Today’s Recommendation: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo

Realizing Genjokoan:
The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo
by Shohaku Okumura
★★★★★

Dogen, the thirteenth-century Zen master who founded the Japanese Soto school of Zen, is renowned as one the world's most remarkable religious geniuses. His works are both richly poetic and deeply insightful and philosophical, pointing to the endless depths of Zen exploration. And almost precisely because of these facts, Dogen is often difficult for readers to understand and fully appreciate.

Realizing Genjokoan is a comprehensive introduction to the teachings and approach of this great thinker, taking us on a thorough guided tour of the most important essay-Genjokoan-in Dogen's seminal work, the Shobogenzo. Indeed, the Genjokoan is regarded as the pinnacle of Dogen's writings, encompassing and encapsulating the essence of all the rest of his work.

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Today’s Recommendation: Hakuin's Precious Mirror Cave

Hakuin's Precious Mirror Cave:
A Zen Miscellany
by Norman Waddell
★★★★ 1/2

The two great streams of Zen Buddhism are the Soto sect, known as the School of Quiet Reflection, and the Rinzai school of rigorous koan study. Dogen established Soto Zen in Japan, and his work is widely known in the West with many of his books translated into English. Hakuin is credited with the modern revival of the Rinzai sect and is its most important teacher. Hakuin’s life has been a great inspiration to the students and practitioners of Zen in the West, his writings offering great authority and practical application.

Norman Waddell, the translator of this new selection, has devoted a large part of his life to translating and publishing work by and about Hakuin. This collection of six diverse and independent works contains five pieces never translated into English before, some of which have been—until quite recently—unknown, even in Japan. One piece offers the most detailed biographical account of his life, from birth to death, and another is his earliest spiritual autobiography. A rich and various group, the offerings here will be important to seasoned practitioners as well as attractive to newcomers to Zen and spiritual seekers of all faiths.

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Today’s Recommendation: Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye:
Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo
by Kazuaki Tanahashi
★★★★ 1/2

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo, in Japanese) is a monumental work, considered to be one of the profoundest expressions of Zen wisdom ever put on paper, and also the most outstanding literary and philosophical work of Japan. It is a collection of essays by Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of Zen’s Soto school.

Kazuaki Tanahashi and a team of translators that represent a Who’s Who of American Zen have produced a translation of the great work that combines accuracy with a deep understanding of Dogen’s voice and literary gifts. This eBook includes a wealth of materials to aid understanding, including maps, lineage charts, a bibliography, and an exhaustive glossary of names and terms—and, as a bonus, the most renowned of all Dogen’s essays, "Recommending Zazen to All People."

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Today’s Recommendation: Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji

Being-Time: A Practitioner's Guide
to Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji
by Shinshu Roberts
★★★★ 1/2

A tour-de-force guide to Zen Master Dogen’s most subtle and sophisticated philosophical premises: that being and time are inseparable.

“Impermanence is time itself, being itself—yet time and being are not at all as we imagine them to be. To really understand and fully embrace this point is to live in a radically different world—a world of awakening, inclusion, and love. Zen Master Dogen frames the teaching on impermanence explicitly as a teaching about time—and all of Dogen’s profoundly poetic teachings flow from his seminal understanding of time, as expressed in Uji (Being-Time), the famous—and famously difficult—essay in his masterwork, Shobogenzo. In Uji, Dogen teaches that time itself, being itself, is luminous awakening. It is all-inclusive, all-elusive, ultimately healing, and eternal.

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Today’s Recommendation: True Dharma Eye Zen Master Dogen

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye:
Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo
by Kazuaki Tanahashi
★★★★ 1/2

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo, in Japanese) is a monumental work, considered to be one of the profoundest expressions of Zen wisdom ever put on paper, and also the most outstanding literary and philosophical work of Japan. It is a collection of essays by Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of Zen’s Soto school.

Kazuaki Tanahashi and a team of translators that represent a Who’s Who of American Zen have produced a translation of the great work that combines accuracy with a deep understanding of Dogen’s voice and literary gifts. This eBook includes a wealth of materials to aid understanding, including maps, lineage charts, a bibliography, and an exhaustive glossary of names and terms—and, as a bonus, the most renowned of all Dogen’s essays, "Recommending Zazen to All People."

read more

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Today’s Recommendation: Being-Time: by Shinshu Roberts

Being-Time: A Practitioner's Guide
to Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji
by Shinshu Roberts
★★★★ 1/2

A tour-de-force guide to Zen Master Dogen’s most subtle and sophisticated philosophical premises: that being and time are inseparable.

“Impermanence is time itself, being itself—yet time and being are not at all as we imagine them to be. To really understand and fully embrace this point is to live in a radically different world—a world of awakening, inclusion, and love. Zen Master Dogen frames the teaching on impermanence explicitly as a teaching about time—and all of Dogen’s profoundly poetic teachings flow from his seminal understanding of time, as expressed in Uji (Being-Time), the famous—and famously difficult—essay in his masterwork, Shobogenzo. In Uji, Dogen teaches that time itself, being itself, is luminous awakening. It is all-inclusive, all-elusive, ultimately healing, and eternal.

read more

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Today’s Recommendation: Dogen's Bendowa

Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dogen's Bendowa
With Commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
★★★★★

"The Wholehearted Way is a translation of Eihei Dogen's Bendowa, one of the primary texts on Zen practice. Transcending any particular school of Buddhism or religious belief, Dogen's profound and poetic writings are respected as a pinnacle of world spiritual literature. Bendowa, or A Talk on the Wholehearted Practice of the Way, was written in 1231 A.D. and expresses Dogen's teaching of the essential meaning of zazen (seated meditation) and its practice.

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Today’s Recommendation: Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji

Being-Time: A Practitioner's Guide
to Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji
by Shinshu Roberts
★★★★ 1/2

"A tour-de-force guide to Zen Master Dogen’s most subtle and sophisticated philosophical premises: that being and time are inseparable.”

“Impermanence is time itself, being itself—yet time and being are not at all as we imagine them to be. To really understand and fully embrace this point is to live in a radically different world—a world of awakening, inclusion, and love. Zen Master Dogen frames the teaching on impermanence explicitly as a teaching about time—and all of Dogen’s profoundly poetic teachings flow from his seminal understanding of time, as expressed in Uji (Being-Time), the famous—and famously difficult—essay in his masterwork, Shobogenzo. In Uji, Dogen teaches that time itself, being itself, is luminous awakening. It is all-inclusive, all-elusive, ultimately healing, and eternal.

read more

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Daily Insight: Dogen and the Zen Kitchen

How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment
by Dogen Zenji with Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
★★★★ 1/2

"In the thirteenth century, Zen master Dogen—perhaps the most significant of all Japanese philosophers, and the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect—wrote a practical manual of Instructions for the Zen Cook. In drawing parallels between preparing meals for the Zen monastery and spiritual training, he reveals far more than simply the rules and manners of the Zen kitchen; he teaches us how to "cook," or refine our lives. In this volume Kosho Uchiyama Roshi undertakes the task of elucidating Dogen's text for the benefit of modern-day readers of Zen.”

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Daily Insight: Dogen and the Zen Kitchen

How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment
by Dogen Zenji with Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
★★★★ 1/2

"In the thirteenth century, Zen master Dogen—perhaps the most significant of all Japanese philosophers, and the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect—wrote a practical manual of Instructions for the Zen Cook. In drawing parallels between preparing meals for the Zen monastery and spiritual training, he reveals far more than simply the rules and manners of the Zen kitchen; he teaches us how to "cook," or refine our lives. In this volume Kosho Uchiyama Roshi undertakes the task of elucidating Dogen's text for the benefit of modern-day readers of Zen.”

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Daily Insight: Dogen on Cultivating Virtue

“Do not be concerned with the faults of other persons. Do not see others' faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others' faults, then naturally seniors and venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others' faults; just cultivate virtue. Buddha prohibited unwholesome actions, but did not tell us to hate those who practice unwholesome actions.”

― Zen Master Dogen

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Words of Wisdom for Aug. 6, 2019: Shohaku Okumura on Essential Existence

"The Buddha taught that the atman or self does not ultimately exist. He said that everything living or existing is a collection of different elements that are constantly changing. Our lives are dependent on other beings and elements that allow us to be alive as the person we are in this moment. So if one of these things that we depend on changes, whether it is within or outside us, we also must change. This is in fact what the Buddha meant when he said that everything is impermanent and without essential existence. This is the basic reality of our lives, but it is difficult for us to accept."

— Shohaku Okumura
Realizing Genjokoan:
The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo

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