Who Was Dogen? 

Someone’s new book is #1 on Amazon under “Zen Spirituality” … 👍🏽

Thank you so much for this explanation. It really helped me view him more clearly.

Thank you. More references to check out! Now, I have to finish getting ready

Thank you. It was helpful!

Awesome video!

You missed the best answer - "He's just this guy, you know"* *From the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

A nice synopsis there Brad. It amazes me to think how perilous that journey to China must have been back then. And the fact that he managed to find a teacher there in that vast country.

In order to catch up with the West, namely the Kyôto-school tried for some time to promote Dôgen and especially his Shôbogenzô as the utmost representation of Japanese culture - and as one of the rare examples of a "true philosophy" according to Western dominant, biased standards (which held that there was no real philosophy anywhere outside Europe). Well, I read parts of the SBGZ and some other scriptures, and noticed that Dôgen uses a rather "restricted code", compared with the totality of "codes" effective on the islands of Japanese since early history. And it is by far not as encyclopedic-philosophical as other Far Eastern treatises and compilations, like the big Ruist, Buddhist, Daoist, and Shintoist "Treasure"-compilations. So, my hypothesis is that the bringing of Dôgen´s work out of some inner circles and back into the public had less to do with the legitimation of the Sôto-school than the attempt to show "to the world" that the old Far Eastern religio-philosophical schools were as capable, intellectually and spiritually, as the Western ones (that is, the latter, for the most parts, saw - and some still see - themselves as the pinnacle of world-culture). Interesting as Dôgen´s work is in several respects, i.m.o., it cannot/should not simply be taken as a kind of holistic pars-pro-toto neither of Far Eastern cultures (and namely philosophy), nor of the World of Buddhism. This kindly to notice for all people who are primarily interested in socio-cultural studies and tend to follow the lore of (trans)cultural "essentialism", mentioned above: Dôgen´s world is one sub-sense-world of many. Only together, in complex interrelatedness, do they form the Far Eastern "cosmos".

I visited Tendozan back in 1995. It's near Ningbo and is called tiantongsi in Mandarin. Aside from a display about Japanese-Chinese friendship, I didn't see much about Dogen. Of course, the Chinese don't have much love for the Japanese. Anyway, my guide and the locals seemed more interested in a crazy-wisdom monk who'd lived there than in Dogen. There were monks around and the monastery had yellow buildings. I spent a few hours looking around, offered a stick of incense, and signed the guest book.

My word, the cover of Dogen's Formative Years was so shiny I thought I saw my reflection in it. Crazy :D

Thanks for the video Brad! I highly recommend Steven Heine's new biography of Dogen, "Dogen: Japan's Original Zen Teacher".

Even Dogen’s life is tough and complicated.

Shohaku Okimura in his book "Realizing Genjokoan", Appendix 3 uses Hee-jin Kim's biography of Dogen from "Eihei Dogen Mystical Realist".

interesting bit of trivia lots of people don't know about with that way of calculating age: it actually starts at 9 months at birth, not quite one year. That's also why there's a celebration at 100 days after birth (which is approximately one year after conception). At least I've heard that explanation before and it seems to make sense.

There are two teachers I have tried to like, Dogen and Ramana. I can't put my finger on why. I find Huang Po and Terrence Gray (Wei Wu Wei) infinitely less flowery and more direct.

The Ghoul?? Oh my gosh! How's that for some insane nostalgia! XD

Zen (2009) available on DVD and RU-vid. Who is Dogen? The sound of one mut barking ;-) Amongst White Clouds (2005) is excellent, available from the same. In 2020 documentary "Hermits Chinese monks ... Red Pine returns to the Chungnan Mtns!

What do you mean, "who *was* Dogen?"?! He always _was_ a great guy, and he still *is* so! youtube.com/@Dogen

As a person who has studied Zen for so many years, do you ever meet anyone whose views on Zen, or Buddhism in general, were dogmatic? I am most curious on this topic. Mind making a video?

How about a review of "Dogen's formative years in china". The book is really expensive as "Dogen's "expensive" record"...

it wasn't "family wealth" that allowed dogen to go to china but funding from a daimyo

ITS THE GHOUL!!!!!!?!?; HAY HAY HAY. I loved watching the ghoul show when I was a child. I guess that's why I turned into such an upstanding citizen. All hail BB.

I've heard the story with that question several times "Why should we have to work so hard to attain the true nature we already have?" (including in To Meet the Real Dragon) I feel like I've heard it enough times that I should know the answer according to the story. I keep finding that I don't though... Am I right in thinking that he never finds an answer to that question, and instead... gets enlightened or something? There's the thing Esai said about reality, and then with Tendo Nyojo his doubts were cleared away. Is this just an example of one of those question that everyone has that misses the point? (Otherwise, what is the answer? :) )

Wait, you were in Denton? HA! Funny I didn't run into you. I go to recycled a lot. Used to go to the square a lot more too but the music scene has gone downhill in the last few years.

This video reminds me of a favorite Bob Dylan song 'Jokerman'. There's a lyric in there that goes... You're going to Sodom and Gomorrah But what do you care Aint nobody there Would want to marry your sister Why would you care who Dogen is...unless you are following his teaching?

Really low resolution on this upload - to the point that it's actually a bit distracting.

Dogen was a human being. I think it is a mistake to make him the new Jesus.

eihei dogen is a cult figure and soto zen is a cult stemming from the way it treats him ie infallible. once you start to say he is wrong about certain things then the cult breaks up because there are schisms based on disagreement as to what he was wrong about what he really is, is he is one of a number of interesting mystical writers and because of differences in historical culture, not very accessible to modern readers, a problem compounded by inadequate/misguided translation the deliberate blindness of his present day cult followers is shown by their compete ignorance of one of the most famous works of world literature (the Tsurezuregusa) written by a monk 80 years after dogen's death who lived in dogen's home town, kyoto its a fascinating work and also gives insight into the manic japanese religious culture soto is in large part, just crazy and stupid and necessarily so, because only psychosis could be so wilfully ignorant about the large panoply of mystics, philosophers and literary writers available to us this is why the commenters here and brad only go backwards, the only areas they put work into are the non-essential/contrary and never venture into the essential, i used to wonder about this, but don't now, its tempting to think involvement in the "non-essential" is harmless, but the fact is its at the expense of the essential, so what one sees here in the comments section with its incompetent and childish aggression when contradicted is to be expected if you are going to reply to this, do something "essential" and read it carefully and then if you write something, ask yourself, does what i write address of the post or is it just the usual intellectually lazy personal attack ? what is the point of being involved in zen if your interpersonal and cognitive skills just get worse ?