Guest Lecture: Our Dogen – His Birth, Lives, and Afterlives

Speaker: William Bodiford (UCLA)
When: Thursday, March 17, 2022
Venue: Auditorium 1, Jan Broeckx, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent – Ghent University

This lecture is part of Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies lecture series Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies.

 

Abstract:
Dōgen (1200–1253), a Japanese Buddhist monk, walks amongst us, not just as a citizen of the world or as a Buddhist, but now celebrated as a timeless thinker, philosopher, and literary poet. Thanks to the gift of translation, his words provide people around the world with insights into their own selves, into Asian thought, and into Japanese culture. This remarkably versatile Dōgen first appeared about ninety years ago. My presentation will revisit the circumstances of his birth, trace his transformations and development across multiple fields of thought and literary genres, and conclude with a few reflections on what his multiple lives can tell us about ourselves.

 

 Speaker: William Bodiford