William M. Bodiford | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 3, 1955 |
| Occupation | Professor |
| Alma mater | |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Subject | Religion |
| Notable works | Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan |
William Marvin Bodiford (born December 3, 1955 [1] ) is an American professor and author. He teaches Buddhist Studies and religion in the cultures of Japan and East Asia at the University of California, Los Angeles. [2]
In his section "Acknowledgments" in his book Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan, Bodiford thanks the monks of the Eihei-ji temple in Japan who "kindly broke the rules" to teach him, before his university education began, about Sōtō Zen and Japanese beer. [3]
Bodiford earned his PhD in Buddhist Studies at Yale University and did additional graduate training at the University of Tsukuba and Komazawa University. [4]
Before moving to UCLA, he taught at Davidson College, the University of Iowa, and Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan. [4]
Bodiford's book Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (1993 and 2008) began as his dissertation written at Yale (1989) under Stanley Weinstein. [3] Fabio Rambelli, who reviewed the book in 1994 for The Journal of Asian Studies , writes that the author delivers an alternative to the "traditional dichotomy between 'pure' Zen and 'popular' religion". [5] Christopher Ives writes in the Journal of Japanese Studies that the book is the "most important English work on Sōtō Zen to date". [6]
He presented his paper on the birth of Ise Shinto at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in a session organized by Rambelli. [7] In 2009, Bodiford participated with Shoji Yamada of International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Japan and William R. Lafleur of the University of Pennsylvania in a panel at the AAS annual meeting. [8] In 2011, he sat on a panel [9] with Steven Heine, Taigen Dan Leighton, Shohaku Okumura and others for a conference on Dogen Zenji organized by Heine's school, Florida International University. [10] In May 2023, he gave a lecture on "Buddhist and Samurai Views of the Japanese 'Watery Moon' Motif" at UC Santa Barbara. [11] [12]
Bodiford researches Japanese history from medieval times to the present. [4] He has published works on the Tendai and Vinaya Buddhist traditions, on Shinto, and other subjects. He is an associate editor of Macmillan Reference USA's Encyclopedia of Buddhism.
Translations
The Sōtō Zen Text Project
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Dōgen Zenji, was a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He is also known as Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), Eihei Dōgen (永平道元), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (高祖承陽大師), and Busshō Dentō Kokushi (仏性伝東国師).
Sōtō Zen or the Sōtō school is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism. It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngshān Liánjiè. It emphasizes Shikantaza, meditation with no objects, anchors, or content. The meditator strives to be aware of the stream of thoughts, allowing them to arise and pass away without interference.
Kenshō is an East Asian Buddhist term from the Chan / Zen tradition which means "seeing" or "perceiving" "nature" or "essence", or 'true face'. It is usually translated as "seeing one's [true] nature," with "nature" referring to buddha-nature, ultimate reality, the Dharmadhatu. The term appears in one of the classic slogans which define Chan Buddhism: to see oneʼs own nature and accomplish Buddhahood (見性成佛).
Shōbōgenzō is the title most commonly used to refer to the collection of works written in Japan by the 13th-century Buddhist monk and founder of the Sōtō Zen school, Eihei Dōgen. Several other works exist with the same title, and it is sometimes called the Kana Shōbōgenzō in order to differentiate it from those. The term shōbōgenzō can also be used more generally as a synonym for Buddhism as viewed from the perspective of Mahayana Buddhism.
Hōun Jiyu-Kennett, born Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett, was a British roshi most famous for having been the first female to be sanctioned by the Sōtō School of Japan to teach in the West.
In Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (kechimyaku) theoretically traced back to the Buddha himself." The dharma lineage reflects the importance of family-structures in ancient China, and forms a symbolic and ritual recreation of this system for the monastical "family".
Sōji-ji (總持寺) is one of two daihonzan of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. The other is Eihei-ji temple in Fukui Prefecture. Fodor's calls it "one of the largest and busiest Buddhist institutions in Japan". The temple was founded in 740 as a Shingon Buddhist temple. Keizan, later known as Sōtō's great patriarch Taiso Jōsai Daishi, founded the present temple in 1321, when he renamed it Sōji-ji with the help and patronage of Emperor Go-Daigo. The temple has about twelve buildings in Tsurumi, part of the port city of Yokohama, one designed by the architect Itō Chūta.
Keizan Jōkin, also known as Taiso Jōsai Daishi, is considered to be the second great founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. While Dōgen, as founder of Japanese Sōtō, is known as Highest Ancestor, Keizan is often referred to as Great Ancestor.
Wisdom without a teacher, sometimes also called "self-enlightened and self-certified" (Jp: jigo-jishō, is a term used in Zen Buddhism to refer to the experience of a Zen practitioner reaching enlightenment or kensho without the aid of a master or teacher.
Koun Ejō (孤雲懐奘) (1198–1280) was the second patriarch of the Japanese Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism who lived during the Kamakura period. He was initially a disciple of the short-lived Darumashū sect of Japanese Zen founded by Nōnin, but later studied and received dharma transmission under the Sōtō schools founder Dōgen. Today Ejō is considered Dōgen's spiritual successor by all existing branches of the Sōtō school. He is remembered today primarily as the author of the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, a collection of informal talks by Dōgen which Ejō recorded throughout his discipleship. He is also featured prominently in the Denkōroku, the first major piece of scripture produced in the Sōtō school after Dōgen, with his transmission story serving as the final koan. After Dōgen's death, Ejō struggled to maintain leadership of the new Eihei-ji monastery, due in part to his lack of training in China that prevented him from completing the temple as a Chinese-style meditation hall, as well as unfamiliarity with Chinese-style monastic practices. He gave dharma transmission to Jakuen, Gikai, Gien and Giin, all of whom were originally students of Dōgen, but his failure to designate a clear heir himself led to a power struggle known as the sandai sōron that temporarily split the community.
Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty as the Chan School or the Buddha-mind school, and later developed into various sub-schools and branches. Zen was influenced by Taoism, especially Neo-Daoist thought, and developed as a distinguished school of Chinese Buddhism. From China, Chán spread south to Vietnam and became Vietnamese Thiền, northeast to Korea to become Seon Buddhism, and east to Japan, becoming Japanese Zen.
Hōkyō-ji (宝慶寺) is a Sōtō Zen Buddhist temple founded about 1278 in Echizen, Fukui prefecture, Japan.
Zen lineage charts depict the transmission of the dharma from one generation to another. They developed during the Tang dynasty, incorporating elements from Indian Buddhism and East Asian Mahayana Buddhism, but were first published at the end of the Tang.
The Zen tradition is maintained and transferred by a high degree of institutionalisation, despite the emphasis on individual experience and the iconoclastic picture of Zen.
Modern scientific research on the history of Zen discerns three main narratives concerning Zen, its history and its teachings: Traditional Zen Narrative (TZN), Buddhist Modernism (BM), Historical and Cultural Criticism (HCC). An external narrative is Nondualism, which claims Zen to be a token of a universal nondualist essence of religions.
Gyōbutsu igi, known in English as Dignified Behavior of the Practice Buddha, is a book of the Shōbōgenzō by the 13th century Sōtō Zen monk Eihei Dōgen. It was written in the winter of 1241 at Dōgen's monastery Kōshōhōrin-ji in Kyoto. The book appears as the sixth book in both the 75 and 60 fascicle versions of the Shōbōgenzō, and it is ordered 23rd in the later chronological 95 fascicle Honzan editions. Dōgen discusses similar concepts in two of his formal Dharma Hall Discourses, namely number 119, which was written shortly after Gyōbutsu igi, and number 228, both of which are recorded in the Eihei Kōroku. The title is a quotation from the final chapter of Buddhabhadra's translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra where the phrase was used to simply describe the Buddha, "bearing himself as a Buddha." Dōgen substantially reimagines the meaning of the phrase in this fascicle.
Sansui kyō, rendered in English as Mountains and Waters Sutra, is a book of the Shōbōgenzō by the 13th century Sōtō Zen monk Eihei Dōgen. It is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful of all of the 95 books of the Shōbōgenzō according to Stanford University professor Carl Bielefeldt. The text was written in the fall of 1240 at Dōgen's monastery Kōshōhōrin-ji in Kyoto, and the manuscript from that time in Dōgen's own hand survives. This year saw a marked increase in the output of his essays for the Shōbōgenzō, including the closely related work Keisei sanshoku written a few months before and covering essentially the same theme, namely the mountains and rivers as equivalent to the body and speech of the Buddha. The book appears as the 29th in the 75 fascicle versions of the Shōbōgenzō, and it is ordered 14th in the later chronological 95 fascicle Honzan edition. It was also included as the 14th book of the 28 fascicle "Eiheiji manuscript" Shōbōgenzō. Gudō Nishijima, a modern Zen priest, sums up the essay as follows: "Buddhism is basically a religion of belief in the universe, and nature is the universe showing its real form. So to look at nature is to look at the Buddhist truth itself. For this reason, Master Dōgen believed that nature is just Buddhist sutras."
Yōkō Senne (永興詮慧), more often known simply as Senne (詮慧), was a Japanese Sōtō Zen monk who lived during the Kamakura period and was an important disciple of his sect's founder, Eihei Dōgen. Initially a monk in the Tendai school, he later joined Dōgen at his first monastery, Kōshōhōrin-ji. He would go on to become Dōgen's attendant (jisha) there, and he later compiled the first and ninth volumes of Dōgen's collected works known as Eihei Kōroku. He is one of a small number of students believed to have received dharma transmission from Dōgen, along with Koun Ejō and Sōkai. According to legend, Dōgen even gave Senne the kāṣāya, or dharma robe, of Furong Daokai, a famous 11th century Chinese Zen master, which had in turn been allegedly given to Dōgen by his teacher Tiantong Rujing.
Daichi Sokei (大智祖継) (1290–1366) was a Japanese Sōtō Zen monk famous for his Buddhist poetry who lived during the late Kamakura period and early Muromachi period. According to Steven Heine, a Buddhist studies professor, "Daichi is unique in being considered one of the great medieval Zen poets during an era when Rinzai monks, who were mainly located in Kyoto or Kamakura, clearly dominated the composition of verse."
Meihō Sotetsu (明峰素哲) (1277-1350) was a Japanese Sōtō Zen monk who lived during the late Kamakura period and early Muromachi period. He practiced with Keizan Jōkin, often considered the second most important figure in Sōtō Zen after Eihei Dōgen, for twenty-nine years and ultimately became his primary successor.
