[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 40

[curt]

Stuart Lachs wrote:
> Elihu wrote:
>
> Am familiar with Hakuun Yasutani feeling that he was
>> articulating Dogen's true teaching. However, have not
>> seen that he claimed to have Dharma Transmission from
>> Dogen - even in a dream. Please, would you clarify and
>> cite the source?
>
> See Robert Sharf's paper "Sanbokyodan Zen and the Way of New Religions."
> I may have been mistaken in my memory about a dream. I don't have time 
> to read the paper now.
> However, Yasutani believed he received transmission from a dead man, 
> Dogen.
> Yasutani felt that he had a personal spiritual bond with Dogen, and 
> considered himself Dogen's
> direct Dharma heir by virtue of his possession of the "true Dharma eye."
>
>
I have Faure's "Visions of Power" at home - but every time I try to read 
it I get a headache. It seems to be claiming that the Japanese Soto 
school has been extremely mystical from its beginnings and that Keizan's 
Zen in particular was highly mystical and emphatically "religious". 
There is a whole chapter devoted to dreams, by the way. If this view of 
Dogen's school is accurate, then receiving posthumous transmission from 
him in a dream would seem to be perfectly reasonable.

- Curt