I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like this book which could be described as a dialogical encounter between Dogen and several western thinkers, including Spinosa Leibnitz and Heidegger. She doesn’t try and uncover influence of the first on the latter, nor does she compare their work in general. Her work is dialogical in the sense that she brings in these European philosophers in order to better illuminate Dogan in a way that the readers the book might understand —presumably many of which don’t have access to the Japanese.
Dare I say "Timely post"? -- It would be interesting to explore how "timely" fits into this picture of the impermanence of which Dogen taught. Shingon Buddhism with its very different bearings than Zen would perhaps posit "timely" differently with its esoteric practices making enlightenment immediately possible. Even the notion of enlightenment itself becomes challenging when thinking about characterizing/describing/illuminating its time-being-ess. And, in my own practice, the founder had delved even further into Buddhist scholarship in Shingon when training at Daigo-ji to add even more clarification to the issue of permanence/impermanence. (Given that he was originally an aerospace design engineer, you have to imagine that this give him a unique feel for the matter of time.) Anyway, I applaud you, Leanne, for ploughing through this book twice and I know you've given it a lot of thought! I look forward to your essay. (And when I was nine, I dreamed of understanding time someday. Time, is, of course, the special province of poetry.)
Back to yesterday's discussion! I'm so interested in the ideas of time-being and the differing Buddhist approaches of practice/enlightenment/insight in ordering the mind-body (etc etc etc)reflection of time-being. And, without having to be Buddhist practitioners themselves, noh performers likewise have a tradition of disciplined practice that is founded on being the reflection to which the audience is attuned while both performers and audience experience the play together. This reflection can cast time-being so much as to allow actual transformation of the theater goer. And then there is the actual student beginner of noh chant. -- That led up to recital! -- I can't tell you how long I spent listening to different pronunciations of the Japanese r sound! Repeating repeating repeating. At one class my actual sound quality sounded worse over-all than when I started. The recital: Really nervous, especially when I saw I was the first student. And then when I heard Kinue chant from Hagaromo -- I was so deeply touched, and couldn't imagine how I would follow her performance. Nowhere to run. When my turn came, and my voice cracked between the 2nd and 3rd syllable, all I could think of was not to panic into tears, just remember what Richard Armstrong always said "Just focus on your breath. " (I haven't listened to the recital recording, so I can't say how the vibrato I produced compared to an actual utai vibrato, but I daresay that the ease of performance for me from that moment of panic convinces me that a simple application of technique (focus only on breath while producing the sounds) allowed the much more complex transmission of esoteric knowledge (in Kinue's chanting) to engage the fullest time-being relationship we shared in that process of first performer and second performer with attendant listeners. All of which speaks to the abundant capacity of the reflected and reflecting mind-body relationships to appreciate time-being for its manifest expressions from the most hidden to the nuanced and / or extreme.
Read your review of Goldberg. Shocked that she's been a student of Zen for 30 years. I was reminded of a quote from somebody who advised Buddhist practice "Writers should practice Zen and painters practice Vajrayana." I'd suggest just the opposite.
You mention Alex Kerr. I very much enjoyed one of his books you recommended.
Dare I say "Timely post"? -- It would be interesting to explore how "timely" fits into this picture of the impermanence of which Dogen taught. Shingon Buddhism with its very different bearings than Zen would perhaps posit "timely" differently with its esoteric practices making enlightenment immediately possible. Even the notion of enlightenment itself becomes challenging when thinking about characterizing/describing/illuminating its time-being-ess. And, in my own practice, the founder had delved even further into Buddhist scholarship in Shingon when training at Daigo-ji to add even more clarification to the issue of permanence/impermanence. (Given that he was originally an aerospace design engineer, you have to imagine that this give him a unique feel for the matter of time.) Anyway, I applaud you, Leanne, for ploughing through this book twice and I know you've given it a lot of thought! I look forward to your essay. (And when I was nine, I dreamed of understanding time someday. Time, is, of course, the special province of poetry.)
Back to yesterday's discussion! I'm so interested in the ideas of time-being and the differing Buddhist approaches of practice/enlightenment/insight in ordering the mind-body (etc etc etc)reflection of time-being. And, without having to be Buddhist practitioners themselves, noh performers likewise have a tradition of disciplined practice that is founded on being the reflection to which the audience is attuned while both performers and audience experience the play together. This reflection can cast time-being so much as to allow actual transformation of the theater goer. And then there is the actual student beginner of noh chant. -- That led up to recital! -- I can't tell you how long I spent listening to different pronunciations of the Japanese r sound! Repeating repeating repeating. At one class my actual sound quality sounded worse over-all than when I started. The recital: Really nervous, especially when I saw I was the first student. And then when I heard Kinue chant from Hagaromo -- I was so deeply touched, and couldn't imagine how I would follow her performance. Nowhere to run. When my turn came, and my voice cracked between the 2nd and 3rd syllable, all I could think of was not to panic into tears, just remember what Richard Armstrong always said "Just focus on your breath. " (I haven't listened to the recital recording, so I can't say how the vibrato I produced compared to an actual utai vibrato, but I daresay that the ease of performance for me from that moment of panic convinces me that a simple application of technique (focus only on breath while producing the sounds) allowed the much more complex transmission of esoteric knowledge (in Kinue's chanting) to engage the fullest time-being relationship we shared in that process of first performer and second performer with attendant listeners. All of which speaks to the abundant capacity of the reflected and reflecting mind-body relationships to appreciate time-being for its manifest expressions from the most hidden to the nuanced and / or extreme.
Read your review of Goldberg. Shocked that she's been a student of Zen for 30 years. I was reminded of a quote from somebody who advised Buddhist practice "Writers should practice Zen and painters practice Vajrayana." I'd suggest just the opposite.
You mention Alex Kerr. I very much enjoyed one of his books you recommended.
Am not familiar with Shumei.