Taigen Dan Leighton

This is a complete translation of Eihei Shingi, the major writing by the Japanese Zen master Eihei Dogen (1200-1253) on monastic practice and the role of community life in Buddhism. Dogen was the founder of the Soto branch of Japanese Zen, but his teaching was not limited by any particular school of Buddhism. His writings are generally regarded today as a great summit of Japanese Buddhist philosophy, meditation practice, psychology, and poetic insight into the nature of reality.

Eihei Shingi contains Dogen's principal guidelines and instructions for everyday life and rituals in the monastic training center he established. Included are a collection of dramatic teaching stories, or koans, on the attitude and responsibilities for practitioners in the community, the only collection of traditional koans with this practical focus.

In addition to the translation, the book includes detailed annotation, a substantial introduction, glossaries of Japanese technical terms and persons mentioned, and lineage charts, all providing relevant background in historical and religious context.… (meer)

Six-word review: One minute of being a buddha.

Extended review:

This is exactly the sort of thing that I love about Zen:

Pay attention without judgments, or when making judgments, not making judgments about that, simply acknowledging a judgment about judgments without making a judgment about judgments. (page 54)

It's the paradoxical appeal of paradox. I can't resist it.

For the number of books I've read about Zen and the amount of instruction I've listened to, I probably ought to feel much more confident of my understanding than I do; and yet it isn't about achieving understanding (or anything else)--an attitude that Suzuki-roshi calls "gaining ideas" (ideas of gain) and this author labels "consumerism": trying to get something in return for our efforts. Rather, the focus of this book, if I dare to state my interpretation, is simply and completely "just sitting."

It's Taigen Leighton's way of presenting that, the teaching he imparts around it, that struck me in just the right way at just the right time with the reading of this book. I can't say whether it might do so for anyone else. That's my experience of it.

Serendipity led me to East West Books in Mountain View on July 5th. I hadn't been in the store in more than a year, and I hadn't sat with a Zen group in ten or more. I came out with a book (I always come out with a book), and this happened to be it. I don't even know what made me pick it up, other than the fact that I expect never to run out of questions, and so the title attracted me.

"Just sitting," he says, "is the subtle activity of allowing all things to be completely at rest just as they are" (page 26). Toward this end, he applies Bob Dylan's line "How does it feel?" and says this is a question to sit with. And so it proves to be.

Taigen Leighton's approach combines the scholarly, which I like and feel at home with, with the down-to-earth and practical, which I value, admire, and struggle with. He wants us to be present on the cushion, not engaging in what he calls "lobotomy Zen" or becoming "zafu potatoes."

When I began reading this book, I also began sitting again. I'm now trying to do so under the guidance he offers here, warding as best I can against the traps we set for ourselves, always coming back to the breath and relaxing into what is.

As Dogen may have said, "One minute of sitting, one minute of being a buddha."… (meer)