Status Updates From The Heart of Dogen's Shobog...

... the Dharma, in manifesting all things, does not “fall” into distinctions such as enlightened and unenlightened, there can be no question of an “unenlightened Dharma” apart from it. One commentator adds here that nonenlightenment or enlightenment is a matter of whether or not one “obscures” the reality of being-time.

Like Aletheia? Unconcealment of B/T ≡ enlight ≡ Heidegger as museum attendant!

The medieval Japanese completely defeated me. Here’s a modern exegesis (also in Japanese.)

http://junsoyo.on.coocan.jp/zen/fukan...

Seems like “suchness” is “原夫”. Probably more 夫 than 原. I thought I vaguely understood this, but I can’t translate it if I try. I don’t like to call it suchness, but I can’t think of any other words for it.

Japanese version of FUKANZAZENGI 普勸坐禪儀

http://www.geocities.jp/sybrma/151huk...

Frustrated. I want to know what “suchness” is in Japanese. At this point I strongly suspect translators are reading Western philosophical ideas into articulations of Eastern practice.

dogen seems to be aiming at eliminating anxiety, whereas Heidegger thinks guilt and anxiety are important signals that put us on the path towards authenticity.

Not that Dogen is about couch-potato repose either, but they seem to be saying the same thing in some way, and the exact antithesis in another way.

Rereading and noticed this (p4)
Dharma (hô 法): Truth, Law, the doctrine and teaching of the Buddha, Buddhism. Throughout this translation, “Dharma” refers to Truth, and “dharma(s)” refers to things, the elements of existence, phenomena.

Obviously reminds me of Being vs beings in Heidegger. But, I’ve always thought of 法 as method, procedure, or law, and never ever “Truth”. This seems very weird.

I find the polemics on sitting meditation really off-putting. My impulse is to focus on nothing but Uji. It’s impressive that a 13th century monk seemed to have articulated insights on the nature of Being and Time that is extremely similar to the magnum opus of Heidegger.

But I suspect that’s a mistake, it is not for nothing that he emphasized practice over intellectual dialectics (despite being SO prolific.)