In the words of Eihei Dogen, the thirteenth-century Buddhist monk who introduced the Soto school of Zen to Japan, “To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.” Centuries later, these enigmatic words from his seminal “Genjokoan” (“Actualizing the Fundamental Point”) are still studied in Zen communities the world over. But what did Dogen really mean when he encouraged studying the self to forget the self? In this clarifying new commentary, esteemed Zen teacher Shinshu Roberts takes readers on a journey to understand Japan’s great Buddhist philosopher. Roberts applies her deep familiarity with Dogen’s work to illuminate the text as a unified story in which Dogen reveals the nondual nature of reality.
