“Mountains and rivers are the ancient Buddha's words. Space is the ancient Buddha's words. So is the wall, a tile, a pebble.”
Dogen
13th Century · Zen
Shobogenzo , Sansuikyo
“Mountains and rivers are the ancient Buddha's words. Space is the ancient Buddha's words. So is the wall, a tile, a pebble.”
Dogen
13th Century · Zen
Shobogenzo , Sansuikyo
How these ideas connect
No philosopher thinks in isolation, and Dogen is no exception. This idea has antecedents in earlier traditions and has itself become part of the inheritance that later thinkers drew on and developed. Tracing these connections reveals how philosophical insight accumulates — not linearly, but through a web of dialogue, critique, and creative transformation. The question of the human relationship to the natural world — a relationship that we neglect at our peril that animates this passage has not become less pressing with time — if anything, the conditions of contemporary life have made it more urgent. Dogen's contribution to this question remains alive and worth returning to.
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“What would Dogen say about how you spent today?”
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