Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to explore and examine what hermeneutic methods can and should be summoned in order to interpret critically an intriguing yet endlessly puzzling sentence in the “Genjōkōan” (現成公案) fascicle of Sōtō sect founder Dōgen’s (道元, 1200–1253) Shōbōgenzō (**法眼蔵). The source material deals with the way perspectives shift dramatically “when riding a boat out to sea, where mountains can no longer be seen (yamanaki kaichū 山なき海中)”? The analogy of sailing past the horizon, so that any trace of land is not visible, and one feels temporarily encircled by the ocean with no other frame of reference available, raises key phenomenological issues regarding the innate partiality or insufficiency of human perception in connection to the Zen goal of awakening to a holistic standpoint that is devoid of divisibility but incorporates an array of standpoints. This passage has been interpreted in diverse ways since the time of early medieval commentaries by Senne and Kyōgō and by Edo-period Sōtō scholiasts, as well as in modern times by various Japanese philosophers and researchers of Dōgen’s texts.
Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbor
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
T.S. Eliot from Four Quartets.
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Notes
- 1.
For the full text of Shōbōgenzō “Genjōkōan” see Dōgen Zenji zenshū 道元禪師全集 [Dōgen’s Complete Works], 7 volumes, ed. Kawamura Kōdō 河村孝道, Kagashima Genryū 鏡島元隆, Suzuki Kakuzen 鈴木格禅, Kosaka Kiyū 小坂機融 et al. (Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1988–1993) [DZZ]: 1:2–7; SZ 1:3–9; and T no. 2582, 82.23b27–25a19. Citations from this and other passages by Dōgen are from DZZ. For a discussion of some similar themes see also Steven Heine, “What Is on the Other Side? Delusion and Realization in Dōgen’s ‘Genjōkōan,’” in Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies, ed. Steven Heine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
- 2.
Other exceptions are “Zenki” (全機) and “Kobusshin” (古佛心) which were both presented to Dōgen’s samurai patron, Hatano Yoshishige (波多野義重), and his entourage off-site from Dōgen’s Kōshōji temple in Kyoto in the early 1240s. “Shōji” (生死) is probably another example but no information is available about its origins.
- 3.
I am influenced by Ōe Kenzaburo’s 大江健三郎 Noble Prize lecture in 1994, Aimai na Nihon no watakushi 曖昧な日本の私 [Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself] (Tokyo: Iwanami shinsho, 1994) in which the term “aimai na” (ambiguous) replaces utsukushii (beautiful) in Kawabata Yasunari’s 川端康成 1968 Nobel lecture, “Utsukushii Nihon no watakushi” from 1968; it is included in Ōe, Aimai na Nihon no watakushi, 1–17. Yet Ōe’s notion recalls, from a different perspective, Kawabata citation from the traditional Ryō** hishō (梁塵秘抄), “Although the Buddha is always present, because in the soundless dawn he does not appear, it seems like nothing but a dream” (仏は常にいませども, 現ならぬぞあわれなる, 人の音せぬ暁に, ほのかに夢に見えたもう).
- 4.
The phrase appears in “Sokushin zebutsu” (即心是佛), “Gyōbutsu iigi” (行佛威儀), “Hakujushi” (柏樹子), and “Daishugyō” (大修行). For an example of its use in the Biyanlu that impacted Dōgen’s rhetoric, see Thomas Cleary and J.C. Cleary, trans. Blue Cliff Record, 3 volumes (Boston: Shambhala, 1977), especially cases 8, 16, 28, 32, 36, 38, 39, 50, 55, 64, 85, 89, 91, 96.
- 5.
See Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, trans. Dogen’s Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Kōroku (Boston: Wisdom, reprint 2010), 1.
- 6.
Watsuji’s work, Shamon Dōgen, was originally published in Tetsurō Watsuji 和辻哲郎, Nihon seishinshi kenkyū 日本精神史研究 [Studies of Japanese Spirituality] (Tōkyō: Iwanami shoten, 1926).
- 7.
Etō’s Shūso toshite no Dōgen Zenji has been translated as, Zen Master Dōgen as Founding Patriarch. See Sokuō Etō, Zen Master Dōgen as Founding Patriarch, trans. Ichimura Shohei (Washington State: North American Institute of Zen and Buddhist Studies, 2001).
- 8.
See Seijun Ishii 石井清純, “New Trends in Dōgen Studies in Japan,” in Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies, ed. Steven Heine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); and Kiyotaka Kimura, 木村清孝, Shōbōgenzō zenbon kaidoku **法眼蔵全巻解読 [Comments on the Entire Collection of the Shōbōgenzō] (Tōkyō: Kōsei shuppan, 2015), 13–15.
- 9.
Ralf Müller, “The Philosophical Reception of Japanese Buddhism After 1868,” in The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy, ed. Gereon Kopf (Dordrecht: Springer, 2019), 174.
- 10.
This text is included in SZ, volumes 10–11; the specific “Genjōkōan” passage is discussed in 10.12–14. See also **bō Nyoten神保如天 and Andō Bun’ei 安藤文英, eds. Shōbōgenzō chūkai zensho **法眼蔵注解全書 [Complete Commentaries on the Shōbōgenzō], 11 volumes (Tōkyō: Shōbōgenzō bussho kankōkai, reprint 1957) for additional commentaries.
- 11.
See Steven Heine, Flowers Blooming on a Withered Tree: Giun’s Verse Comments on Dōgen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
- 12.
See Nishiari, Shōbōgenzō keiteki; and Nishiari, Dōgen’s Genjo Koan, Bokusan Nishiari 西有穆山, Shōbōgenzō keiteki **法眼蔵啓迪 [Edifying Discourses on the Shōbōgenzō], 3 volumes, ed. Kurebayashi Kōdō 榑林皓堂 (Tōkyō: Daihōrinkan, reprint 1965) and Bokusan Nishiari, “Commentary on Dogen’s Genjo Koan,” in Dogen’s Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries, trans. Sojun Mel Weitsman and Kazuaki Tanahashi (Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2011).
- 13.
See Kōdō Kurebayashi, Genjōkōan wo kataru: ima wo ikiru Shōbōgenzō kōsan 現成公案を語る—今を生きる**法眼蔵講讃 [Discussions of “Genjōkōan”: Lectures on the Shōbōgenzō for Living Today] (Tōkyō: Daihōrinkan, 1992).
- 14.
See Kazuo Morimoto 森本和夫, Derrida kara Dōgen e: datsu–kochiku to shin** datsuraku デリダから道元へ―脱構築と身心脱落 [From Derrida to Dōgen: Deconstruction and Drop** Off Body-Mind] (Tokyo: Fukutake Books, 1989).
- 15.
See Takushi Odagiri, “Dōgen’s Fallibilism: Three Fascicles of Shōbōgenzō,” The Journal of Religion 96, no. 4 (2016).
- 16.
See Cleary and Cleary, Blue Cliff Record, cases 4, 10, 16.
- 17.
See David E. Riggs, “The Life of Menzan Zuihō, Founder of Dōgen Zen,” Japan Review 16 (2004).
- 18.
See Enryō Inoue 井上圓了, Zenshū tetsugaku joron 禅宗哲学序論 [Prolegomenon to a Philosophy of the Zen School] (Tōkyō: Tetsugaku shoin. 1893); Shōfū Yamagami 山上嘨風 “Dōgen zenji no uchūkan” 道元禅師の宇宙観 [Zen Master Dōgen’s View of the Universe], Wayūshi 和融社 10 (1906); and Yōjun Yodono 淀野耀淳, “Dōgen no shūkyō oyobi tetsugaku” 道元の宗教及び哲学 [Dōgen’s Religion and Philosophy] Tōyō tetsugaku 東洋哲学18 (1911), 3.1–9, 4.16–29, 5.15–29, 6.16–25, 7.13–23.
- 19.
Steve Bein, Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Shamon Dogen, trans. Steve Bein, Commentary by Steve Bein, (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011), 26.
- 20.
Ibid., 28–29.
- 21.
See Sokuō Etō衛藤即応, ed. Shōbōgenzō **法眼蔵, 3 volumes (Tōkyō: Iwanami bunko, 1939–1943).
- 22.
Etō was criticized by a research associate for apparent errors included in the published text and, eventually, the 95-fascicle on which he relied was discredited and replaced in the early 1990s by the 4–volume edition edited in Yaoko Mizuno 水野弥穂, ed. Shōbōgenzō**法眼蔵, 4 volumes (Tōkyō: Iwanami bunko, 1990–1993).
- 23.
DZZ 4.22 (entry 6.432), and DZZ 3. 34 (entry 1.48).
- 24.
Etō, Zen Master Dōgen as Founding Patriarch, xxiii.
- 25.
Ibid, 59. Furthermore, “No matter how profound Dōgen’s insight may have been, if we view it simply as philosophical thought, we will fail to uncover the fundamental aspect of the Zen master,” 19.
- 26.
Müller, “The Philosophical Reception of Japanese Buddhism After 1868,” 187.
- 27.
See William M. Bodiford, “Dharma Transmission in Soto Zen: Manzan Dōhaku’s Reform Movement,” Monumenta Nipponica 46, no. 4 (1991).
- 28.
Bein, Purifying Zen, 17.
- 29.
See John Jorgensen, “Zen Scholarship: Mujaku Dōchū and His Contemporaries,” Zenbunka kenkyūsho kiyō 禅分化研究所紀要27 (2004).
- 30.
Yansheng He 何燕生, Dōgen to Chūgoku Zen no shisō 道元と中國禪思想 [Dōgen and Chinese Chan Thought] (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2001), viii.
- 31.
???
- 32.
DZZ 1.324.
- 33.
In other texts Dōgen often refers to two Tang Chan masters: the Boatman Monk Chuanzi Decheng (船子德誠, 820–858), who for decades rode in a boat without ever landing; and Xuansha (玄沙, 835–908), who before becoming a monk used a fishing boat.
- 34.
The verb tōhon (踏飜), rendered here as “overturning,” as in tip** over a boat, is used in Chan texts to express an adept’s ability “to toss topsy-turvy the great ocean or leap beyond Mount Sumeru” (踏翻大海趯倒須彌).
- 35.
DZZ 1.413.
- 36.
DZZ 1.260.
- 37.
See Naohiro Matsunami松波直弘, Kamakura ki Zenshū shisōshi no kenkyū 鎌倉期禅宗思想史の研究 [Studies of the Intellectual History of the Zen School in the Kamakura Era] (Tokyo: Pelikan, 2011).
- 38.
William M. Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993), 44–48.
- 39.
Nishiari, Dōgen’s Genjo Koan, 80.
- 40.
Ibid., 117.
- 41.
Ibid., 81.
- 42.
Based on conversations with Frédéric Girard at Komazawa University (May 18, 2019); see Frédéric Girard, “Le bouddhisme médiéval japonais en question,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 87, Me’langes du Centenaire 2 (2000).
- 43.
In traditional accounts, during a threatening storm on his return trip Dōgen encountered a mysterious manifestation of One–Leaf Kannon (一葉の観音), who quieted the waves.
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Heine, S. (2023). Going Out to Sea: Dōgen’s Ongoing Emphasis on the Creative Ambiguity of Horizons. In: Müller, R., Wrisley, G. (eds) Dōgen’s texts. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42246-1_2
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