SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (II)

[Nenka]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

The best part of this teaching was seeing you with your daughter. She is so cute!

Gassho,
Ekai/Jodi

I agree!!

You're getting upstaged! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Jen

[Myoku]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Gassho Jundo,
Myoku

[Risho]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Ok, that is officially the cutest girl in this sangha My special spider sense tells me that perhaps she's daddy's little girl. :mrgreen:

Dogen really, really confuses me. For the parts of the Shobogenzo I've read, I understand some of it. Then there's parts that go way, way over my head. I have no idea what he's getting at. So it's hard for me to tell if he's genius for those things that I don't understand because I don't assume someone is genius just because I don't understand what they are saying.

I'm not saying he's not genius though because the things that I do understand are really special. But I think I probably don't understand a lot of what he's saying because I haven't sat for long enough. I can't relate to the Dharma as deeply as he can because obviously I'm no Zen master. That's like asking a sophomore in college (or preschooler in my case. lol ) to understand a paper written by one of the world's foremost brain surgeons.

But there's also the barrier of the idioms used in his culture and our own. (You've touched upon this before ; I can't remember the post, but I believe rapping was involved ) In any case, the idioms of his language are so foreign to our own that that presents a barrier let alone when he starts getting crazy. For example, and I'm totally going to destroy this story, but just to exaggerate my confusion. hahahaha

He writes about when the cart won't move do you whip the ox or the cart? You need to whip the cart and the ox. the cart precedes the ox... It's like he takes every permutation of a sentence and expresses it on paper. And it loses me. I don't know the point.

Maybe that is the point. I wonder if he did that to prove a point that the Dharma is not to be found by someone else's answers? You're not going to find the Davinci code or any key here. Perhaps he did that to instill the sense of constant questioning and wonder in his students. I'm just speculating.

Gassho,

Risho

[Jundo]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Dogen really, really confuses me. For the parts of the Shobogenzo I've read, I understand some of it. Then there's parts that go way, way over my head. I have no idea what he's getting at. So it's hard for me to tell if he's genius for those things that I don't understand because I don't assume someone is genius just because I don't understand what they are saying.

Hi,

The following is my "Guide to Getting Dogen", and please have a look and let me know if it helps. When I started hearing Dogen in such way the Shobogenzo and other works became clearer to the ear ... and really is very much like someone at first not "getting Coltrane's Jazz", but then later developing an ear for it and coming to appreciate the taste of the sound.

How to Read Dogen
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2999

Here is what John Coltrane did and undid, for example, with "MY FAVORITE THINGS", that really "squaresville" (though lovely in its own way) tune that you may recall from THE SOUND OF MUSIC ... give a listen to a few minutes of this ...

[youtube]

[/youtube]

One has to realize that Dogen was engaging in a kind of word play ... playing with the words and Buddhist teachings. I have included a few examples at the above link from some scholars working on the Soto-shu sponsored "Soto Zen Text Project" which show how Dogen took original stories and Koans, terms and images from Buddhist sutras and the like and playfully "played around." A couple of years ago, someone (Richard, I recall) pointed out the modern master of "word jazz", Ken Nardine, sometimes heard on the public radio. Give a little listen there too.

http://www.wordjazz.com/podcast/index.php?id=5

From bending, straightening and rebending the "classics" and "standard tunes", new Facets of the One Jewel emerge.

Let us know if any of that helps.

Gassho, 'Chao Chao' and Leon's Dad

[andyZ]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Hi all,

First of all thank you Jundo for giving your fresh perspective on Dogen.

On the subject of understanding Dogen. 10 years ago, when I tried to start my Zen practice I tried (of course) to read Dogen's Shobogenzo, but utterly failed to understand much. Then I bought this book "Rational Zen: The Mind of Dogen Zenji" by Thomas Cleary. There he takes a passage from Dogen and rewrites it in his own language, with commentaries and references, so that we can understand it. I really like reading it.

Fast forward 10 years and my second attempt at Zen practice. I found this book again in one of the still unpacked moving boxes full with books. I started reading it again. This time I find it that mere intellectual understanding of Dogen just doesn't do it for me anymore. I think that without underlying practice it is impossible to really understand what Dogen meant.

When I'm in the shower, sometimes this passage from Dogen comes to mind, I don't fully understand everything he says but what I understand is when you're really intimate with things, "water practices and verifies water" just somehow makes a lot of sense.

Water is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor hot, neither being nor nonbeing, neither delusion nor enlightenment. Frozen, it harder than diamond; who could break it? Melted, it is softer than milk; who could break it?

This being the case, we cannot doubt the many virtues realized [by water]. We should study the occasion when the water of the ten directions is seen in the ten directions. This is not a study only of the time when humans or gods see water: there is a study of water seeing water. Water practices and verifies water; hence, there is a study of water telling of water. We must bring to realization the road on which the self encounters the self; we must move back and forth along, and spring off from, the vital path on which the other studies and fully comprehends the other.

[Risho]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Thank you Jundo; the links are great. I'm going to read the books you suggest to get my feet wet then head into the Shobogenzo.

Gassho,

Risho

[Jinyo]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Jundo - thanks for this - though it's a formidable reading list.

Should keep me busy for the next few years by which time I'll be old !


Gassho

Willow

[Omoi Otoshi]

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Rev Jundo, do you think it's better to read sutras and the different commentaries on the sutras first, and then Shobogenzo, or dig into Dogen first without prior sutra study?

[Jundo]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Rev Jundo, do you think it's better to read sutras and the different commentaries on the sutras first, and then Shobogenzo, or dig into Dogen first without prior sutra study?

Hmmmm. Ours is a "Way Beyond Words & Letters" ... but most of those old monks (Dogen certainly, coming out of years of training with the Tendai tradition) were already highly conversant with the main body of Mahayana Sutra literature (plus commentaries, the South Asian Suttas via the Agamas) and the like. Their Zen talks & writings ... especially in Dogen's case ... were so often playing off/bouncing with/a reaction to all that.

So, I will take a Middle Way here.

What I recommend in our "How to Read Dogen" thread is this ...

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2999

Before reading and really 'digging Dogen', the best intro is to read Okumura Roshi's look at Genjo Koan ...

viewtopic.php?p=43761#p43761

Much denser, but worth the effort, are the two Dr. Kim books (He wrote them a few years apart, and changed interpretation slightly over the years just a drop ) ... Each can be rather heavy going at points, but worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/Eihei-Dogen-Mysti ... 011&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Dogen-Meditation- ... gy_b_img_b

Also ... I VERY strongly recommend... Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra (Paperback) by Taigen Dan Leighton (Author) ... about how Dogen wild-ed and bent the already wild and bent Lotus Sutra into something even more bent and wild ...

http://www.amazon.com/Lotus-Sutra-Conte ... gy_b_img_b

You probably want to read a good translation of the Lotus Sutra first, to see the "tune" that Dogen was working with. This by Reeves is very readable and a fantastic tale, right up there with "Alice in Wonderland" and such ...

http://www.amazon.com/Lotus-Sutra-Conte ... 0861715713

In fact, you might start with Taigen and the Lotus Sutra --before-- reading Dr. Kim, as Taigen is short and easier going to read.

Here is an essay available online, a part of Taigen's book. It will give you a taste ...

http://www.mtsource.org/articles/dogen_lotsutra.html

Some familiarity with the Koan Stories that Dogen often relied on is helpful. The "Book of Equanimity" which we will soon be reading, and the Blue Cliff Record, are the source (and Source 8) ) for most of those.

I also always read two (or more) translations of a Shobogenzo section at once, for example, Tanahashi, Nishijima-Cross and (if possible, because it is not yet complete) Soto Zen Text Project ... The reason is that different translators phrase things in their own way, and (because Dogen was often working with double or triple entendres in his word-jazz) any translator struggles to capture that. Reading two at once helps to "triangulate" a bit what the original might be expressing in its classical Japanese (very different from modern Japanese, by the way). The Soto Zen Text Project is best (and Nishijima-Cross too) for its wonderful footnotes which trace down so many of the Sutra quotes, Koans, poems and the like that Dogen was playing as his "old standards". Nishijima-Cross is probably best for its "leave nothing out" precision. Tanahashi is best for his excellent poet's sensibility in writing style (very important in the case of Dogen, who was a true poet-wordsmith too).

Then ... just jump in, don't get lost in the head ... and let the music sink into the bones.

Gassho, J

[Omoi Otoshi]

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Thanks!
Still reading Mysterious Realist by dr Kim! And Genjo Koan is great. Until now I have only read pieces of the Shobogenzo and I will get a little more grounding before I read through it all.

[Risho]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Hmmmm. Ours is a "Way Beyond Words & Letters"

Hold on, you can't fool us; you've showed us your library :mrgreen:

[Kaishin]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Rev Jundo, do you think it's better to read sutras and the different commentaries on the sutras first, and then Shobogenzo, or dig into Dogen first without prior sutra study?

Also check out the "Beginner's Sutra Studies" thread which kind of distills the HUGE recommended reading list into a few core works to start with:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3968&p=58389&hilit=beginner%27 s+sutra+studies#p58213

[Jundo]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Rev Jundo, do you think it's better to read sutras and the different commentaries on the sutras first, and then Shobogenzo, or dig into Dogen first without prior sutra study?

Also check out the "Beginner's Sutra Studies" thread which kind of distills the HUGE recommended reading list into a few core works to start with:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3968&p=58389&hilit=beginner%27 s+sutra+studies#p58213

Hi,

Hmmm. I actually would say not, as that is quiet a hodge-podge of folks' Sutra and other reading in that thread. I would not recommend that to new people.

I would recommend that new people to Shikantaza read the starred ** items in this thread, even just go down the list of ** from the top.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=889&p=12001#p12001

I hope this year to expand that list, by the way, to include internet and magazine articles of merit. Ours is A Way Beyond Words and Letters, but Zen folks sure do write a lot! :shock: As long as one can see through and shining through the words ... and appreciate the wordless moments too ... then words themselves are not the problem.

Gassho, Jundo

[Ray]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Thanks very much for such a practical teaching.

Gassho

Ray

[Heisoku]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen is SO OLD!

Dogen swings and shimmies!
Thanks Jundo.