Visions Of Awakening

Taigen Leighton’s book, Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra, is now available in paperback, and at $24 its about 1/3 the price of the hardcover. This book is an academic and serious (sometimes ponderously so) reflection on the deep importance of the Lotus Sutra for fully appreciating Dogen’s Zen. This is a significant contribution to Dogen studies.

The Lotus Sutra was Katagiri Roshi’s favorite sutra too and he lectured on it for several years (although it seemed like decades) from start to finish. I remember Roshi saying in the most heartfelt way how deeply moved he was to study the Lotus again.

It is no coincidence that the Soto liturgy includes a lengthy recitation of the Avalokiteshvara Chapter.

Taigen works persuasively with dharma hall discourses from the Eiheikoroku linking Dogen’s teaching technique where a teaching is promised and praised but is never quite expounded with the Lotus Sutra’s self-referential style. Taigen also uses several Shobogenzo fascicles, including “The Dharma Flower Turns the Dharma Flower,” “Flowers in the Sky,” and “The Awesome Presence of Active Buddhas” and comes to this:

In the writings of Dogen, the world expressed in the Lotus Sutra provides the context and import for bodhisattva practice. The open space of the realm of the underground bodhisattvas and the inconceivable life span of the buddha support a view of a present place and time that can function as a nondual and integrated realm of realization.

I especially enjoyed the section that presents how various other important monks viewed the Lotus Sutra, including Hakuin.

I definitely recommend Visions of Awakening in Time and Space for Soto Zen teachers and priests. For other students, well, you might want to take some time with it in the bookstore or look inside before buying it.