Zen Buddhism; Dōgen Zenji; Zen language; apophatic discourse; negative theology
摘要
This essay argues that a vital aspect of Dōgen Zenji’s (1200–1253) religious discourse is deeply rooted in his words of the unsayable; that is—his apophatic articulations of the dynamic dialectics of Zen philosophy. By focusing on a close philological inspection of selected terminologies found both in his collection of essays (Shōbōgenzō) and in the extensive collection of his recorded sermons (Eihei Kōroku), this study illuminates to what an extant Dōgen has creatively used the thrust of the apophatic to question time and again the very validity of religious language and concepts, yet also to expand, recreate, and thus affirm them. As such, this study elucidates the creative interpretive manners by which Dōgen used the subversive and provocative nature of the apophatic, to widen the meaning of religious language and deepening our understanding of the subtle obscurities of his Zen path.
