Study
Where to start
- ShobogenzoMaster Eihei Dogen’s main work in the authorised English translation, chapter by chapter, with modern interpretations.
- TalksMike Luetchford’s talks from retreats: transcripts and recordings.
- Further readingShorter texts by Mike Luetchford, the Introduction to Buddhism, the Heart Sutra and Gudo Nishijima’s videos.
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Modern interpretations
five chapters retold by Mike Luetchford- Bendōwa How To Pursue the Truth cz
- Genjō-kōan The Universe Made Real cz
- Ikka-no-myoju The One Bright Pearl
- Uji Time-Present
- Bussho Buddha-nature
All five are here in English and in Slovak; Bendōwa and Genjō-kōan also in Czech, translated by Roman Válek. For Uji, also the paper The Concept of Now in Dogen’s Philosophy.
Buddhism emotions poetry noticing independence Nagarjuna mu ideas and reality cause and effect
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In these texts, Buddhism in its essence is the practice of zazen, and its teaching is about the reality we are experiencing now.
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In these texts, acceptance means accepting this world as it is, which is called the fundamental basis of Buddhist thought.
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In these texts, action is the centre of Buddhism and the basis of our life: doing something here and now, in the present moment.
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In these texts, an aim is only an idea, while the place we actually arrive at is real.
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In these texts, balance is the state in which body and mind are balanced; zazen is a very simple practice of it.
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Being where we are means being in the place and time we are actually in, instead of being pulled forward towards something we want to get.
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In these texts, real belief is not only intellectual but also a kind of physical belief, and it has the power to direct our actions.
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In these texts, a bodhisattva is a person who has intuitively recognised the truth of Buddhism and is on the way to its final attainment.
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In these texts, Buddhism is very concerned with bodily health.
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These texts question the usual picture of the brain as a central control: our consciousness as a control center, and the body doing what we want it to do.
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In these texts, a buddha is someone who is awake: simply being here, not lost in thoughts or trapped by emotions.
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Buddha-nature (Bussho) has usually been understood as a potential or a seed inside us; in these texts it is a state of body and mind at the present moment, something we are rather than have.
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In these texts, Buddhism in its essence is the practice of zazen, and its teaching is about the reality we are experiencing now.
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In these texts, Buddhism in the West is the Buddhism that has become very popular in Western countries, with many groups and centres in Europe.
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In these texts, Buddhist theory is any explanation that describes the truth of this world, including science and mathematics.
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In these texts, cause and effect means that whatever we do has a result, without exception, even if we do not know it.
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In these texts, ceremonies are a way of teaching ourselves to behave properly, and the basis of Buddhism is to make ordinary life into a ceremony.
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In these texts, Christianity is mostly discussed in contrast to Buddhism, as a religion that splits good and bad completely: if we do bad, God will punish us.
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In these texts, compassion is not one-sided: everything is both for ourselves and for somebody else at the same time, so we should be a bit selfish and a bit selfless.
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In these texts, complete action is acting fully: totally involved in what we are doing, without a person who is watching and without a viewpoint from which to look at it.
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In these texts, conditioning is how upbringing and past experience shape us: we have a mental viewpoint formed from our past experiences, and if we are taught to think about everything before we act, we are imprisoned by our brain.
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In these texts, the constructed world is the picture of ourselves and our world that we build and share with other people: a constructed self, shared time, social reality.
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In these texts, delusion is, for example, setting out to make ourselves one with reality, or driving ourselves to get what we want.
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In these texts, desire is natural, and we should not try to make it zero; the teaching is to have small desire and to know satisfaction.
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Dharma is a Sanskrit word with many meanings: things or objects (dharmas), conduct, law and, in the ultimate sense, a universal law that governs the universe.
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In these texts, dialectic is Dogen's way of explaining what is real: he looks at a problem from two sides, then tries to synthesize the two viewpoints into a middle way.
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Dogen is the Japanese Buddhist master whose teaching is recorded in Shobogenzo.
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In these texts, doubt belongs to the search: the young Dogen could not get rid of the question why we need to study so hard if we are all perfect.
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In these texts, dropping off means letting go rather than attaining: we stop holding something instead of pushing it away.
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In these texts, effort is made wholeheartedly and for its own sake, without worrying about the result; the secret is balanced effort, not trying too hard.
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In these texts, we could not live in society without an ego, but it is also necessary to let go of it sometimes; trying to get rid of it only makes it stronger.
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In these texts, an emotion such as anger is not a special, separate thing but a label we give to a state.
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Shunyata is the Sanskrit word for emptiness; the Heart Sutra says that form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
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In these texts enlightenment, satori in Japanese, is not a special superhuman state where we no longer have any problems.
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In these texts all behaviours in our day-to-day life can be Buddhist practice.
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In the chapter Bussho (The Buddha-nature) Dogen writes that the Buddha-nature is always Total Existence.
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In these texts experience is the essential experience before we start thinking, which we cannot put into words.
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In these texts the four views are idealism, based on thought; materialism, based on matter; the view of action; and reality itself, which embraces all views.
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In these texts freedom is the freedom of action in the present moment: in this moment our action can be free, and freedom exists even in a prison cell.
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Gautama Buddha is the establisher of Buddhism, presented in these texts as a man, not a god.
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Genjo-koan is a compact chapter of Dogen's Shobogenzo, written in autumn 1233.
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The great religions speak of God as a non-physical power we make contact with and receive instructions from.
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In these texts habits are ingrained in us, to some extent in our muscles, and we practise in order to drop them off.
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In these texts happiness is simple: we find it in the present moment and in simple activities, such as walking to the coffee machine.
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In these texts Buddhism is very concerned about bodily health.
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In these texts the history of Buddhism comes in a few episodes: in Gautama Buddha's India an old spiritual religion, Brahmanism, faced new thinkers; soon after the Buddha's death people made him into a god; and ancestors in Japan brought esoteric theoretical teachings back from China.
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In these texts the human condition is that we mistake our thoughts for reality.
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In these texts idealism means basing how we live on ideas, concepts or principles taken to be true; to be idealistic is to follow our idea.
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In these texts ideas are different from reality, and reality is always here and now.
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In these texts impermanence means that nothing endures: there is no permanent mind, essence or self, though we impose an enduring quality on things.
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In these texts the important things in Buddhist practice are the very small, simple things we do, such as cutting the leeks or the onion, chopping wood or pushing a broom.
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In these texts independence means finding our own way, not somebody else's, and our own place, what suits us.
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An informal group is how Mike describes Dogen Sangha: not an organisation but people who meet to practise.
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In these texts being fully in the present is not an intentional activity, and whether we repeat an action depends on our state, not on our intention.
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In these texts Japan is a country whose daily life is soaked with Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist habits that people are not aware of.
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In these texts judgement is evaluating and comparing, criticising others and blaming ourselves.
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Koans are stories of real conversations between a Buddhist teacher and a student, a monk or sometimes a lay person, passed on in medieval China.
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Kodo Sawaki was a Japanese Buddhist master, born in 1880 in the west of Japan.
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In these texts words and labels describe things, but a description is never the thing itself: reality is beyond our labels, and to describe something is to restrict it.
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In these texts learning is not only received knowledge given to us by others but an apprenticeship: studying with a real teacher, perhaps for ten years, and practising day after day, a little at a time.
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In these texts our life is not a planned course that we sail along: it is created moment by moment by our action in this moment.
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In these texts life-and-death is the real, momentary state at the present moment.
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In these texts materialism is the view based on matter, the way of science, and it contradicts idealism, the way of religion.
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The middle way is what Gautama Buddha found between two extremes: material pleasure and extreme spiritual enthusiasm.
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Mind here translates the Japanese shin, which is nearer to conscious awareness, heart and mind together: the mind with which we are in the world, not the one with which we analyse it.
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Mistakes are natural in Buddhist life: we often make them as we try to live and practise, so we should not criticise them in others.
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Monastic life is life in Buddhist temples, where monks live by a fixed routine and many rules, from hygiene to meals and the zazen hall; Dogen wrote such rules for his temple.
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Mu means not, no or without.
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Nagarjuna is the fourteenth patriarch in the chapter Bussho, a man from western India whose body manifests the roundness of the moon.
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Naturalness is our natural, normal state: not a special or spiritual state but a simple, balanced one, which we may see in babies and animals.
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In these texts, nature is a face of the truth: this world is the truth, and nature, its material side, is always speaking it.
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In these texts, nirvana is the Universe itself without the order we impose on it; it does not hide behind daily life but is just our daily life.
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Gudo Wafu Nishijima Roshi is a teacher in the lineage these texts present and Mike Luetchford's teacher.
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Not knowing, in these texts, means we cannot know what is, yet we are in it and act in it.
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Noticing means simply seeing how we are and what the real situation is, apart from like or dislike.
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One bright pearl is Master Gensa Shibi's saying, which Dogen comments on in the chapter Ikka-no-myoju: the whole Universe in ten directions is one bright pearl.
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Oneness means what we usually separate in our minds, like self and world or subject and object, is one reality in action.
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In these texts, body and mind are one thing that we separate, sometimes into body, sometimes into mind.
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In these texts, everything real has two sides, and the two sides are not separate.
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Organization here means how Buddhist groups are structured.
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In these texts, sense perception is sometimes reliable and sometimes not.
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In these texts, perfection is not a perfect state or world created in our mind but real life as it is, this chaotic mess in front of us.
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Poetry here means poems the texts quote: Daikan Eno's poem that there is no bright mirror to polish, Minister Hyo's verse on sitting in zazen when official business allows, T.
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In the chapter Bendōwa, Dogen writes that practice and experience are one: because practice is just experience, experience is endless, and no experience is to be expected outside practice.
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Prajñā is a Sanskrit word, translated as real wisdom.
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The precepts are the rules of Buddhist life, summarised as the sixteen bodhisattva precepts; receiving them became the entrance to Buddhist life.
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Realism means Buddhism is realistic, neither idealistic nor materialistic: a pragmatic way of living, called philosophy rather than religion.
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In these texts, reality is what is already there before we name it or think about it: a person and the world meeting in an instant, as ordinary as making tea.
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Realization here means making real, not understanding: when we do something, we make ourselves and the Universe real.
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Rebirth, or reincarnation, is the idea that something carries on after death into another body.
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These texts speak mostly of spiritual religion, in which right and wrong are clearly separated and defined, and which in the modern age confronts science.
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A retreat, called in Zen a sesshin, is a concentrated few days of living quietly and in a settled way, away from the pressure of home and work.
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In these texts, right and wrong are not abstractions waiting somewhere to be done but part of what we do.
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The Buddhist robe is called kaṣāya in Sanskrit and kesa in Japanese; the rakusu, a miniature travelling robe, has become a symbol of taking the precepts.
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In these texts, sacred and ordinary are two sides of one thing: everything is both.
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Sangha is a Sanskrit word meaning community, association or group; in these texts, people practising Buddhism together.
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In these texts, science is the most powerful of our explanations of reality, stronger than religious explanation, and founded on the belief that cause and effect is absolute.
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In these texts, the self is not a permanent soul or essence that goes on after death; we put ourselves together at each moment.
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The Shobogenzo is a collection of Master Dogen's talks and essays.
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In these texts, simplicity is not a severe life without possessions or desires.
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In these texts, sincerity is honesty towards ourselves and towards others: we tell and listen without any lies and say exactly how it is for us.
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In these texts, society is the complex human world we have to fit into.
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In these texts, space is something we share with everything: in zazen we share space with the whole Universe, and in the moment of acting there is a balance between us and the world.
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In these texts, spiritual religions are seen as one-sided, and the belief in a spiritual force outside the world that tells us what to do is questioned; Buddhism says to make ourselves one.
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In these texts, sport teaches us how to act.
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In these texts, being stupid is praised: not relying on cleverness and knowledge in the brain, but doing simple, stupid but very valuable things such as zazen, just sitting.
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In these texts, the seeing subject and the object seen, which we usually separate in our minds, are one reality in action.
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In these texts, suffering, dukkha in Sanskrit, is often called dissatisfaction, and our wanting creates it.
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Sutras are texts of the Buddha's teaching, such as the very short Heart Sutra, which contains the most fundamental principle of Buddhism.
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In these texts, a teacher is a real person, not a book or a theory, from whom we learn everything over many years, as in the ancient apprenticeship system.
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In these texts, thoughts come and go, and we cannot help thinking even in zazen, though there we do not think intentionally.
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In these texts, thinking about something and doing it are different.
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The Three Treasures are Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which Buddhism traditionally reveres.
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In these texts, time is this moment, here and now, and not only something that flows from the past into the future.
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In these texts, tradition is what we learn from our teacher, a real person, not what we read in a book.
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In these texts, translation brings Dogen and the Buddhist scriptures from Chinese characters and Japanese into other languages.
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Transmission is the passing on of the practice of zazen, the Buddha-Dharma, from teacher to student in one direct line.
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In these texts, the truth is not something abstract in the mental area; we search for it right here.
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In these texts, understanding is intellectual knowing, much of it information received from outside, at school and from books.
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In these texts, the Universe is all things and phenomena, mental as well as physical.
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In these texts, a viewpoint is like a pair of glasses we wear: a mental viewpoint formed from our past experiences, through which our mind keeps interpreting reality.
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In these texts, Western civilisation has been idealistic for more than 2,000 years, biased towards the conceptual and towards achieving goals or perfection, and it has learned to separate thinking from doing.
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Western thinkers are the philosophers and scientists quoted in these texts: Plato, for whom this imperfect world is a shadow of a perfect world of ideas; Einstein, for whom time is relative to the observer; David Bohm, whose conclusion in atomic physics matches that of Buddhism; and also Wittgenstein and John Searle.
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In these texts, the whole is present in each part: there is a Universe inside the atom, the same Universe that we are inside, and each branch of a fern has the shape of the whole leaf.
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In these texts, all work has the same value: typing numbers in a big office and sweeping out the toilets are the same thing.
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Zazen is sitting upright, the back naturally straight and balanced: a simple physical practice, not an intellectual study.
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Zen is the name of a school of Buddhism.
E-books
- For e-readers the selected Shobogenzo chapters published on this site, and the talk transcripts, as EPUB and AZW3 e-books
- Shobogenzo e-books four volumes of Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross’s translation