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Traces of the Brush: Examination of Dōgen’s Thought Through His Language

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Dōgen’s texts

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Abstract

Exploring the two mutually related topics of thought and language of the Japanese Zen master Dōgen 道元 (1200–1253), the paper illustrates the formulation of his ideas by means of creative originality expressed through wordplay. In an ambiguous contrast with the self-proclaimed Chan motto of “nondependency on words and letters” and “transmission outside scriptures,” I trace a number of examples from Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵 in Japanese), highlighting the master’s own view of these phrases. I further propose a classification of examples of Dōgen’s linguistic creativity that touch upon his various grammatical, semantic, lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical approaches to language by analyzing phrases from various chapters of the Treasury, which illustrate how Dōgen bridged the structural and verbal specifications between classical Chinese and Japanese to articulate his own unique ideas that lay at the basis of his teaching. Portraying the Japanese Zen master as fully accepting and acknowledging the dichotomy of language, the paper examines how Dōgen’s thought is rooted in and interdependent with language itself, demonstrating his ability to employ words as creative tools manifesting a mind of profound wisdom and nonduality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Taishō shinshū daizōkyō Text Database 大正新脩大藏經タキストダータベース (hereafter T), 48.293c.

  2. 2.

    Due to a period of interim when the study of the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye produced no written commentaries from 1329 until the middle of the Edo era, especially Western scholars have heretofore assumed that Dōgen’s masterwork was given little attention by members of the Sōtō school itself in the medieval times. However, recent research of Heine proves otherwise, see Steven Heine, Flowers Blooming on a Withered Tree (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020b).

  3. 3.

    Hee-Jin Kim, Eihei Dōgen: Mystical Realist (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004), 54.

  4. 4.

    Kim, Eihei Dōgen, 9.

  5. 5.

    William LaFleur, “Dōgen in the Academy,” in Dōgen Studies, ed. William LaFleur (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1985), 15.

  6. 6.

    Dōgen Zenji zenshū (hereafter DZZ) 道元禅師全集, 7 vols., ed. Kawamura Kōdō 河村孝道 et al. (Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1989–1995), 7: 159.

  7. 7.

    Yorizumi Mitsuko 頼住光子, Shōbōgenzō nyūmon 正法眼蔵入門 (Tōkyō: Kadokawa bunko, 2016), 64.

  8. 8.

    Kim, Eihei Dōgen, 51.

  9. 9.

    Kim, Eihei Dōgen, 52.

  10. 10.

    Hee-Jin Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters’: Dōgen and the Kōan Language,” in Dōgen Studies, ed. William LaFleur (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1985), 54.

  11. 11.

    Tsunoda Tairyū 角田泰隆, Dōgen Shōbōgenzō wo yomu 道元『正法眼蔵』を読む (Tōkyō: NHK shuppan, 2021), 18.

  12. 12.

    Tsunoda, Dōgen Shōbōgenzō wo yomu, 22.

  13. 13.

    Tsunoda, Dōgen Shōbōgenzō wo yomu, 27–28.

  14. 14.

    Ōtani Tetsuo 大谷哲夫 (ed.), Dōgen yomi kaki jiten 道元読み書き辞典 (Tōkyō: Kashiwa shōbō, 2013), 287.

  15. 15.

    Tsunoda, Dōgen Shōbōgenzō wo yomu, 22.

  16. 16.

    Zengaku daijiten 禅学大辞典 (Tōkyō: Taishūkan shoten, 2020), 580a.

  17. 17.

    Steven Heine, Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020a), 21.

  18. 18.

    DZZ 2: 461.

  19. 19.

    DZZ 7: 2–5.

  20. 20.

    DZZ 1: 210.

  21. 21.

    髄也不立, read as 髄も也立たず, DZZ 1: 420–421.

  22. 22.

    Katō Shūkō 加藤宗厚 (ed.), Shōbōgenzō yōgo sakuin 正法眼蔵用語索引 (Tōkyō: Risōsha, 1963), vol 1: 2878.

  23. 23.

    “Three vehicles and twelve divisions of teaching” refers to the entire Buddhist canon, the sum of all scriptures.

  24. 24.

    DZZ 1: 381–382.

  25. 25.

    Tsunoda Tairyū 角田泰隆, Zen no susume, Dōgen no kotoba 禅のすすめ　道元のことば (Tōkyō: Kadokawa bunko, 2018), 170.

  26. 26.

    Kazuaki Tanahashi (ed.), Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2012), xxx.

  27. 27.

    Thomas Kasulis, “The Incomparable Philosopher: Dōgen on How to Read the Shōbōgenzō,” in Dōgen Studies, ed. William LaFleur (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1985), 90.

  28. 28.

    Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters,’” 63; Rein Raud, “Inside the Concept: Rethinking Dōgen’s Language,” Asian Philosophy 21, no. 2 (2011): 124.

  29. 29.

    Kasulis, “The Incomparable Philosopher,” 90.

  30. 30.

    DZZ 1: 246.

  31. 31.

    Tanahashi, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, xxx–xxxi; Heine, Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury, 6; Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters,’” 61; Raud, “Inside the Concept,” 132.

  32. 32.

    Heine, Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury, 105.

  33. 33.

    DZZ 1: 57.

  34. 34.

    Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters,’” 62.

  35. 35.

    DZZ 1: 26–27.

  36. 36.

    DZZ 1: 346; Yorizumi, Shōbōgenzō nyūmon, 68.

  37. 37.

    DZZ 1: 14.

  38. 38.

    Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters,’” 71.

  39. 39.

    T 08.236a.

  40. 40.

    DZZ 1: 300.

  41. 41.

    Heine, Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury, 169.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 169.

  43. 43.

    DZZ 1: 327.

  44. 44.

    DZZ 1: 264.

  45. 45.

    DZZ 1: 117.

  46. 46.

    DZZ 1: 118.

  47. 47.

    DZZ 1: 263.

  48. 48.

    Tamaki Kōshirō 玉城康四郎, Shōbōgenzō gendaigoyaku 正法眼蔵現代語訳 (Tōkyō: Daizō shuppan), vol. 3: 410.

  49. 49.

    DZZ 1: 327–328.

  50. 50.

    DZZ 1: 328.

  51. 51.

    Bjarke Frellesvig, A History of the Japanese Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 287.

  52. 52.

    DZZ 1: 244.

  53. 53.

    DZZ 1: 245.

  54. 54.

    DZZ 1: 243.

  55. 55.

    DZZ 1: 424.

  56. 56.

    DZZ 1: 419.

  57. 57.

    DZZ 1: 28–31.

  58. 58.

    DZZ 1: 241.

  59. 59.

    DZZ 1: 259.

  60. 60.

    Heine, Flowers Blooming, 14.

  61. 61.

    Heine, Flowers Blooming, 71.

  62. 62.

    DZZ 7: 19.

  63. 63.

    Heine, Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury, 16.

  64. 64.

    Yorizumi, Shōbōgenzō nyūmon, 65.

  65. 65.

    Heine, Readings of Dōgen’s Treasury, 21.

  66. 66.

    Kim, Eihei Dōgen, 95.

  67. 67.

    T 08.251.

  68. 68.

    Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (Routledge: London, New York, 2009), 69.

  69. 69.

    DZZ 1: 457.

  70. 70.

    DZZ 1: 66.

  71. 71.

    Tsunoda, Dōgen Shōbōgenzō wo yomu, 31.

  72. 72.

    Kim, Eihei Dōgen, 37.

  73. 73.

    DZZ 1: 242.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Zuzana Kubovčáková

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  1. Zuzana Kubovčáková
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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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Kubovčáková, Z. (2023). Traces of the Brush: Examination of Dōgen’s Thought Through His Language. 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_5

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