The Real Shobogenzo: Why Dogen Plagiarized the Title From A Zen Master that Dogen Hated

So, it's widely known that Dogen hated Dahui, who wrote the original Shobogenzo:

Dogen criticizes Dahui for his lack of sincerity, worldly ambition, ignorance of Buddhist tradition, and neglect of Buddhist training. He reject Dahui's thought as tending toward pagan belief in the fallacy of naturalism (jinen ken)[ewk1], which ignores the basic Buddhist doctrine of cause and effect that is that rationale for religious cultivation.

Dogen dismisses Dahui's spiritual attainments as nothing more than the memorization of a few passages of scripture by a student who was unworthy of his teacher.

So why would Dogen plagiarized the title of a famous book by a Zen Master when Dogen hated that Zen Master?

And why would Dogen's "New Shobogenzo" contain no commentary by Dogen himself at all? Why was it just a random collection of Cases, with no reference to Dogen's own teachings?

Easy answer: Dogen was a fraud, and he tried to publicize his own name without actually producing any content.

Submitted November 01, 2018 at 08:14AM by ewk https://ift.tt/2QbZptR