"Just Sitting"? Dōgen's Take on Sūtra Reading and Other Conventional Buddhist Practices

Lecture: Center for Buddhist Studies | February 10 | 5-6:30 p.m. | Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), IEAS Conference Room, sixth floor, 2223 Fulton Street

Speaker/Performer: T. Griffith Foulk, Sarah Lawrence College

Sponsor: Center for Buddhist Studies

Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō School of Zen in Japan, has often been described by modern scholars as a purist who stressed — quoting his teacher Rujing — "just sitting" in meditation, with "no recourse to burning incense prostrations, buddha-mindfulness, repentances, or sutra reading." This statement appears in a number of Dōgen's extant writings, but it is also a fact that his works contain detailed instructions for the very practices that he seems to dismiss as unnecessary. The question is: how to resolve the apparent contradiction in Dōgen 's own stated position on conventional Buddhist practices?

T. Griffith Foulk is Professor of Religion at Sarah Lawrence College and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Soto Zen Text Project

Event Contact: buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510-643-5104