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The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans

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I cannot render praise high enough to John Daido Loori. With his translation of Dogen's three hundred koans, he builds a modern masterpiece out of an old one. This collection of koans, which Dogen assembled, serves as the foundation on which he built many fascicles of his might Shobogenzo. Indeed, a reading of this book enhances one's understanding of Dogen's primary masterpiece greatly. Typically, a koan collection is comprised of cases, accompanied with a commentary and verse by the compiler. But Dogen never added these items, though he comments on some of them at great length in the Shobogenzo. So translator John Daido Loori, has boldly undertaken the task of the compiler, providing each koan with commentary and verse. In doing so, he weaves his own masterpiece together with Dogen's. With his remarks, Loori shows himself to be a true enlightened representative of Dogen's lineage, a master of Zen writing style, and a truly great writer. Commentary by Zen masters tends to be vivid, mocking, and sardonic, whilst pointing to the essence of the koan. Reading this, one feels that one is reading Engo Kokugon's commentary on the Blue Cliff Record, or Mumon's commentary on the Gateless Gate (both compiled in the twelfth century!). Loori understands so well the style and message of these Zen masters that he writes a commentary worthy to stand beside them. And, with a deep respect of Dogen, and a deep understanding of the Shobogenzo, he interweaves seemlessly Dogen's concepts with his own, unapologetically lifting passages from famous works, as Zen masters have always been wont to do. He makes new verses out of old famous ones, brings up vital points of Dogen's philosophy by putting them in a different context, and shows as complete an expression of Zen as I have ever seen in a modern writer (or in many ancient ones.) Perhaps his greatest achievement is his clarity. He uses the same metaphors and the same ridiculous phrases used by so many Zen commentators, yet his remarks are suited to people who want to train with koans at a lower level, or who do not have a master to train under. He offers no explanations, nor offers any solutions, yet he points gently to the watos, the points that one should meditate on, and the nature of kanna zen. A must have for any serious student of koan training!

The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans is a compilation of koans by the thirteenth-century Zen Buddhism master Eihei Dogen. First published in Japan in 1766, this new version features extensive commentary and interpretation for each koan by the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery of Mount Tremper, New York, John Daido Loori Roshi. For example, one koan's main case is "Longya was once asked by a monastic, 'What is the meaning of the Ancestor's [Bodhidharma's] coming from India?' Longya said, 'I will tell you when the stone tortoise speaks." The commentary examines this response, and similar responses that appear at first glance to be a refusal to answer, in various lights - that perhaps the meaning of the Ancestor's coming is as inconceivable as the existence of a speaking stone tortoise, or perhaps by hearing the voice of the stone tortoise one can truly begin to understand. Each koan has a capping verse; in the previous case, it is "East Mountain moves over water; / the stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. / Outstanding, awesome - / the teachings of the insentient. / If you listen with the ear, you will never get it; / when you hear with the eye, everything is clear and undisguised." Cross- references, lineage charts, and biographical notes round out this excellent and highly accessible primary source for students, practitioners, and scholars of Zen Buddhism.

It is impossible to read the Shobogenzo or Eihei Koroku without stumbling through the main cases of the koans contained in this book. Now with Daido Loori, Roshi's commentary, capping verses and footnotes, these koans can be directly encountered with a great deal more skill and studied fruitfully in coordination with Dogen's other works. It is a landmark in the evolution of understanding Dogen, as well as in the progress of American Zen.

Loori's additions to the matter is worth reading. Sometimes acerbic, sometimes hilarious, he's always challenging and provocative. At times, though, he projects an east-coast sensibility that makes me wonder if he finds fault sometimes just to seem clever. Maybe his teacher should have slapped him around a little more and taught him a bit more humility.

Definitely worth a read or 10 though.

I LOVE this book!! Every read puts a smile on my face. Sometimes I laugh out loud, mainly at myself. This books opens the mind to new ways of thinking and is beautifully written. You can feel the mind being stretched like a rubber band.

This is an invitation to compare this translation of Shinji Shobogenzo made by John Daido Loori and Kazuaki Tanahashi and the translation made by Master Gudo Nishijima. Nishijima was assisted by Michael Luetchford and Jeremy Parson in the final version, published in 2003 by Windbell publications. Both books are the translation of the same Dogen's anthology of 301 koan stories in Chinese. Nishijima added a brief comentary to each koan and highlighted what he considered the crux of the matter. He has the right expertise on the subject because he translated into English the complete version of Shobogenzo and so he knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff in his comments to Shinji Shobogenzo. Master Loori adds a comment, verses and notes to each koan but smudging what is the heart of the matter and introducing all the gimmicks, the technical jargon, and Chinese and Japanese usage that grow in Mount Tremper. Everything becomes a blur under Loori and crystal clear under Nishijima. Loori's comments are a good example of what Master Bankei (1622-1693) considered a way of studying and disseminating "old waste paper" as compared to the direct teaching of Nishijima on each koan. There is a lapse of two years between the publication of Nishijima translation of Shinji Shobogenzo and that of Loori and Tanahashi. They mention the translation of Shobogenzo in four volumes made by Nishijima but not that of Shiji Shobogenzo in one volume. Their silence is highly suspicious because experts in a field cannot ignore the state of the art on the subject and should not cold-shoulder the work of other experts in the same subject. The translation of Nishijima has been available in the bookstore of zen centers where both teach and lecture. One may appreciate or not the translation made by another expert but it is a matter of courtesy and rigour to mention it to the readers. So this is an invitation to read and compare made by a Zen practitioner in Spain who is used to study Dogen's texts translated into English and into French. Quiet often it is like looking for eggs and finding out chestnuts in the egg box.