Dogen's Genjokoan

 I mentioned Blooks (a cross between a Blog and a Book) which a company in France prints out for you. Created on Google Blogs (many other platforms can be downloaded from) this is then downloaded to Blookup (the company in France) and then you are able to edit it before print-off.

My latest Blook is of Dogen's "Genjokoan", and includes four translations, all illustrated.

GENJO - to appear, come to be.

KOAN - the problem, but yet again, the solution.

Therefore Genjokoan is variously translated. "The Issue in Hand", "The Actualization of Reality", "The Problem of Everyday Life", "The Actualization of Enlightenment".

Genjokoan is Dogen's most translated text as it is often deemed to be the essence of his thought and the remainder of his copious writings simply expansions of the themes.

For those who well might consider such a text esoteric and of strictly limited purpose, it is well to remember that Dogen first wrote it for a lay-person who can be presumed to have asked quite simple questions. "How should I live?" , "How do I find my own path, time and place?", or maybe just "What is the Dharma, and how should I practice, here in the world, not in a monastery?"

Nevertheless, the text IS obscure in many ways and translations of it vary considerably. Obscure for various reasons. Dogen wrote in a very cultured "olde" Japanese style (rather like Chaucer in Olde English!) and again, presumed readers would be fully aware of certain allusions and references - much like a modern day writer referencing the Good Samaritan, or the Sermon on the Mount, simply assuming that most readers would gather in their mind/hearts the full ambience of such references.

And so in the Genjokoan there are fishes and birds, flowers and weeds, firewood and ash, and even advice on why we always need a fan, this in spite of the wind blowing everywhere.

And so, even when enlightened, nevertheless "flowers fade even though we love them, weeds grow even though we dislike them." Suffering is not eliminated, but our response can be transformed within the pure Grace of Reality if we allow it in, then to be reflected back into our fragile world. Every dewdrop can reflect the entire moon, yet the moon is not diminished nor divided. It remains there, for all. We need only turn our face to it.

Turn in faith and trust, that Reality-as-is is healing. No need to look for proofs, or investigate...........as Dogen writes:-

Therefore, if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality (genjōkōan). When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality (genjōkōan).

Well, I never really intended to ramble on like this. It must be the McDonald's coffee (if not the burgers)

I really intended just to post a few photos of my latest Blook. Here they are (thank you Blookup, even though your fees are quite steep!)