Product Description

DOGEN WAS BORN INTO AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY IN KYOTO, EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS
AGO. HIS FATHER WAS A HIGH-RANKING GOVERNMENT MINISTER AND HE HIMSELF WAS
AN UNIQUELY INTELLIGENT CHILD. IT IS SAID THAT HE BEGAN TO READ CHINESE POETRY
AT THE AGE OF FOUR – another Mozart.
Chinese is perhaps the most difficult language in the world, because it has no alphabet. It is pictorial
and to read it means years of hard work to memorize those symbols. To the born Chinese it is not so
difficult, because from the very birth it becomes ingrained into his mind, but anybody who is studying
Chinese from the outside world … I have been told by friends that it takes ten years at least, if one
works strenuously; thirty years if one works the way any ordinary student will work.
At the age of four, to understand Chinese – and not only Chinese, but Chinese poetry; that makes
it even more difficult. Because to understand the prose of any language is simple, but the poetry
has wings, it flies to faraway places. Prose is very marketplace, very earthly; it creeps on the earth.
Poetry flies. What prose cannot say, poetry can manage to indicate. Prose is connected with your
mind, poetry is more connected with your heart; it is more like love than like logic.
At the age of four, Dogen’s understanding of Chinese poetry immediately showed that he was not
going to be an ordinary human being. From that very age his behavior was not that of a mediocre
child; he behaved like a buddha, so serene, so graceful, not interested in toys. All children are
interested in toys, teddy-bears … who cares about poetry?