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Dōgen’s Interpretive Charity: The Hermeneutical Significance of “Genjōkōan”

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Abstract

This study argues that one of Dōgen Zenji’s most renowned essays, the “Genjōkōan” of 1233, can be read as an exposition of interpretive sensibilities. By drawing a comparison between the function of the principle of the “dharma position” (法位) and that of interpretive charity as formulated in the Judaic tradition, I argue that the “Genjōkōan” initiates the reader into Dōgen’s dialectical interpretive perspective. As he elaborated on this theme throughout his life in many writings, Dōgen strived to creatively pacify the lasting tensions between authority and interpretation, textual closure and hermeneutical openness. Thus, I propose that examining the dialectics of the “dharma position” as a hermeneutical framework expressed in pivotal passages of the “Genjōkōan”, may deepen our appreciation of the image of Dōgen the interpreter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In traditional Sōtō hermeneutics, the essay is considered as one of the three central fascicles of the Shōbōgenzō, together with the “Bendōwa” (弁道話) and “Busshō” (仏性). This categorization is known as “Ben-Gen-Bu” (弁・現・仏). See Tsunoda Tairyū 角田泰隆, Dōgen Zenji no shisō teki kenkyū 道元禅師の思想的研究 (Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 2015), 13–14.

  2. 2.

    Akizuki Ryōmin 秋月龍珉, Dōgen nyūmon 道元入門 (Tōkyō: Kōdansha Gendaishinsho, 1970), 184; Tanaka Akira, Shōbōgenzō no tetsugaku (Tōkyō: Hōzōkan, 1982), 186.

  3. 3.

    Kagamishima Genryū 鏡島元隆, “Dōgen no shisō,” in Kagamishima Genryū and Tamaki Kōshirō (eds.), Kōza Dōgen 1: Dōgen no shōgai to shisō 講座道元 1: 道元の生涯と思想 (Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1979), 13.

  4. 4.

    John C. Maraldo, “The Hermeneutics of Practice in Dōgen and Francis of Assisi: An Exercise in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue,” The Eastern Buddhist 14, no. 2 (1981), 33.

  5. 5.

    In his analysis of “Dōgen’s temporality of hermeneutics”, Heine maintains that “Just as kyōryaku is the foundation of Buddha-nature, it also constitutes the ground which determines the hermeneutic process. […] The simultaneous interrelatedness of past and present enlightenment experiences demands that the Dharma be perpetually reexplored and renewed through creative expressions of its inexhaustible meanings.” See Steven Heine, “Temporality of Hermeneutics in Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō,” Philosophy East and West 33, no. 2 (1983), 145.

  6. 6.

    According to Tsunoda, Sankyū was commonly described by the term shūjō (宗乗) or “The Sōtō Vehicle” and is regarded as part of the dentō-shūgaku (伝統宗学) or “traditional study of the doctrine” method. See Tsunoda Tairyū, “Shūgaku saikō,” Komazawa tanki daigaku kenkyū kiyō 27 (1999): 101, note.2.

  7. 7.

    Tagami Taishū, entry for “Sankyū 参究,” in Zen no shisō jiten (hereafter ZSJT) 禅の思想辞典, ed. Tagami Taishū 田上太秀 and Ishii Shūdō 石井修道 (Tōkyō: Shoseki, 2008), 223.

  8. 8.

    Seijun Ishii, “Recent developments in Dōgen Studies,” in Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies, ed. Steven Heine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 223–236.

  9. 9.

    An important work that represents the maturity of the universal kenkyū approach was “Zen Master Dōgen as a Founding Father” (Shūso to shite no Dōgen Zenji, 宗祖としての道元禅師) by Etō Sokuō 衞藤即應 (1888–1958). Etō’s work had a major role in combining the traditional prisms of the sankyū method, with the new perspectives of general religious studies (shūkyōgaku, 宗教学) thus constituted a crucial juncture in the debut of modern Sōtō academics. See Tsunoda, Dōgen Zenji no shisō teki kenkyū, 86 // Tsunoda, “Shūgaku saikō,” 86 ((Tsunoda, p. 86.))

  10. 10.

    Okajima Shūryū 岡島秀隆, Taiwa tetsugaku toshite no Dōgen shisō 対話哲学としての道元思想 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2021), 16.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 16.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 17.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 20. For a survey and an analysis of Dōgen’s terminological expansion and interpretive creativeness see also Niimoto Toyozō新本豊三, “Dōgen ni okeru butten no tenshaku道元における仏典の転釈,” Zen kenkyūsho kiyō 12 (1984): 33–49.

  14. 14.

    Halbertal presents four kinds of canon as texts of special status. The first is a normative canon that is ought to be obeyed and followed. The second is a formative canon that provides a society or a profession with a shared vocabulary. The third is an exemplary canon that serves as paradigmatic example of aesthetic ideals and achievements. In the Jewish tradition, for example, the Talmud serves as both normative and formative canon. See Moshe Halbertal, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997), 3–4.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 27–29.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., 19–20.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., 44.

  18. 18.

    Wolfgang Iser, The Range of Interpretation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 18.

  19. 19.

    George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 1998), 316.

  20. 20.

    Halbertl elucidates three exegetical views of controversy and tradition. The first is the “revival model” of Abraham Ibn Daud (1110–1180) of the tradition of the Geonim. The second is the “cumulative view” of Maimonides (1135–1204). The third is the “constitutive view” of Nachmanides (1194–1270). See Halbertal, People of the Book, 54–72.

  21. 21.

    For a detailed study of the traditional commentaries on the Honzan (本山) version of the Shōbōgenzō see: Steven Heine and Katarina Ankrum, “Outside of a Small Circle: Sōtō Zen Commentaries on Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō and the Formation of the 95-Fascicle Honzan Edition,” Japan Studies Review 21 (2017): 85–127.

  22. 22.

    Seijūn Ishii, entry for “hōjū hōi法住法位, “in ZSJT, p. 437. Dōgen quotes this verse in several fascicles of the Shōbōgenzō, such as “Shohō jissō” (諸法実相) and “Immo” (恁麼), and also in his recorded sermons. Tanahashi translates the verse as “things abiding in the world of phenomena, and the everlasting reality of the world”. See Tanahashi Kazuaki (ed., trans.), Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dōgen’s Shōbō Genzō, (hereafter TTDY), vol. 2 (Boston: Shambhala, 2010), 522. Also, in his translation of the fascicle “Immo” (恁麼 “Thusness”), Tanahashi renders the verse as: “Things abide in their conditions, and there is the aspect of the world as permanent.” See TTDY 1: 330.

  23. 23.

    Tachikawa Musashi立川武蔵, Kū no shisōshi 空の思想史 (Tōkyō: Kōdansha Gakujutsubunko, 2004), 6–7.

  24. 24.

    Nakamura Sōichi 中村宗一, Shōbōgenzō yōgo jiten 正法眼蔵用語辞典 (Tōkyō: Seishin Shobō, 1975), 174.

  25. 25.

    Tachikawa, Kū no shisōshi, 54. For a detailed discussion of this affirmative aspect, known as “All things in their True aspect” (shohō jissō, 諸法実相) within Tendai circles, see ibid., 271–283. Tachikawa’s “affirmative aspect” of emptiness, which confirms (shō, 証) all phenomena in their “particular independence,” echoes Hee-Jin Kim’s distinction between the deconstructive and reconstructive aspects of emptiness. See Hee-Jin Kim, Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 42.

  26. 26.

    Kurebayashi Kōdō 榑林皓堂, Dōgen Zen no honryū 道元禅の本流, (Tōkyō: Daihōrikaku, 1980), 136.

  27. 27.

    Itō Shūken 伊藤秀憲, “Ippō wo shōsuru toki wa ippō wa kurashi no ronri 一方を証するときは一方はくらしの論理,” Komazawa daigaku bukkyōgakubu ronshū 7 (1976): 165–170.

  28. 28.

    For example, according to Ryōdō Awaya, the term “total exertion” (gūjin, 究尽) appears seventy-one times throughout the Shōbōgenzō. See in detail Ryōdō Awaya 良道粟谷, “Shōbōgenzō ni okeru gūjin nitsuite: Shōbōgenzō to no hikaku 正法眼蔵における究尽について:正法眼蔵抄との比較,” Shūgaku kenkyū 28 (1986): 290.

  29. 29.

    Itō, “Ippō wo shōsuru toki wa ippō wa kurashi no ronri,” 172–4.

  30. 30.

    All translations of the essay are by Tanahashi. See TTDY 1: 30. Original Japanese of the “Genjōkōan” is taken from Dōgen Zenji zenshū (hereafter DZZ) 道元禪師全集 [Dōgen’s Complete Works], 7 vols., ed. Kawamura Kōdō 河村孝道 et al. (Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1988–1993), 1: 2–7: たき木、はひとなる、さらにかへりてたき木となるべきにあらず。しかあるを灰はのち、薪はさきと見取すべからず。しるべし、薪は薪の法位に住して、さきありのちあり。前後ありといへども、前後際断せり。灰は灰の法位にありて、のちありさきあり。

  31. 31.

    Throughout my analysis of the dialectics of the dharma position, I use the category of nonduality rather than that of unity. By that I follow Masao Abe’s claim that “Monism is not yet free from duality, for it is still opposed to dualism or pluralism. Being beyond duality […] is not monistic but rather non-dualistic.” See Masao Abe, Zen and Western Thought, ed. William LaFleur (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989), 208. For a study of the prevalence and significance of the via-negativa (or apophatic) articulations in Dōgen’s thought and an elucidation of his usage of the term “not two” (funi, 不二) see Eitan Bolokan, “Zen Words of the Unsayable: An Inquiry into Dōgen Zenji’s Apophatic Terminology,” Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East 30, no. 3 (2020): 195–213.

  32. 32.

    DZZ 1: 31: 人の、さとりをうる、水に月のやどるがごとし。月ぬれず、水やぶれず。ひろくおほきなるひかりにてあれど、尺寸の水にやどり、全月も弥天も、くさの露にもやどり、一滴の水にもやどる。

  33. 33.

    Ibid.: さとりの、人をやぶらざること、月の、水をうがたざるがごとし。人の、さとりを罣礙せざること、滴露の、天月を罣礙せざるがごとし。ふかきことは、たかき分量なるべし。

  34. 34.

    DZZ 1: 32: 麻谷山宝徹禅師、あふぎをつかふちなみに、僧きたりてとふ、風性常住、無處不周なり、なにをもてかさらに和尚あふぎをつかふ。師い云く、なんぢただ風性常住をしれりとも、いまだところとしていたらずといふことなき道理をしらず、と。僧曰く、いかならんかこれ無處不周底の道理。ときに、師、あふぎをつかふのみなり。僧、礼拝す。

  35. 35.

    DZZ 1: 33: 仏法の証験、正伝の活路、それかくのごとし。常住なればあふぎをつかふべからず、つかはぬをりもかぜをきくべきといふは、常住をもしらず、風性をもしらぬなり。風性は常住なるがゆゑに、仏家の風は、大地の黄金なるを現成せしめ、長河の蘇酪を參熟せり。

Abbreviations

DZZ:

Dōgen Zenji zenshū 道元禪師全集 [Dōgen’s Complete Works], 7 volumes, edited by Kawamura Kōdō 河村孝道, Kagashima Genryū 鏡島元隆, Suzuki Kakuzen 鈴木格禅, Kosaka Kiyū 小坂機融 et al. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1988–1993.

TTDY:

Tanahashi, Kazuaki, ed., trans. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dōgen’s Shōbō Genzō, 2 volumes. Boston: Shambhala, 2010.

ZSJT:

Zen no shisō jiten 禅の思想辞典, edited by Tagami Taishū 田上太秀 and Ishii Shūdō 石井修道, Tōkyō: Shoseki, 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Eitan Bolokan

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Ralf Müller

  2. History, Anthropology, & Philosophy, University of North Georgia, Gainesville, GA, USA

    George Wrisley

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Bolokan, E. (2023). Dōgen’s Interpretive Charity: The Hermeneutical Significance of “Genjōkōan”. In: Müller, R., Wrisley, G. (eds) Dōgen’s texts. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42246-1_4

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