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Impermanence Is Buddha-Nature: Dо̄gen's Understanding of Temporality
D?gen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Ky?to, and the founder of the S?t? school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there. D?gen is known for his extensive writing including the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Sh?b?genz?, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Buddhist practice and enlightenment.
The primary concept underlying D?gen's Zen practice is "oneness of practice-enlightenment". In fact, this concept is considered so fundamental to D?gen's variety of Zen-and, consequently, to the S?t? school as a whole-that it formed the basis for the work Shush?-gi, which was compiled in 1890 by Takiya Takush? of Eihei-ji and Azegami Baisen of S?ji-ji as an introductory and prescriptive abstract of D?gen's massive work, the Sh?b?genz? ("Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma").
Dogen is a profoundly original and difficult 13th century Buddhist thinker whose works have begun attracting increasing attention in the West. Admittedly difficult for even the most advanced and sophisticated scholar of Eastern thought, he is bound, initially, to present an almost insurmountable barrier to the Western mind. Yet the task of penetrating that barrier must be undertaken and, in fact, is being carried out by many gifted scholars toiling in the Dogen vineyard.
The primary concept underlying D?gen's Zen practice is "oneness of practice-enlightenment". In fact, this concept is considered so fundamental to D?gen's variety of Zen-and, consequently, to the S?t? school as a whole-that it formed the basis for the work Shush?-gi, which was compiled in 1890 by Takiya Takush? of Eihei-ji and Azegami Baisen of S?ji-ji as an introductory and prescriptive abstract of D?gen's massive work, the Sh?b?genz? ("Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma").
Dogen is a profoundly original and difficult 13th century Buddhist thinker whose works have begun attracting increasing attention in the West. Admittedly difficult for even the most advanced and sophisticated scholar of Eastern thought, he is bound, initially, to present an almost insurmountable barrier to the Western mind. Yet the task of penetrating that barrier must be undertaken and, in fact, is being carried out by many gifted scholars toiling in the Dogen vineyard.
- GenresBuddhismPhilosophy
160 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 8, 2022
I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like this book which could be described as a dialogical encounter between Dogen and several western thinkers, including Spinosa Leibnitz and Heidegger. She doesn’t try and uncover influence of the first on the latter, nor does she compare their work in general. Her work is dialogical in the sense that she brings in these European philosophers in order to better illuminate Dogan in a way that the readers the book might understand —presumably many of which don’t have access to the Japanese.
I don’t know if she even has access to the Japanese. I think she relies on translations.
As my son says, I am not gonna lie. This book is challenging. As soon as I finished it, I immediately turned back to the front to start again. Reading cover to cover, back to back twice, I am not putting it away yet as I need one more round. I also do not think I could have understood the book if I hadn’t studied philosophy as an undergraduate with a focus on Heidegger.
Stambaugh is a heavy-hitter. And this book is gold.
She is not the first thinker to do a deep dive on Dogen with an eye toward Heidegger (See Steven Heine’s work). But her laser focus on “time” vis-a-vis Buddha nature is penetrating. She begins by noting there is a similar tension in Heidegger and Spinoza. Transcendence versus Immanence (Absolute versus world). She maps this roughly onto the time” versus Buddha nature tension and off we go.
＋＋
Uji (有時), usually translated into English as Being-Time
The key to unlocking the tension of Buddha Nature is in understanding time. Not in terms of Newtonian time (ie, a container that time occurs “in”) but more in tune with Heideggerean “flow” “worlding” and being. Each “dharmas” (event) is time itself.
It is not terribly surprising that before Newton, there were many differing understandings of the nature of time and that our understanding of being was informed by that in different ways across the centuries.
If you have a sense of time that is more akin to how physicists today understand it, to suggest that the fundamental nature of reality is Impermanence because time is a constant appearing and extinction in each moment, Dogen’s thinking can be more easily understood from there. More on Dogen someday soon.
Essay this monday on Dogen and translation issues at 3QD.
++
「人の悟りをうる、水につきのやどるがごとし。月ぬれず、水やぶれず。ひろくおほきなる光にてあれど、尺寸の水にやどる。全月も弥天も、草の露にもやどり、一滴の水にもやどる。」
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon does not become wet, nor does the water become disturbed. The light is so vast and yet it is reflected even in a drop of water. The entirety of the moon and all of heaven (the sky?) can be glimpsed in a dewdrop on a glade of grass.
For me, what is interesting is the metaphor of reflection. This is neither transcendence nor immanence. As reflected Light, the image evokes the “world in a grain of sand idea,” which is short-hand for that of an inter-dependent, co-arising reality. A radical denial of duration. (As Spinoza said, eternity cannot be explained by duration).
The short poem unlocks a multitude of ideas and images, philosophies, and understandings of being. It is what is so endlessly interesting about literary translation.
I don’t know if she even has access to the Japanese. I think she relies on translations.
As my son says, I am not gonna lie. This book is challenging. As soon as I finished it, I immediately turned back to the front to start again. Reading cover to cover, back to back twice, I am not putting it away yet as I need one more round. I also do not think I could have understood the book if I hadn’t studied philosophy as an undergraduate with a focus on Heidegger.
Stambaugh is a heavy-hitter. And this book is gold.
She is not the first thinker to do a deep dive on Dogen with an eye toward Heidegger (See Steven Heine’s work). But her laser focus on “time” vis-a-vis Buddha nature is penetrating. She begins by noting there is a similar tension in Heidegger and Spinoza. Transcendence versus Immanence (Absolute versus world). She maps this roughly onto the time” versus Buddha nature tension and off we go.
＋＋
Uji (有時), usually translated into English as Being-Time
The key to unlocking the tension of Buddha Nature is in understanding time. Not in terms of Newtonian time (ie, a container that time occurs “in”) but more in tune with Heideggerean “flow” “worlding” and being. Each “dharmas” (event) is time itself.
It is not terribly surprising that before Newton, there were many differing understandings of the nature of time and that our understanding of being was informed by that in different ways across the centuries.
If you have a sense of time that is more akin to how physicists today understand it, to suggest that the fundamental nature of reality is Impermanence because time is a constant appearing and extinction in each moment, Dogen’s thinking can be more easily understood from there. More on Dogen someday soon.
Essay this monday on Dogen and translation issues at 3QD.
++
「人の悟りをうる、水につきのやどるがごとし。月ぬれず、水やぶれず。ひろくおほきなる光にてあれど、尺寸の水にやどる。全月も弥天も、草の露にもやどり、一滴の水にもやどる。」
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon does not become wet, nor does the water become disturbed. The light is so vast and yet it is reflected even in a drop of water. The entirety of the moon and all of heaven (the sky?) can be glimpsed in a dewdrop on a glade of grass.
For me, what is interesting is the metaphor of reflection. This is neither transcendence nor immanence. As reflected Light, the image evokes the “world in a grain of sand idea,” which is short-hand for that of an inter-dependent, co-arising reality. A radical denial of duration. (As Spinoza said, eternity cannot be explained by duration).
The short poem unlocks a multitude of ideas and images, philosophies, and understandings of being. It is what is so endlessly interesting about literary translation.
January 16, 2021
Fascinating study of Dogen with constant reference to Heidegger, Leibniz and Nietzsche. She was ahead of her time
April 7, 2025
Difficult to penetrate
April 30, 2013
Requires some re-reading, but I can say that it is a fascinating, insightful book on the teachings of Dogen Zenji, pointing towards a non-discursive understanding of reality as it is!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews