TITLE:
Invisible Happiness in Dogen
AUTHORS:
T. J. Sellari
KEYWORDS:
Happiness, Buddhism, Zen, Dogen, Literary Style
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.5 No.10,
October
31,
2017
ABSTRACT:
Buddhism is frequently referenced as one of the possible paths for the modern
quest for happiness. An examination of Buddhist literature, however, shows
that the attempt to trace such a route is somewhat misguided, for Buddhism
addresses primarily the avoidance of suffering rather than the pursuit of happiness.
In fact, a concern with happiness is often characterized in Buddhist
texts as a pitfall to be avoided rather than as a path to be followed. This paper
examines the near-invisibility of happiness in the writings of Dogen Zenji, a
seminal Zen teacher and writer, and demonstrates how the negligible place of
happiness in Dogen’s writings corresponds to its conceptual space in Buddhism
generally, thus showing that the elimination of suffering, which is the
goal of Buddhism, should not be reduced to happiness. As a link between
modern writers on Buddhism and the earliest Buddhist texts, Dogen presents
an instructive case to illustrate how the theme of happiness holds a position in
Buddhist thought even when it is not explicitly mentioned, but that place is
far from central to Buddhism’s concerns. Nevertheless, Dogen’s writings furnish
splendid examples of what we might call “literary happiness”—a kind of
happiness enacted rather than discussed. The identification of such happiness
shows how in Buddhism happiness is more incidental than teleological, and
suggests that the application of Buddhist concepts to the quest for happiness
twists those concepts in a direction inimical to Buddhist practice.