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“In his earlier writings Dōgen is adamant that Zen practice and realization is available to anyone, regardless of whether they are monastics or laypeople, male or female, old or young, clever or stupid. He was extremely progressive in his attitude toward women, which in Japan is woefully behind the egalitarian ideals of the West, even today. Yet in his later writings Dōgen seems to have changed his mind and started to believe that only temple-bound monks — male and female, so at least he didn't change his mind about that part — could possibly attain the Buddhist truth.”

Quote by Brad Warner

Book:Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master
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Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master

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Brad Warner
Brad Warner

Brad Warner, born on March 5, 1964, is an American author known for his works that blend Buddhist philosophy, life wisdom, and humor. Warner combines Buddhist thought with modern life in a unique way, offering readers a distinctive reading experience. more

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“What happens when it comes to light that in Zen there has always been a large and fundamental role for verbal communication and that, indeed, Zen masters have produced a tremendous volume of writings that originally were based on oral teachings (while the claim for the priority of orality has itself been questioned)? Does this point to a basic contradiction or hypocrisy in Zen, or would the prevalence of literary production mean that our understanding of what constitutes Zen transmission in relation to oral and written discourse must be reconfigured?”

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Book:Zen Skin, Zen Marrow: Will the Real Zen Buddhism Please Stand Up?
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“It is now clear that the kōan about Mahakasyapa's receiving the flower after Sakyamuni's wordless sermon, as well as slogans like "special transmission outside the teaching" and "no reliance on words and letters"—originally separate items that came to be linked in a famous Zen motto attributed to Bodhidharma—were created in the Sung dynasty. First making their appearance in eleventh-century transmissions of the lamp texts, including the Chingte chuan-teng lu (1004) and the T'ien-sheng kuang-teng lu (1036), these rhetorical devices were designed to support the autonomous identity of Zen in an era of competition with neo-Confucianism and are not to be regarded as accurate expressions of the period they are said to represent. A close examination of sources reveals that Tang masters with a reputation for irreverence and blasphemy were often quite conservative in their approach to doctrine by citing (rather than rejecting) Mahayana sutras in support of teachings that were not so distinct from, and were actually very much in accord with, contemporary Buddhist schools.”

Zen
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“For TZN, nonsense in Zen is understood in the most positive of terms on a metaphysical level rising above and standing beyond the contrast and conflict between sense and senselessness. Nonsense is a tool skillfully used to help put an end to seeking a path of reason and to point to an enlightened state unbound by the polarity of logic or illogic. For the dissolution thesis, on the other hand, the endless wordplay in Zen literature represents an infantile stammering and the willful abandonment of meaning, and is a kind of verbal cunning and trickery that harbors risky ethical (i.e., antinomian) consequences. Here we find clearly the roots of the critique of Zen's failure to negotiate human rights issues, which seems to rest on a tendency toward deceptive, duplicitous rhetoric that avoids being pinned down or committed to any particular view or decision.”

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Book:Zen Skin, Zen Marrow: Will the Real Zen Buddhism Please Stand Up?
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