Hi,

I am resuming our reading of Master Dogen's SHOBOGENZO ZUIMONKI. If you recall, the "experiment" we were conducting in reading was as follows ...

THIS IS A BIT OF AN EXPERIMENT! Master Dogen's Shobogenzo-Zuimonki is rather different from many other Dogen writings in being relatively easy to read, plain and down to earth (the "Shobogenzo-Zuimonki" is very different from his similarly named "Shobogenzo")! The Zuimonki is filled with bits of wisdom, little fortune cookies, short talks on all kinds of subjects.

The "experiment" I would like to try is to see if we can apply these short talks, meant mostly for Japanese monks in a monastery, samurai and others in the 13th century, to our lives in the 21st century, out in the world. As I said, nothing to lose (or, as Dogen might say, "no loss no gain!" )

YOUR ASSIGNMENT will be to try to related these talks to modern life, and your life (which may not always be possible to do ... but we can have fun trying!)
I want to continue the experiment, but I want to really underline that Master Dogen (who could be as "fire and brimstone" as Ol' Martin Luther or John Calvin in his way of talking) was writing this as a monk, to monks in his charge. His "experiment" at Eiheiji Monastery was to try to build a radical, Buddhist "Kibbutz", almost a kind of utopian Buddhist comminuty ... and we are very clearly trying to bring these teachings out into the world (in some ways, against the monastic ideal the Master Dogen had). My questions to everyone in all these readings will be can we succeed in doing so, can his principles and practice be adapted to Zen practice 'out in the world', or are we in danger of 'going to far'?

I would like to consider those questions as we move through these pages of Master Dogen's 'fire and brimstone' words.

There will only be 3 sections this week: 3-7 to 3-9, available online here:

http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/common_ ... 03-09.html

For more details, look here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1779

Gassho and Good Reading, Jundo