poorly written Shobogenzo? Dogen criticism

An article from a blog titled "The Zennist" begins its criticism of Dogen while citing a Soto zen Scholar.

Looking at the history of Soto Zen in Japan, not everyone bought into Dogen’s works, especially bowing down before his almost incomprehensible and poorly written Shobogenzo.  Soto Zen scholar Tenkei Denson (1648-1735) didn’t, nor did the Rinzai Zen scholar Mujaku Dochu (1653-1744).  This is what William Bodiford has to say on the matter.  It’s quite interesting.

"During this period, Tenkei Denson (1648-1735), a Soto scholar, conducted the first full-length, line by line study of the Shobo genzo since Kyogo. His commentary, the Benchu (written ca. 1726-1729), rejected outright six Shobo genzo chapters and suggested alterations to many others. Tenkei, in addition to editing out passages that failed to agree with his own understanding, also "corrected" Dogen's readings of Chinese passages by adding additional words or changing the punctuation. Significantly, Tenkei's criticisms of the  Shobo genzo were in agreement with many of those expressed by a Rinzai monk, Mujaku Dochu (1653-1744), who wrote his own critique at about the same time (ca. 1725-1726). Of the twenty objections raised by Mujaku, ten also are found in Tenkei's Benchu. Tenkei and Mujaku alike believed in a basic unity underlying all Zen, Soto and Rinzai, Japanese and Chinese. Neither could accept Dogen's criticisms of famous Chinese masters. Another major difficulty was Dogen's use of scripture. Both Tenkei and Mujaku protested Dogen's ungrammatical readings of Chinese texts. These criticisms revealed that the  Shobo genzo, even if proven to be Dogen's own composition, could not be accepted as authoritative until new hermeneutics were developed to explain and justify Dogen's unusual expressions” (Soto Zen in Medieval Japan, p. 49).

This discussion has been happening a long while to say the least.

Submitted December 19, 2019 at 05:30AM by royalsaltmerchant https://ift.tt/2Q4i6km