Genjōkōan

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Genjōkōan (現成公按 [1] ), translated by Tanahashi as Actualizing the Fundamental Point, [2] [3] is an influential essay written by Dōgen, the founder of Zen Buddhism's Sōtō school in Japan. It is considered one of the most popular essays in Shōbōgenzō . [4]

Contents

History and background

Genjōkōan was written for a lay practitioner [3] [5] named Koshu Yō [2] in 1233.

Title

According to Taigen Dan Leighton "The word genjo means to fully or completely manifest, or to express or share. And in this context koan does not refer to these teaching stories, but to the heart of the matter." [5]

Shohaku Okumura says that Gen means "to appear", "to show up," or "to be in the present moment" [6] while Jo means "to become," "to complete," or "to accomplish." [6] The combined word genjō therefore means "to manifest," "to actualize," or "to appear and become." [6]

Hakuun Yasutani wrote: "...[C]oncerning the word genjōkoan, genjō is phenomena. It's the whole universe. It's all mental and physical phenomena.... Kōan is derived from the word official document, and is meant to mean the unerring absolute authority of the Buddha-dharma. So then, genjōkōan means that the subjective realm and the objective realm, the self and all things in the universe, are nothing but the true Buddha-dharma itself." [7]

Content

Genjōkōan begins with an explanation of Zen and then goes on to elucidate delusion and realization, wholehearted practice, and the relationship of self to realization and environment. [8]

Thomas Cleary states that Genjōkōan begins with an outline of Zen using a presentation of the Five Ranks [4] claiming that Dogen used the device throughout his Shōbōgenzō. [4] Shohaku Okumura says that in Genjōkōan "Dogen created a metaphor to express the reality of individuality and universality." [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, sometimes known by its English translation The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Record of Things Heard, is a collection of informal Dharma talks given by the 13th century Sōtō Zen monk Eihei Dōgen and recorded by his primary disciple Koun Ejō from 1236 to 1239. The text was likely further edited by other disciples after Ejō's death.

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Ikka myōju, known in English as One Bright Jewel or One Bright Pearl, is a book of the Shōbōgenzō by the 13th century Sōtō Zen monk Eihei Dōgen. It was written in the summer of 1238 at Dōgen's monastery Kōshōhōrin-ji in Kyoto. The essay marked the beginning of a period of high output of Shōbōgenzō books that lasted until 1246. The book appears as the seventh book in both the 75 and 60 fascicle versions of the Shōbōgenzō, and it is ordered fourth in the later chronological 95 fascicle Honzan editions. The essay is an extended commentary on the famous saying of the Tang dynasty monk Xuansha Shibei that "the ten-direction world is one bright jewel", which in turn references the Mani Jewel metaphors of earlier Buddhist scriptures. Dōgen also discusses the "one bright jewel" and related concepts from the Shōbōgenzō essay in two of his formal Dharma Hall Discourses, namely numbers 107 and 445, as well as his Kōan commentaries 23 and 41, all of which are recorded in the Eihei Kōroku.

Daigo, also known in English translation as Great Realization, is a book of the Shōbōgenzō by the 13th century Sōtō Zen monk Eihei Dōgen. The book appears tenth in the 75 fascicle version of the Shōbōgenzō, and it is ordered 26th in the later chronological 95 fascicle "Honzan edition". It was presented to his students in the first month of 1242 at Kōshōhōrin-ji, the first monastery established by Dōgen, located in Kyoto. According to Gudō Nishijima, a modern Zen priest, the "great realization" to which Dōgen refers is not an intellectual idea, but rather a "concrete realization of facts in reality" or "realization in real life". Shohaku Okumura, another modern-day Zen teacher, writes that Dōgen equates the term daigo with the network of interdependence in which all beings in the universe exist rather than something that we lack and need to obtain. Given this, Okumura writes that Dōgen is encouraging us to, "to realize great realization within this great realization, moment by moment; or perhaps it is better to say that great realization realizes great realization through our practice."

Shōryū Bradley is a Sōtō Zen priest and the founder and abbot of Gyobutsuji Zen Monastery located near Kingston, Arkansas.

References

  1. The fourth ideograph in this expression, as originally written by Dōgen, is not the same as that in the term kōan , which is written 公案. For discussion of the possible significance of this difference, see Okumura, Shohaku (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. Wisdom Publications. p. 15 ff. ISBN   9780861716012.
  2. 1 2 Tanahashi, Kazuaki (1995). Moon in a Dewdrop . North Point Press. pp.  244–245. ISBN   9780865471863.
  3. 1 2 Weitsman, Mel; Wenger, Michael; Okumura, Shohaku (2012). Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries. Counterpoint. p. 1. ISBN   9781582437439.
  4. 1 2 3 Thomas Cleary. "The Issue at Hand by Eihei Dogen". The Zen Site. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  5. 1 2 Taigen Dan Leighton. "The Practice of Genjokoan". Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 Okumura, Shohaku (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. Wisdom Publications. p. 13. ISBN   9780861716012.
  7. Yasutani, Hakuun (1996). Flowers Fall. A Commentary on Zen Master Dōgen's Genjōkōan. Boston: Shambala Publications. pp. 6–7. ISBN   978-1-57062-674-6.
  8. Okumura, Shohaku (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. Wisdom Publications. pp. 23–24. ISBN   9780861716012.
  9. Okumura, Shohaku (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. Wisdom Publications. p. 21. ISBN   9780861716012.

Further reading