As a religion concerned with universal liberation, Zen grew out of a Buddhist worldview very different from the currently prevalent scientific materialism. Zen cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, dynamic agent of awareness and healing. This book explicates that worldview through the writings of the Zen master Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), considered the founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen tradition, which currently enjoys popularity in the West. The Lotus Sutra, arguably the most important Buddhist scripture in East Asia, contains a famous story about ... More

As a religion concerned with universal liberation, Zen grew out of a Buddhist worldview very different from the currently prevalent scientific materialism. Zen cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, dynamic agent of awareness and healing. This book explicates that worldview through the writings of the Zen master Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), considered the founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen tradition, which currently enjoys popularity in the West. The Lotus Sutra, arguably the most important Buddhist scripture in East Asia, contains a famous story about bodhisattvas (enlightening beings) who emerge from under the earth to preserve and expound the Lotus teaching in the distant future. The story reveals that the Buddha only appears to pass away, but actually has been practicing, and will continue to do so, over an inconceivably long life span. The book traces commentaries on the Lotus Sutra from key East Asian Buddhist thinkers, including Daosheng, Zhiyi, Zhanran, Saigyo, Myoe, Nichiren, Hakuin, and Ryokan. But the main focus is Eihei Dōgen, whose profuse, provocative, and poetic writings are important to the modern expansion of Buddhism to the West. Dōgen's use of this sutra expresses the critical role of Mahnullynullna vision and imagination as the context of Zen teaching, and his interpretations of this story furthermore reveal his dynamic worldview of the earth, space, and time themselves as vital agents of spiritual awakening. The book argues that Dōgen uses the images and metaphors in this story to express his own religious worldview, in which earth, space, and time are lively agents in the bodhisattva project. Broader awareness of Dōgen's worldview and its implications can illuminate the possibilities for contemporary approaches to primary Mahnullynullna concepts and practices.