Online Zoom Forum: Dogen Zenji: The Spiritual Vision and Influence in His Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 25 November 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 15 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Hakuün Roshi, lay name David Brazier, MA, PhD:
Bio: Hakuün Roshi, lay name David Brazier, MA, PhD, is a Buddhist monk and lineage holder in the Soto Zen line of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He is an author with fifteen books on Buddhism, psychology and poetry, lead tutor of a two year on-line Buddhist psychology training, <buddhistpsychology.ning.com> and creator of a Dharma Entrustment Programme for serious practitioners. When not travelling internationally he resides in a small private temple in central France.
Speakers:
Prof Steven Heine:
Title: Dogen's Spiritual Vision: "Not A Moment Spent Idly in 24 Hours".
Description: Zen master Dogen (1200-1253), founder of the Soto sect in thirteenth century Japan, was born into turbulent times and continually encountered challenges on personal, political, and philosophical levels throughout his lifetime. Medieval Japan was wracked by constant civil warfare and social instability in addition to a series of natural disasters that wreaked havoc on the capital city of Kyoto. According to a famous epic narrative from this period, “Human pride doesn’t stand for long, like a passing dream on a night in spring. Even the bravest are in the end brought down, no more than dust cast about by the wind.” Dogen himself was orphaned as a young child and came into conflict with the leading priests when he questioned orthodox doctrine at age fourteen. He became skeptical of corruption in the temple halls of China and Japan and was forced to flee Kyoto by rival sects before turning down offers from government leaders to lead a new monastery or to receive the prestigious purple robe. His spiritual outlook, expressed in a poem titled, "Not A Moment Spent Idly in 24 Hours," was based on a resilient commitment to persevering each and every moment of existence through carrying out a diligent dedication to the principles of dignity and integrity.
Bio: Steven Heine is professor and founding director of the Asian Studies Program at Florida International University. A recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun Award for a lifetime of service to the dissemination of Japanese culture in the west, Heine has published forty books on East Asian religion and society, particularly dealing with the origins of Zen Buddhism in China and the impact on Dogen’s life and thought, as well as the transmission of the Soto sect to Japan. Some of the titles include The Zen Poetry of Dogen, Did Dogen Go to China?, Dogen: Textual and Historical Studies, Readings of Dogen’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, and Dogen: Japan’s Original Zen Teacher.
Rev. Shinshu Roberts:
Title: Dogen’s Teachings and Their Relevance to Zen Students Today.
Description: Eihei Dogen, who taught and wrote in 13th century Japan, still resonates with Zen practitioners today. Dogen’s writings are poetic and full of references to Chinese Zen terms, yet, despite the difficulties of understanding his Dharma, Dogen’s teachings are simultaneously inspiring and insightful. As a contemporary practitioner of Soto Zen, Rev. Roberts, will discuss how Dogen’s teachings are relevant to Zen students today.
Bio: Shinshu Roberts was ordained in 1988, completed her priest training Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and received Dharma transmission (full authorization as a Soto Zen teacher), in 2004 from Sojun Mel Weitsman, former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center and Berkeley Zen Center. In 2007 she moved to Capitola, CA and opened Ocean Gate Zen with her wife, Rev. Daijaku Kinst. In 2005 Shinshu was appointed Kokusaifukyoshi (International Teacher) by the Soto Zen School (Sotoshu) in Tokyo, Japan and currently holds the rank of Sei Kyoshi.
Publications:
Meeting the Myriad Things: A Zen Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Genjokoan, Shambhala Publications, 2025.
Being-Time: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen Zenji’s Shobogenzo Uji, Wisdom Publications. 2018.
“Moshan’s Mountain Summit”, Record of the Hidden Lamp: 100 Koans and Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women, ed. Susan Moon. Wisdom Publications, 2013.
“Astride the Highest Mountain: Dogen’s Being/Time”, Receiving the Marrow: Teachings on Dogen by Soto Zen Women Priests, ed. Eido Frances Carney. Temple Ground Press 2012.
Taigen Dan Leighton:
Title: Dogen’s View of the World as Alive.
Description: Eihei Dogen, founder in the thirteenth century of the Japanese Soto School, viewed the phenomenal world to be a living agent of awakening. In his earliest extant writing, the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, part of his Bendowa or The Wholehearted Way, he asserts that when one person sits zazen even briefly, the whole world awakens and the earth, grasses, trees, and fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles imperceptibly assist the practitioner and everything in all space to awaken and do the Buddha work. Throughout his career, Dogen developed this teaching. For example, in his Mountain and Water Sutra he follows up an earlier Soto teacher’s statement that blue mountains walk on water. In his writing Nonsentient Beings Expound the Dharma, he follows up the Chinese Soto (Caodong) founder Dongshan’s ninth century story about how nonsentient beings constantly express the teaching. However, this cannot be heard by the ears, but by the whole body.
Bio: Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and Dharma successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, receiving Dharma Transmission from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 2000. Taigen founded the Mountain Source Sangha in the S.F. Bay Area and later Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago. Taigen is an authorized teacher (Kyoshi) in the Japanese Soto school. He has performed lay ordination for a few dozen practitioners and performed eight priest ordinations. Taigen has written ten books of commentaries and translations of Soto Zen related teachings, including co-translating and editing Dogen’s Extensive Record, a translation of the massive Eihei Koroku, Dogen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community, and Cultivating the Empty Field: Translations from Hongzhi. Taigen also wrote Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra and Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness. Taigen has taught academically in a number of universities and has a Ph.D. from Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where he has taught at the Institute of Buddhist Studies since 1994. Taigen has long been an activist for peace, societal justice, and environmental sanity.
Prof Paula Arai:
Title: The Nondual Wisdom of Dogen and Women.
Description: A nuanced teacher on activating nondual wisdom, Dogen articulated his views on women in several fascicles, especially the Raihaitokuzui. He was aware that some did not realize Buddha nature extended to women, and he uses unambiguous and sometimes playful language to articulate his perspective that not only is gender not an obstacle to activating enlightenment, neither is being a lantern or a fox. Soto Zen Buddhist women in the late 19th century recognized that the Soto Sect's institutional regulations and structures did not align with Dogen’s teachings, and so they organized and changed the system. Today, Soto Zen Buddhist women in Japan and the West are informed by Dogen’s nondual wisdom and the role models of Japanese Soto Zen nuns. They are empowered to wield such wisdom in the face of others who are still waking up.
Bio: Paula Arai (Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, Harvard University) is the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is author of Women Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns (Oxford University Press), Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s Rituals (University of Hawai‘i Press), Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra––The Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo (Shambhala), The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love (Shambhala) and Of Mud and Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women (Shambhala). She co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice (Oxford University Press). Arai received support for her pursuits from Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, Reischauer Institute of Harvard, and Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. She curated exhibits of Iwasaki Tsuneo’s Heart Sutra paintings at venues around the US and Japan. Website: paulaarai.com
Rev. Dr. Daijaku Judith Kinst:
Title: Inextricable Intimacy: Eihei Dogen’s Teachings on Realization and Community and their Implications for Contemporary Life.
Description: Zen Master Eihei Dogen’s teachings underlie and support the principles that guided his practice community and have implications for our contemporary world. I will briefly consider three teachings that are fundamental to the vision of practice and communality that we find in Soto Zen: The inextricable relational reality of life, including our life; the bodhisattva path; and Dogen’s understanding of practice and realization. We will explore how these teachings shift our understanding, experience, and relationships to all aspects of our reality and guide a life dedicated to caring for the community of all beings.
Bio: Daijaku Judith Kinst is Professor Emerita at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS), a Buddhist seminary and graduate school and a member school of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley California. She was a member of the GTU core faculty, the inaugural chair of the Noboro and Yaeko Professor of Buddhist chaplaincy, and founded and directed both the Buddhist chaplaincy graduate program, and the Certificate in Soto Zen Studies. Kinst has presented and taught widely in the US as well as in Japan. A primary focus of her work is deepening our understanding of how to support individuals and sanghas to fruitfully engage with the depth of Soto Zen teachings and practice, as well as how these teachings can form the foundation for effective service in the community.
Kinst was ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 1988, received full authorization as a Soto Zen teacher form Sojun Weitsman in 2004, and was appointed kokusaifukyoshi (International Teacher) by the Soto Zen School (Soto Shu) in Tokyo Japan. She is guiding teacher, with Rev. Shinshu Roberts, of Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola California.
Selection of publication and presentations:
Trust, Realization and the Self in Soto Zen Practice, Institute of Buddhist Studies/BDK 2015.
Self and Transformation in Soto Zen Buddhist Practice, International Symposium: Beyond Ego Psychology: Journeys of the Heart East and West Ryokuku University. Kyoto, Japan. 2008.
Ziyong’s Ship of Compassion, Commentary. Chapter in Record of the Hidden Lamp: 100 Koans and Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. Wisdom Publications. 2013.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Paypal:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Online Zoom Forum: Dogen Zenji: The Spiritual Vision and Influence in His Life and Work, 25 November 2026
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