Moon In Dewdrop [Paperback]

The overall effect was that the translation became stuck in time and place: in San Francisco, the Human Potential Movement, 1980. This makes it much like some of the Victorian translations of Buddhist literature and gave it a faint, cloying after aroma of added agenda.

This may be a problem inherent in art and literature by committee. The editors are to be thanked for making some of Dogen's most poetic writings available to the non-Oriental languages reader. The sincere student of Dogen should obtain other translations and compare them with this one. My copy is already well marked, with word corrections that I believe restore some of the harmony and spirit of Dogen's work.

Eihei Dogen (1200-1253), who was an exceptionally gifted child, was born into an aristocratic household in Kyoto. The death of his mother when he was eight years old so impressed upon him the central Buddhist truth of impermanency, that he forsook his aristocratic privileges when he was thirteen and went to Mt. Hiei to study to become a Buddhist monk.

But since no-one in Japan could satisfactorily answer his questions - not surprising when you consider that he was the greatest genius Japan has ever produced - he went off to China in 1223 in search of a Master. There he studied under the Soto Ch'an (Zen) Master Ju-ching (1163-1228), attained enlightenment, and returned to Japan to become the founder Japanese Soto Zen.

Zen first became known to the West largely through the writings of D. T. Suzuki, who was a follower of the 'Sudden Enlightenment' or direct koan-using Rinzai Zen. Soto Zen, in contrast, is a gentler method which places greater reliance on Zazen or deep meditation, and is the method that has gained the largest number of adherents in Japan.

To discover just how profound Dogen was, you will have to turn to his magnum opus, the 'Shobogenzo' or 'Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.' This has been translated, in whole or in part, a number of times, but an edition I can heartily recommend is the present book.

Besides twenty texts from the 'Shobogenzo,' this 356-page book includes four additional texts and a selection of Dogen's poems. It also contains a fine Introduction on Dogen's Life and Teachings, four Appendices, full Notes, an incredibly full and detailed bilingual Glossary of a kind you will not find elsewhere, a Selected Bibliography, and some interesting illustrations.

Dogen's Japanese is an excruciatingly difficult Japanese, so much so that some think it should be called 'Dogen-ese' and not Japanese. Think 'Finnegans Wake' and you'll get an inkling of the problems involved in translating him. The language and thought of the 'Shobogenzo' come from such a height that there can be no such thing as a definitive interpretation, and hence no such thing as a definitive translation.

'Moon in a Dewdrop' is the result of a collaborative effort by a team of highly competent American Zenists, some of them very well known. It has always seemed, in my humble opinion, that, considering the difficulties, they did a very fine job. To give you a taste, here are a few lines from the 'Genjo Koan' as translated by Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi:

"The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas. / Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread" (page 69).

Prepared and sensitive readers will be bowled over by 'Moon in a Dewdrop.' Dogen leaves most other thinkers behind in the dust. But if you've never read any Dogen before, it might perhaps be better to start with Reiho Masunaga's 'A Primer of Soto Zen.' This is a translation of Dogen's 'Shobogenzo Zuimonki,' a short book of brief talks and instructions for Zen beginners and lay followers. In the 'Zuimonki' you can ramble at leisure the plains and foothills of Dogen's mind before attempting the mountains.