Zen Master Dogen Guides
Kazuaki Tanahashi Learn More A Reader's Guide to Kazuaki Tanahashi, the poet, artist, activist and modern-day Zen master Related Reader Guides Zen in Japan Early Zen in Japan | Dogen: A Guide to His Works Rinzai Zen | Hakuin Ekaku: A Reader's Guide The Samurai and Zen | Zen up to the Meiji Restoration Chan [...]
Continue Reading >> The Buddhist Translations of Thomas Cleary: A Reader’s Guide
Thomas Cleary (1949—2021) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest translators of Asian classics. He was extremely prolific, translating and authoring countless works. Shambhala Publications has published over sixty. His books have sold millions of copies and his translations have in turn been translated into over twenty languages worldwide. His first published project, in collaboration [...]Dogen: A Guide to His Work This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World. You can start at the beginning of this series or [...]
Continue Reading >> Buddha Nature Read More In the eleventh century, the great Tibetan scholar-practitioner Gampopa (1079–1153) began his composition known as The Jewel Ornament of Liberation with an exposition on the cause for awakening. What is the cause for awakening? In the Vajrayana and third turning traditions of Buddhism it is buddha nature. Buddha nature is our [...]
Continue Reading >> A Walk with Dogen into Our Time
In 1954 poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem called “Song” that acknowledges the weight of our human circumstance and suffering in a particular and somewhat unusual way. I believe it may also provide a gateway to the following writings by Zen master Eihei Dogen, who addressed the nature of reality as he came to understand the world of people and things through his lifetime practice of Zen.