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Title: How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice As Taught in Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo by Francis Harold Cook, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, Dogen Shobo Genzo, Francis Dojun Cook ISBN: 0-86171-317-6 Publisher: Wisdom Publications Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: On Zen practice: clarification & inspiration
Comment: This book is a translation and explication of selected essays by Dogen, the 13th-century Zen master who founded the Soto school of Zen in Japan and is regarded as one the world's great religious teachers. Francis Dojun Cook is a retired professor of Buddhism and a serious Zen practitioner (he was a student of Maezumi Roshi, founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles), and his primary aim in this book is "to help the reader gain a better understanding of what it means to practice Zen, particularly in the Soto form established by Dogen Zenji."
The first half of the book is Cook's introduction to the Dogen texts, highlighting and clarifying some important themes. The second half is Cook's translations of the "Fukan zazengi" ("General Recommendations for Doing Zazen") and nine chapters from the "Shobogenzo"--texts chosen because they focus on various aspects of practice. At the end of the book is a lineage chart including many of the Zen masters mentioned in the Dogen essays.
Ch. 1 is mainly about how Dogen understands practice. Ch. 2 is about faith as the basis of Dogen's Zen. (Cook defines Buddhist faith as "a very deep certitude in the veracity of a certain doctrine, accepted and used as a touchstone for conduct in the faith that practice will verify its truth.") Ch. 3 is about arousing the thought of enlightenment (bodhichitta)--that is, arousing the determination to work ceaselessly to liberate all other beings from suffering and delusion, even while not being completely liberated oneself. Ch. 4 is about Zen as a means of dealing with karma and its consequences, not by "transcending" conditioned existence but by radically affirming and fully experiencing it. Ch. 5 is about the role of the scriptures in Dogen's Zen. (I liked Cook's observation that the verse attributed to Bodhidharma cautions only against "dependence" on words and letters, not against making use of them.) And Ch. 6 is about the continuous practice needed to live each moment fully, with wisdom and compassion.
My own practice can actually get derailed by questions like "Where do I get the motivation to practice, if not from the just the sort of self-centered attachments and aversions that I'm hoping to let go of through Zen practice?" and "How do I practice without making it an exercise in trying to get something I lack, thus denying the inherent buddha-nature I'm hoping to realize?" This book deals with such issues in a way that I found very helpful. (As usual, I found Dogen's interpreter more helpful than Dogen himself. Maybe someday I'll be able to get more inspiration from Dogen directly?) I also appreciated Cook's argument that Dogen's faith-based Zen is much more akin to a religion of "other-power" (tariki) like Pure Land Buddhism than to a religion of "self-power" (jiriki), which is how Zen sometimes gets characterized.
One tiny complaint: Cook slips into some of the caricatures of Christianity that I find tiresome in Zen literature. I wish Zennies would just stick with talking about Zen and not try to talk about how Zen compares with traditions they don't know nearly as much about.
Another Dogen commentary I highly recommend: "Flowers Fall: A Commentary on Zen Master Dogen's Genjokoan" by Hakuun Yasutani Roshi.
Rating: 5
Summary: A masterful and evocative translation
Comment: Professor Dojun Cook is one rare bird. Not only is he a translator of great learning, he is also a dyed-in-the-wool Zen practitioner.
His years of study and practice with Taizan Maezumi Roshi at the Zen Center of Los Angeles enable him to bring these texts to beautiful clarity.
Reading Dogen Zenji can be a challenging exercise. Translating him is infinitely more so. Dr. Cook has shown himself equal to the task. This book is a great boon to thoughtful Buddhists everywhere.
Rating: 5
Summary: Dogen's inexhaustible spring of wisdom.
Comment: HOW TO RAISE AN OX : Zen Practice as Taught in Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo - Including Ten Newly Translated Essays by Francis Dojun Cook. Foreword by Taizan Maezumi Roshi. 216 pp. Los Angeles, California : Center Publications, 1978 and Reprinted.
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Dogen (1200-1253). As one of the most powerful and brilliant minds Asia has produced - and it has produced many - his many-levelled and multi-faceted works should be viewed, not so much as a purely local and Japanese phenomenon, but as a supreme contribution to world literature. For all of us, he is, as Taizan Maezumi Roshi says, an inexhaustible spring of wisdom.
Dogen's works are profound. They express the point-of-view of an enlightened Master. Such works, especially when written in a sinograph-based language such as Japanese or Chinese, present almost insuperable problems of interpretation, and there are very few scholars who are equal to the task of translating them.
Dr Francis Cook comes to this task well-prepared. His work is highly respected in scholarly circles, he has held faculty posts at Dartmouth College and the University of California at Riverside, where he was an associate professor in the Religious Studies program, and he has a number of impressive publications to his credit.
In addition, he has a masterful command of the Japanese language, a command enhanced by two years spent as a Fulbright Fellow at Kyoto University. He has also devotedly practiced Zen meditation for many years. This last is extremely important as enabling Dr Cook to rise above the intellectualizing and speculation which limits so much contemporary Zen scholarship.
As he himself explains, the translator must be able to "approach the text in the light of his own Zen practice.... because unless the translator has some insight, however small, into what Dogen Zenji is saying, he will miss much in the text and the translation will suffer" (page 89). This is a simple point, but it is often overlooked, not only by translators, but also by a certain type of reader.
The present book falls fairly equally into two parts. The first 99 pages give us Dr Cook's introductory material in seven chapters: Introduction; The Importance of Faith; Arousing the Thought of Enlightenment; The Problem of Karma; The Scriptures; Giving Life to Our Lives; Concerning the Translation.
99 pages of 'introduction' may seem a lot, but Dr Cook has such a clear mind, and such an enviably clear and simple prose style, that anyone who is at all serious about trying to understand Dogen will find these pages extremely interesting. Here is an example, picked out at random, of Dr Cook's style:
"Dogen Zenji himself was not an ordinary man.... He addresses the reader from a level of spiritual insight that is greatly superior to ours, and the reader's challenge is to try to comprehend Dogen's vision of reality from the vantage point of his remarkable achievement. He is very difficult to follow because he sees a reality we do not even vaguely imagine" (page 88).
The remaining half of the book is taken up with Dr Cook's translations of ten chapters on practice from the Shobogenzo:
FUKANZAZENGI "General Recommendations for Doing Zazen;" KEISEI SANSHOKU "The Sounds of the Valley Streams, the Forms of the Mountains;" HOTSU MUJO SHIN "Arousing the Supreme Thought;" SHUKKE "Home Departure;" RAIHAI TOKUZUI "Paying Homage and Acquiring the Essence;" SHUNJU "Spring and Fall;" SHINJIN INGA "Deep Faith in Cause and Effect;" NYORAI ZENSHIN "The Tathagata's Whole Body;" GYOJI "Continuous Practice;" KAJO "Everyday Life."
Each of these chapters has been given brief but helpful Notes, and the book is rounded out with four Genealogy Charts of Chinese Zen Masters to enable the reader to locate in time the various individuals mentioned in the essays.
Here are a few lines from Cook's reading of the FUKANZAZENGI:
"... you must suspend your attempts to understand by means of scrutinizing words, reverse the activity of the mind which seeks externally, and illuminate your own true nature" (page 96).
What we are seeking, in other words, is not 'out there,' and one can only go astray by seeking it 'out there.' Here is the source of the West's fundamental error, an error which has generated the massive confusion around us, a confusion which is not going to go away until we start taking Dogen seriously.
Though it will probably be a long time before the West has humility enough to acknowledge that Zen Master Dogen belongs right up there along with such luminaries as Plato and Augustine, it's heartening to see that many Dogen translations have now begun to appear. These translations range all the way from the sincere and highly competent, through to the probably equally sincere but somewhat less competent.
Since very few, even among Japanese, understand Medieval Japanese, I'm not in a position to say whether Dr Cook's translation is 'excellent,' though it reads very well and I strongly suspect that it is. He's certainly put in the leg work to qualify as a highly competent translator, and anyone who may be looking for a good edition of Dogen could do worse than select his.
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Title: Moon in a Dewdrop : Writings of Zen Master Dogen by Eihei Dogen, Kazuaki Tanahashi ISBN: 086547186X Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 31 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Shobogenzo: Zen Essays by Dogen by Dogen, Thomas Cleary ISBN: 0824814010 Publisher: University of Hawaii Press Pub. Date: January, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: On Zen Practice: Body, Breath, Mind by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi, Bernard Glassman ISBN: 086171315X Publisher: Wisdom Publications Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Art of Just Sitting: Essential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikantaza by John Daido Loori, Taigen Dan Leighton, Taigen Daniel Leighton ISBN: 0861713273 Publisher: Wisdom Publications Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Record of Transmitting the Light: Zen Master Keizan's Denkoroku by Keizan, Francis Dojun Cook, Francis Harold Cook, John Daido Loori ISBN: 0861713303 Publisher: Wisdom Publications Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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