BOOK REVIEW: For Dogen Fans, Prof. Heine's "Flowers Blooming on a Withered Tree"
I would like to recommend to our Dogen students Prof. Steven Heine's recent "Flowers Blooming on a Withered Tree."
There were two main commentaries to Shobogenzo published in the decades following Dogen's death in 1253. One is known as the "prose comments" (the Gokikigakishō 御聴書抄, or Goshō 御抄 for short) by Senne and Kyōgō, two of Dogen's direct disciples, prized as containing the insights and asides of two students who had studied directly with Dogen himself. However, Senne's portion, completed in 1282, and Kyogo's comments thereon which were added in 1308, together total a few dozen volumes and have never been extensively translated into English.
Dr. Heine's book focuses on another commentary, the so-called "verse comments" (Shōbōgenzō honmokujujaku 正法眼蔵品目頌著) by Giun, who was born in the very year that Dogen died (1253) and was a student of Dogen's Chinese born student, Jakuen. This work was published in 1329, and consists of a series of Kanbun poems, generally of 4 seven-character lines each (along with later capping phrases by another priest) for each of the fascicles (chapters) of what is know as the "60-fascicle edition" of the Shobogenzo. Despite its relative brevity, Giun's verse comments has been prized by Dogen students, both in the years immediately following its publication and in recent centuries.
At first, before reading the book, I was a little skeptical that a short poem expressing an entire fascicle would be of much actual utility or value as a commentary. Dogen's writings are typically vast, wild and wide ranging, thus often impossible to summarize in a mere sentence or two. But my doubts were soon washed away. Giun's small poems and the accompanying capping phrases, time and again, go right to the heart of each section, are rich in meaning in each word and phrase, and, in just their few lines, succeed in expressing the very essence of the wonderful subtleties in Dogen's teachings.
The book is helped along greatly by Dr. Heine's short summary of each of the original fascicles, conveying its main themes in just a paragraph or two. This is accompanied by Heine's translation of the poem, with a line by line, word by word, explanation of the poem's references. Heine manages this himself in just a few short sentences. The connection of Giun's creative words to Dogen's themes becomes clear and bright in almost each line. (If I have one tiny criticism of the book, it is that I wish Dr. Heine stated more clearly sometimes where he was sure of Giun's meaning rather than needing to guess a bit. However, as a sometime Dogen translator myself, although far from Dr. Heine in skill, I know that any line must contain some degree of the translator's assumptions and believed interpretations. In any case, Heine's explanations seem right on the money in the vast majority of cases, and the rest are inevitably the most likely reading.) The net effect is to draw a straight line from Giun's poetic summary the size of a seed to Dogen's flowering pages and back. It is brilliant. It is relatively easy reading too, especially for folks with some prior familiarity with Zen poetry and symbolism.
The other half of the book is a history of the many different editions of Shobogenzo, such as the 60-fascicle, 75 fascicle, several 95-fascicle versions and more, looking at how and why each came to be. There is then an extensive listing of the many other commentaries on Dogen that have appeared through the centuries, primarily in Japanese (I am pleased to say that my own teacher, Gudo Nishijima's, 12-Volume "A Record of Sermons on the Shobogenzo," in Japanese, receives the honor of occupying the very final line in the book). While the information in these pages will be of most interest to real Dogen history wonks (like me), it goes far to overturn the notion that Dogen's Shobogenzo was simply ignored until the last few centuries. In fact, there have been dozens and dozens of detailed commentaries and examinations of Dogen's work through most centuries since his life.
Dr. Heine has again done us Dogen fans a true service, and brought us a treasure. (Hmmm, I wonder if he has any plans to dive into the "prose comments" now? I will write and ask him, as well as whether a paperback version is planned for those on a budget as the book is now a bit expensive for many.)
Flowers Blooming on a Withered Tree: Giun's Verse Comments on Dogen's Treasury of the True Dharma Eye
Steven Heine
https://oxford.universitypressschola...-9780190941345
Quote:
ABSTRACT
This volume, containing a translation, annotations, and historical studies of Giun’s (1200–1253) Verse Comments on Dōgen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shōbōgenzō honmokuju), represents the initial book-length contribution to a crucial though previously unnoticed sub-field in Japanese Buddhist studies involving text-historical and literary-philological examinations of a key example of the copious premodern collections of annotations and interpretations of the masterwork of Zen master Dōgen. It is the first study of the life and thought of Giun and of the 60-fascicle version of Dōgen’s masterwork, which are crucial for understanding the history of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist sect’s intellectual development. The main translation of this text consists of four-line verses and capping phrases composed by Giun, accompanied by additional capping phrases that were contributed by an eighteenth-century commentator, Katsusdō Honkō. The book also provides an examination of the background and influences exerted on and by Giun’s Verse Comments in relation to various aspects of Dōgen’s writings and Zen thought in China and Japan.
Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLAH
