“A Moon Follows a Moon:” The Practice of Language in Dōgen’s Thought
| Title in English | “A Moon Follows a Moon:” The Practice of Language in Dogen’s Thought |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | The language of the Japanese Zen master Dogen (1200–1253) is known to be difficult and impenetrable. In his seminal collection of sermons, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, besides introducing Japanese vernacular into the contemporary Buddhist discourse for the first time, Dogen makes simultaneous use of classical Chinese and Japanese alongside with specific Chan/Zen phrases and his own expressions that he coins, the combination of which has posed a challenge to readers and translators alike. In this paper, I intend to explore Dogen’s language as part of the fabric of his teaching, and advocate the practicality of Dogen’s language on par with seated meditation zazen, monastic work samu, and ritual ceremonies fugin. While scholars view Dogen as a mystical realist (Kim 1987), poet of impermanence (Heine 2023), or spontaneous non-thinker (Wrisley 2023), I would like to propose the idea of the Japanese Zen master whose expounding of the Buddha dharma stems from his original, multididactic, and nondual use of language. Starting with the fact that one of the terms that denote the Buddhist path or way (?) is also employed to signify “word,” “expressions,” or “saying,” I would like to highlight Dogen’s thought by means of linguistic exploration of a number of his distinctive expressions from various fascicles of the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye – particularly “Being-Time,” “Mountains and Waters Sutra,” “The Moon” – to illustrate the semantic uniqueness and inventive wordplay that lie at the basis of his teaching. |
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