Dogen Zenji

Paper 4

Dogen Zenji was a famous Japanese Buddhist teacher who lived during the thirteenth century CE. His greatest achievement was writing the Shobogenzo, which is arguably the most influential work written in the history of Japan. In the Shobogenzo, Dogen discussed how any human being could find his or her true self and reach satori, Japanese for enlightenment. One of the most unique chapters in the Shobogenzo, Uji, investigates the concept of time. In the time of Dogen, and today, most people believed time existed in the past, present, and future. However, the Dogen suggested time existed in all human beings and entities. Dogen basically took Nagarjunas idea of emptiness and replaced it with time. In the Uji, Dogen addresses the question how does time relate to one’s self on the path to attaining enlightenment. He used the term, being-time, to explain that time exists within every human and every entity in the present, and that the concepts of past and future in fact existed within being-time in the present.

In the Uji, Dogen began to address the problematization of linear time through his analysis of mankind’s explanation of time. Dogen argued that most people believe they have a good understanding of time, when in fact they don’t. In the Uji, Dogen articulates this when he stated, “Although you never measure the length or brevity of the 12 hours, their swiftness or slowness, you can still call them 12 hours. As evidence of there going and coming is obvious, you do not come to doubt them. But even though you do not have doubts about them, that is not to say you know them.” (Shobogenzo 48.) Here, Dogen suggests that people blindly accept the notions of past, present, and future because of no evidence proving otherwise. He believes that people accept this notion of time because it allowed mankind to formulate the concept of, “self.” Furthermore, the unenlightened person’s doubts regarding the self and death exist, because of this notion of time.

Dogen went...