Episode 16: On Dogen Zenji's 'Genjokoan'

JF and Phil tackle Genjokoan, a profound and puzzling work of philosophy by Dogen Zenji. In it, the 13th-century Zen master ponders the question, "If everything is already enlightened, why practice Zen?" As a lapsed Zen practitioner ("a shit buddhist") with many hours of meditation under his belt, Phil draws on personal experience to dig into Dogen's strange and startling answers, while JF speaks from his perspective as a "decadent hedonist." "When one side is illumined," says Dogen, "the other is dark." For proof of this utterance, you could do worse than listen to this episode of Weird Studies. REFERENCES Dogen Zenji, Genjokoan Shohaku Okumura and the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, Indiana Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Weird Studies, Episode 8: "On Graham Harman's 'The Third Table'" Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling Joris-Karl Huysmans, À Rebours (Against Nature) Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism