Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen

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State University of New York Press, Mar 10, 2010 - Religion - 184 pages
Thirty years after the publication of his classic work Dōgen Kigen—Mystical Realist, Hee-Jin Kim reframes and recasts his understanding of Dōgen's Zen methodology in this new book. Through meticulous textual analyses of and critical reflections on key passages primarily from Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō, Kim explicates hitherto underappreciated aspects of Dōgen's religion, such as the ambiguity of delusion and also of enlightenment, intricacies of negotiating the Way, the dynamic functions of emptiness, the realizational view of language, nonthinking as the essence of meditation, and a multifaceted conception of reason. Kim also responds to many recent developments in Zen studies that have arisen in both Asia and the West, especially Critical Buddhism. He brings Dōgen the meditator and Dōgen the thinker into relief. Kim's study clearly demonstrates that language, thinking, and reason constitute the essence of Dōgen's proposed Zen praxis, and that such a Zen opens up new possibilities for dialogue between Zen and contemporary thought. This fresh assessment of Dōgen's Zen represents a radical shift in our understanding of its place in the history of Buddhism.
 

Contents

1 A Shattered Mirror a Fallen Flower
1
2 Negotiating the Way
21
3 Weighing Emptiness
39
4 The Reason of Words and Letters
59
5 Meditation as Authentic Thinking
79
Dōri
99
Postscript
121
Glossary of SinoJapanese Words Names and Titles
125
Notes
137
Bibliography
153
Index
161
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Page xi - He who by re-animating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher.

About the author (2010)

Hee-Jin Kim is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon and the author of Dōgen Kigen—Mystical Realist.

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