Question 1

What is the best book to start with?

Accepted Answer

Genjōkōan in Aitken and Tanahashi’s translation, in Moon in a Dewdrop. Two pages that hold most of his themes.

Question 2

What is the most famous quote?

Accepted Answer

This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Dōgen that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.” (Shōbōgenzō, Genjōkōan, tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi (in Moon in a Dewdrop, ed. Tanahashi), Paraphrase or translation).

Question 3

What is the most misquoted line?

Accepted Answer

None of the lines this library files for Dōgen is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

Question 4

What is one key idea, in a sentence?

Accepted Answer

Practice is enlightenment: You do not sit to get somewhere else. The sitting is the realisation.