Dogen and the Koan Tradition

This book has three major goals in critically examining the historical and philosophical relation between the writings of Dogen and the Zen koan tradition. First, it introduces and evaluates recent Japanese scholarship concerning Dogen's two Shobogenzo texts, the Japanese (Kana) collection of ninety-two fascicles on Buddhist topics and the Chinese (Mana) collection of three hundred koan cases also known as the Shobogenzo Sanbyakusoku. Second, it develops a new methodology for clarifying the development of the koan tradition and the relation between intellectual history and multifarious interpretations of koan cases based on postmodern literary criticism. Third, the book's emphasis on a literary critical methodology challenges the conventional reading of koans stressing the role of psychological impasse culminating in silence.

Steven Heine is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University.