Las enseñanzas de Dôgen

Aigo Castro

About the book:

The Teachings of Dogen

Dogen (1200-1253) is one of the most outstanding figures in Zen Buddhism of all times. Within the Soto Zen tradition of Buddhism he founded the school of the same name on Japanese soil, and was the author of the unequalled “Treasure of the eye of true Dharma” (Shobogenzo) in addition to being the first abbot of the Temple of Eternal Peace (Eiheiji).

The present work, a first in publications in the Spanish language, explains the basic structure of Buddhist dharma as conceived by Dogen.  After the necessary contextualisation, placing the study in the religious-political context of medieval Japan, the book goes on to provide a biographical sketch characterised by increased historical rigour and avoiding the idealised picture of a Dogen constrained and corseted by hagiographic dictates.  Dogen's unique line of thought is highlighted by its contrasting with the hermeneutic presentation of the original Buddhism and the Indian and Sino-Japanese Mahayana Buddhist tradition that directly inherited from it. From this point of view, the volume supplies the points of reference that made it possible for Dogen  to develop a verbal and relativised cosmology without equal in the annals of Zen Buddhism.

Using the language of his day, Dogen reformulated the perennial message of the Buddha Sakyamuni as a synthesis of the Middle Way. The analysis of crucially important key terms such as “just sitting” (shikan taza) “free body-mind” (shinin datsuraku) and  “practice-realisation without stain” (fuzenna no shushØ) crystallised in the existential freedom  of the “active Buddha” (gyobutsu) evoke in the reader the vast outreach of a consumately illuminating perspective – a perspective that at the present time enriches the lives of millions of human beings with wisdom, compassion and committed solidarity, worldwide.

About the author:

Aigo Castro is a Zen Buddhist monk who received his training in different spiritual centres in Europe and Asia, and a graduate in Buddhist studies from the CBSZ. He is also a preceptor in Buddhist dharma and a writer-translator specialising in Buddhist tradition.