering”. After 4 years of study in China he returned to Japan, to the Kenninji monastery, where he’d been from the ages 14 to 17. It took 25 years writing “volumes”; he was the founder of the SOTO* branch of Zen Buddhism.
It seems that Dogen came with a very critical spirit… and he’d been pressured** (in Japan). Between 1233-1243 he taught Zazen… but went to live alone in Fukakusa. He was a “mountain monk”. He had the “love of the mountains” like his Buddha ancestors. From China he came “empty handed”, but with the mastery of the Chinese Chan, Koan (means “public case”) literature.
By 1253 he sought medical help; he died in Kyoto that year.
Original in his teachings were the ideas that “women and laypeople were open to awakening”, though he’s charged with saying (in a late essay) that “full enlightenment” in “only for monks”.
Some say that he was an opponent to “Koans introspection”; some others say it’s not true.
*The other branch is Renzai; includes less ritual; people meditate facing each other.
** harassed?
There’s a film on him (The life of Zen master Dogen) with an opening scene: a boy [Dogen] and a mother; they talk; she tells him “there’s not much time left”…[she knows she’ll die soon]…”you’ll reach paradise if you place your faith in Buddha”. He replied: “don’t say such a sad thing”. Mother talked about the “paradise,… here and now”; he will acknowledge: “you’re right, you must create paradise here on earth”. It is said that during the mother’s funeral he felt the sense of “impermanence”, as the incense was burning.
Born in Kyoto, of an aristocratic milieu, in 1200, he would attend the Tendai school; he entered his spiritual life at the age of 7. But Dogen will leave for China in 1223, to start his own quest of a master…and the practice; a way to “escape all suffering”. After 4 years of study in China he returned to Japan, to the Kenninji monastery, where he’d been from the ages 14 to 17. It took 25 years writing “volumes”; he was the founder of the SOTO* branch of Zen Buddhism.
It seems that Dogen came with a very critical spirit… and he’d been pressured** (in Japan). Between 1233-1243 he taught Zazen… but went to live alone in Fukakusa. He was a “mountain monk”. He had the “love of the mountains” like his Buddha ancestors. From China he came “empty handed”, but with the mastery of the Chinese Chan, Koan (means “public case”) literature.
By 1253 he sought medical help; he died in Kyoto that year.
Original in his teachings were the ideas that “women and laypeople were open to awakening”, though he’s charged with saying (in a late essay) that “full enlightenment” in “only for monks”.
Some say that he was an opponent to “Koans introspection”; some others say it’s not true.
*The other branch is Renzai; includes less ritual; people meditate facing each other.
** harassed?
November 19, 2007
Over 700 hundred pages of compiled talks, sayings, and writings from the Thirteenth Century master Dogen (founder of the Soto school of Zen).
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