SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen - A Love Supreme

[Kyonin]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen - A Love Supreme

Thank you for this teaching, Jundo Sensei.

Pairing Jazz and Zen seems very appropiate!

[Ray]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen - A Love Supreme

Gassho

Ray

[Seimyo]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen - A Love Supreme

Jundo,
I absolutely love the Coltrane/Dogen comparison. Brilliant work.

No 'Giant Steps' here but constant progress.

Gassho,
Chris

[Hoyu]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen - A Love Supreme

Thank you Jundo Sensei for delving more into this comparison of Dogen to jazz. Admittedly I know very little about Dogen's mind and even less about jazz. Your continued elaborations on both really assist me in seeing this connection and help to make familiar the unfamiliar.

Also, thank you to Rinsen for sharing these videos!

Gassho,
Hoyu(John)

[Nindo]

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Dogen - A Love Supreme

... may not have been always himself quite sure where the music was taking him -- or what he himself "meant"!

I don't think this is sacrilegious towards Dogen; I think this is hitting it spot on. Dharma talks are often called "live words" - they are not meant to be picked apart word by word in an academic exercise.

Now I want to go blow my horn 8) but I have 2 more periods left to site for zazenkai :wink:

[Thane]

Hi Jundo. I really enjoyed this talk, oh and your piano playing of course. I like the way you compare Dogen to the jazz music of Coltrane and your view that Dogen is trying to get across what he feels rather than intellectual certanties.

Groovy tunes

Gassho

Thane

[Mp]

Brilliant Jundo! I love it! Wonderful how we can see Dogen's teachings in so many things.

[Shokai]

Thank you Jundo. I just watched this talk for maybe the third or forth time over the past year. I am grateful and applaud your tenacity to teach us the intricacies of Dogen's legacy. It was enough to send me on a quest to unravel the mysteries of the dharma and develop a determination to "just sit" I truly cannot find the words to thank you enough for getting me "into" Dogen.

gassho,

[Genshin]

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho
Matt

[Oheso]

hmm, Gertrude Stein
on my mind-

“. . . creation must take place
between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting...

It will come if it is there and if you will let it come.”

it's there, Gertrude, it's there.

[Byokan]

Thank you Jundo

Gassho
Byōkan
sat today

[Onkai]

Thank you, Jundo. I've started reading the Shobogenzo with limited understanding, but appreciating its beauty. Your talk suggests that this is not only a matter of my ignorance, but also that Dogen's words are meant to be felt rather than analytically grasped. The jazz metaphor is helpful.

Gassho,
Onkai
SatToday

[Jundo]

Thank you, Jundo. I've started reading the Shobogenzo with limited understanding, but appreciating its beauty. Your talk suggests that this is not only a matter of my ignorance, but also that Dogen's words are meant to be felt rather than analytically grasped. The jazz metaphor is helpful.

Gassho,
Onkai
SatToday

Hi Onkai,

Yes, but it helps to know all the "standard tunes" and musical references he was working from too in making his wild jazz. He never left the Zen/Mahayana Buddhist farm for all his wildings. So, it is a combination of sound/feeling and his bouncing off and playing with pretty standard, conservative Zen and Mahayana Teachings to get to the marrow of those or bring out fresh implications.

The best source for those "standard tunes" (although a little tedious to read him that way) is all the footnotes from the Soto Zen Text Project versions, when they exist (they only have been finished for some sections).

Please see my somewhat longer introduction to "Grand Master D.", How to Read Dogen ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?7765-How-to-Read-Dogen

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Onkai]

Thank you, Jundo. That is a wonderful thread (How to Read Dogen http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...-to-Read-Dogen ). The translation of Shobogenzo I have is the one by Kaz Tanahashi. It is beautiful. I will now look into the texts you listed to understand the background of Dogen's references. There is so much information, it gets overwhelming, but I'll look into the texts one at a time.

Gassho,
Onkai
SatToday

[Jundo]

Thank you, Jundo. That is a wonderful thread (How to Read Dogen http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...-to-Read-Dogen ). The translation of Shobogenzo I have is the one by Kaz Tanahashi. It is beautiful. I will now look into the texts you listed to understand the background of Dogen's references. There is so much information, it gets overwhelming, but I'll look into the texts one at a time.

Gassho,
Onkai
SatToday

Yes, don't be overwhelmed by Dogen. It is like trying to master the collected works of Shakespeare at one go. It is also, like reading fellow word-smith Shakespeare, a delicate dance of just letting the beauty and power of the words sweep one in ... and sometimes checking the footnotes to see what he was going on about.

Romeo & Juliet Act 2, Scene 3 ...

The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.

Modern translation ...

The smiling morning is replacing the frowning night. Darkness is stumbling out of the sun’s path like a drunk man. Now, before the sun comes up and burns away the dew, I have to fill this basket of mine with poisonous weeds and medicinal flowers.

Titan's Fiery Wheels: In Greek mythology, the Titans were the ancestors of the Olympian gods. Titans could be described as nature gods. One Titan (sometimes called Titan and sometimes called Helios) had the rays of the sun circling his head, and drove a chariot from east to west across the sky each day. So "flecked darkness" (night) is fleeing the sun, so as to avoid being run over by the chariot wheels.

Osier: a small Eurasian willow which grows mostly in wet habitats. It is usually coppiced, being a major source of the long flexible shoots (withies) used in basketwork.

Perhaps to dive into some of Dogen's major and most oft cited works ... Genjo Koan, Bussho and the like ... before the less cited though also so rewarding. Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth or Hamlet before diving into Troilus and Cressida or Henry VI Part 1,



Gassho, J

SatToday