Book Review: Steven Heine's "Readings of Dōgen's "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye"

[Jundo]

Dear All,

I would like to offer a little review of a wonderful book by the noted historian of Zen and "Dogenologist," Prof. Steven Heine, in his new "Readings of Dōgen's 'Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.'"

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/readings-of-dgens-treasury-of-the-true-dharma-eye/9780231182294

I would also like to make an early announcement that Steve Heine will be coming here to lead a Zazenkai and Talk at Treeleaf on Sunday, July 26th, stay tuned for details in the coming days. Steve is also one of the featured speakers at the "Dogen Day" Seminar at Upaya this coming weekend, July 11th, details here.

For those of you who don't know Prof. Heine and his many books and essays on Dogen:

Steven Heine is professor of religious studies and history and director of the Institute for Asian Studies at Florida International University. Heine's research specializes in the life and thought of Zen master Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of the Soto sect in Japan, and he has published twenty books and dozens of articles on Japanese culture. His publications include Did Dogen Go to China? (Oxford, 2006), The Zen Poetry of Dogen (Tuttle, 1997), Dogen and the Koan Tradition (SUNY, 1993), Shifting Shape, Shaping Text (Hawaii, 2000), Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Kōan in Zen Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2013) and more.
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/StevenHeine.html

For point of disclosure, I (Jundo) am the author of another book on Dogen to be published in October of this year by Wisdom Publications, entitled, "The Zen Master's Dance: A Guide to Understanding Dogen and Who You Are in the Universe." I mention that in the review.

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REVIEW of Steven Heine's "Readings of Dōgen's "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye"

This book, quite simply, may be the single best detailed survey and explanation of what Dogen was on about that I have ever read by an academic. Prof. Heine covers most of the same ground as other members of the "Dogen Club" (such as the wonderful volumes by Hee-jin Kim, Shohaku Okumura, Kaz Tanahashi, Taigen Leighton, Carl Bielefeldt, Francis Cook and others), but Steve's presentation is unusually clear, comprehensive and focused, well organized and well expressed, especially given the fine subject matter.

I do not believe that Dogen can be presented more completely and ... most importantly ... accurately than Steven has done in this book. I believe that the book may become the main "go to" guide ahead of others as the first book to turn to for a serious dive into Dogen's bottomless depths. Many folks sometimes criticize "scholars" as being unable to "get Dogen" because they are not practitioners and thus are supposedly "outside" or lost in their own ideas. That is very, very true quite often. However, not at all in this case: Dr. Heine simply knows the man better than about anyone alive, has his number, gets his game. Period. Nine Bows.

Now, that said, let me add a couple of comments:

Steve's presentation is precise and intelligent, and avoids academic jargon, but the prose can be dense. The professor's writing style consists of entangling vines of beautiful words and multi-perspective layered observations, although the density of his writing style may be necessary for precision in expressing Dogen's equally tangling and layered offerings. For example, Steven often joins 5 or 6 clauses into a single elegantly structured sentence, all to hit the target on what Dogen was doin', and I feel that Steve succeeds in hitting that target 99.9% of the time. However, it will be difficult going for readers who are not already extremely well versed in Dogen's ways to start. Personally, I enjoyed the book because I think I already know something of Dogen, so I could follow along pretty well with Steve's prose and where he was leading the reader in trying to express where Dogen was leading in his unique dance. But, for that same reason, folks new to Dogen might find the book hard as a first entrance, although people who know Dogen pretty well will sing its praises, in my opinion. I would hesitate to recommend the book to folks very new to Dogen, but I would say that anyone who already digs Dogen and gets his music will savor this as a tour de force.

As a side note, I am hoping that my little effort with "The Zen Master's Dance: A Guide to Understanding Dogen and Who You Are in the Universe" (coming out in October, ) is a bridge for folks who struggle with Dogen to be better able to "get the Genzo," and get a handle on the man. In my book, I try to make Eihei understandable to those who are a bit befuddled by what Dogen was expressing in all his lyrical rambles. What Heine calls Dogen's "disruption" of language and basic Buddhist ideas, I call Dogen's "Zen Jazz" hot riffin' and rockin' on the "old standards" song book of the Buddhist classic stories and doctrines, trying to squeeze new juice out of the well worn tunes. I hope that my book helps Soto folks and others get their heads around digging Dogen, as I simplify but seek not to dumb down. I also hope that I have covered much of the same territory and subject matter as Steve's book, but in an easy to approach and easy to travel format (hopefully not too easy) offering a handle to those folks who find the Shobo a "no go." THEN ... after folks who struggle with Dogen read a book like mine, and really want to get the "high octane" and challenge the amazing maze of Dogen, they should move on to a book like this. (Okumura Roshi's "Realizing Genjo Koan" and "Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner's Guide to Dogen's "Sansuikyo"" are also the place to go, whether before or after Steve's book, as well as Taigen Leighton's classic writings on Dogen and the Lotus Sutra, then Dr. Kim and the others.)

Prof. Heine's book should be on the shelf of every true Dogen fan. If anyone comes to me in the coming years as to what they should read for a comprehensive explanation of Dogen and Shobogenzo, especially if it is someone who already has some good appreciation of Dogen, I will point them to this book as where they should head ... besides the sitting cushion, of course!

Nine Bows, Jundo

STLah

[Kyotaku]

Thank you very much for this clear review.
Gassho
Hosei

[Meitou]

Thank you for this review Jundo. I already have Professor Heine's book about Dogen's poetry which if wonderful so I'm looking forward to this. I'll need to wait until it arrives on kindle though.
Gassho
Meitou
Sattoday lah

[Jundo]

P.S. - Just for our members who may read the book, just in case someone wants to consider another viewpoint, I am going to include a note I made to Steve when I somewhat disagreed with two small points in the book. It is the 0.01% of the book where I thought it was more Dr. Heine's personal idea. As with listening to any music or poetry, the meaning is often open to interpretation, so does not necessarily mean that either view is wrong:

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As stated, I agreed with 99%+ of your interpretation of what Dogen was fixed on. That said, the explanation of the opening sentences of the Genjo lost me a bit. In my book, I take the more obvious road: Mountains are mountains, mountains are not mountains, mountains are mountains again, and yet we still live in a world where we cry sometimes. In other words, the first sentence is the divided world of birth and death, flawed human beings down here and ideal Buddhas on high, ignorance vs. distant and quite separate enlightenment, and practice to move us from one to the other. Then, there is Emptiness where all the opposites drop away. Then, in Shikantaza we encounter a wisdom where all these "opposites" are "not two" ... no birth no death even in a world of birth and death ... ignorant beings who are Buddhas yet don't know and act as Buddhas always ... etc. Finally, even with the liberation that comes from such realization, we still cry and our flowers sometimes fall.

I also struggled with [something Dr. Heine calls in the book the] "four main stages of awareness" which [he] finds in the lines "Those who have great realization of delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion." (迷を大悟するは佛なり、悟に大迷なるは衆生なり。さらに悟上に得悟する漢あり、迷中又迷の漢あ り) I don't see this as 4 stages. I said that Buddhas, in this world, have great realization about what is delusion even if still alive in a world of delusion, while ordinary people are just deluded both about what is their delusion and what is "enlightenment" that they think is far away. Further, those same wise folks don't stop with such insight, but keep on each moment making the realization come alive in circumstance after changing circumstance, while the ordinary deluded folks just stay deluded in delusion after delusion. So, the contrast is more between the two kinds of folks (and, by the way, in practice enlightenment, human beings can have both within at different times and situations), rather than "4 stages."

With that in mind, from the rest of my review you can tell how much I love this book.

[Kokuu]

Thank you, Jundo.

In a slightly more abbreviated review, I will say that I am only up to chapter three but enjoying it very much! It is actually pretty easy to read and substantiated with references to particular Shobogenzo fascicles which I find really helpful.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Onkai]

Thank you, Jundo, for pointing this book out to read. It is now on my reading list. I'm looking forward to reading your book when it is released, too.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/LAH