著者

石上 イアゴルニッツァー 美智子

出版者

国文学研究資料館

雑誌

国際日本文学研究集会会議録 = PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JAPANESE LITERATURE (ISSN:03877280)

巻号頁・発行日

no.10, pp.35-47, 1987-03-01

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Two kinds of works seem to exist among the literary works based on life: firstly the works which spring spontaneously out of the life fully lived by the authors, and secondly the ones composed consciously by the authors with their own or others' lives as material. Zen literature falls into the first category.Then what is the particularity of Zen literature which flourished in the Middle Ages in japan, first with the Shôbôgenzô of Dôgen, then with other works of Zen masters under the name of Gozan literature?Isn't it paradoxical that the experiences of Zen life are communicated by the very words that Zen monks are supposed to disdain?Dôgen says clearly in his Shôbôgenzô that beside the normal logical language there exist "words of insight "which spring out of "bodhi"(insight) and contain inner experiences inexplicable in normal language.The particularity of Zen literature is in these "words of insight."The concrete example of Ryôkan, one of Dôgen's faithful disciples of the Edo era, shows that Dôgen's essential teaching was understood and practiced by Ryôkan. However the latter chose what pleased him among the written messages of his master, himself creating an original way of zen.