Poems of Dogen
 

For a while I have taken a great interest in the 13th century zen master Dogen. A fascinating character. One simple thing that I admire is his obvious intensity, how he took every moment of time seriously. The "matter of life and death" was his deep concern There seems so much superficiality today, so much useless and senseless noise - the call to love the world while not conforming to it can create confusion of mind and heart.

But anyway, a poem of Dogen:-

To what shall I
Liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.

Many commentators, led astray by "the languid east" nonsense, and thoughts of maya (understood as "illusion") see such words, understand the poem, as being some some sort of diminution of the individual, and our world as being in a sense unreal.

Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, in his epic poem of the Buddha's life, "The Light of Asia", ended that poem with the words (upon the death of the Buddha as he enters Nirvana):-

"The dewdrop slips into the shining sea". More misunderstanding.

In fact, it is more that the shining sea slips into the dewdrop - yet even that does not capture the Buddhist position, which in fact is a no-position that supecedes all positions.

Getting back to Dogen's poem, here is a more perceptive understanding:-

“According to this verse, the entire world is fully contained in each and every one of the innumerable dewdrops, each one symbolic of the inexhaustible contents of all impermanent moments. Here the dewdrops no longer suggest illusion in contrast to reality because they are liberated by their reflection of the moon’s glow. Conversely, the moon as a symbol of Buddha-nature is not an aloof realm since it is fully merged in the finite and individuated manifestations of the dew. Just as the moon is one with the dewdrops, the poem itself becomes one with the setting it depicts.” (Steven Heine)

Thus the particular is seen to contain the universal. Each and every particular. Every moment. Every NOW. In this world, not some imagined "other" promised beyond the grave.

Another astute commentator Hee-Jin Kim invites us to pay particular attention to the pivotal word “shaken.” He explains:- "Many examples could be given of static images of the moon in a dewdrop or the moon reflected in still water but, by virtue of being shaken, the metaphor becomes dynamic and interactive."

So much for illusion, the diminution of the individual!

The Way does not exist to be found. Each moment is the way - and Dogen presents a very profound way of actualising this. Time is Being, Being is time. Time does not just "fly away", it is eternally present. Every moment is the "time being".

"Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, in his epic poem of the Buddha's life, "The Light of Asia", ended that poem with the words (upon the death of the Buddha as he enters Nirvana):-"

According to Buddhist Scriptures you don't 'enter' Nirvana, you attain it. There are two states of Nirvana, Nirvana with remainder (attained whilst alive) and Parinirvana (Attained at death)....

Thanks for the Poem, it's lovely....

More to follow....

Regarding the Poem.

In Mahayana Buddhism the moon stands for Buddha nature. So the poem teaches that the moon (Buddha nature) is reflected in every one of the countless dew drops which represent (all things).
Another way of looking at it....

Yes, it is common in Japanese poetry that the moon is an image of Buddhist enlightenment. Many ways of looking at it!

Another poem of Dogen:-

Attaining the heart
Of the sutra,
The sounds of the
Bustling marketplace
Preach the Dharma

This is as it should be. Our mind/hearts should open to the world, "hear" the Dharma in each and every moment. In my own Pure Land path of "no-calculation" the "marketplace" is the dojo (training ground), and everyone you meet is a potential "master". If not so, we can end up merely meeting ourselves, time and time again, seeing and hearing reflections and echoes.

I tend to look for correspondences, and moving back "west" there is James Joyce who writes in "Ulysses":-

"God is a shout in the street"

Insights of others are always my mentors, as I am often blind to so much. These from one or two commentaries on the works of James Joyce:-

Bloom (Leopold Bloom of Ulysses) is no perfect hero, but perfection is overrated. Give me a honest human being embracing their mundane humanity any day over a person striving after perfection.

Joyce does not present us with the illusion of a perfect life in this book, a life without pain and sorrow, but in all his honesty Joyce shows us that life as it is and not as we think it should be is worth saying Yes to. The sorrows and difficulties faced in Ulysses are included in Joyce’s affirmation of life, because what good would such an affirmation be if it did not include all of life?

Joyce offers a new litmus test for what we call the hero, not gigantic feats of strength, but small and simple feats of kindness.

And finally:-

An epiphany was not a miraculous dispensation from above but, as Joyce defined it, an insight into 'the soul of the commonest object'

(Kevin Birmingham, from "The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle For James Joyce's Ulysses.")

Simple feats and acts of kindness. So easy to miss, to become deaf and blind to. I think that we can miss so much simply because of expectations of something extraordinary taught in some esoteric text.

Thank you for sharing. It seems as if all precious fixation, and preciousness and fixation are cast aside, naturally in the movement of the crane's bill.
Of course it is still a miracle that the moon appears inside the dewdrop, something the human mind likes to become interested in.

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Thanks. Yes, everything should be ever new, everything a miracle.

There is another poem by Dogen that speaks of finding your true self beyond all the longing and wishing, beyond all fixations.

Just when my longing to see
The moon over Kyoto
One last time grows deepest,
The image I behold this autumn night
Leaves me sleepless for its beauty.

Dogen was on his very last journey and held that yearning for an old fixation in his mind/heart, then the beauty of the present moment was gifted to him.
It is always a gift.

Woww Amazing poem, thanks for sharing. Dogen being the founding Father of Soto Zen, higlighted the Soto Zen sitting meditation which they call Zazen.
Hope it is fair to say that Dogen emphasised that Zazen was 'IT'. You didn't sit to become anything, you just sat, and like the moon your true nature appeared naturally.
Hope you don't mind me saying that, I know your thread is about Dogen's poems but It is so wonderful, simple and tres difficile I thought I'd remind myself. :smile:

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Hello again, yes, according to one of Dogen's commentators, Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen saw Zazen as a " mythic-cultic archetype". Not so much the "only way" as more a symbol that all moments are IT.

But Dogen is so difficult to pin down. But you are right, I think, in saying that it is not a way of becoming anything, but the Way itself. As each moment should be. Me, I just stumble on.