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Citations from Commentary on Dogen Zenji's
DOTOKU 道得 (Expression)
Eihei Dōgen: Mystical Realist, by Hee-Jin Kim
(Chapter Three: Activity, Expression & Understanding)
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THE RANGE of the functions of language (in its broadest possible sense as
Dogen understood it) became coextensive with that of human activities. For
Dogen the false separation of words and activities was closely related to the
impoverishment of religion and philosophy; language and activity were
inseparably one is his thought, as we shall soon see.
Dogen's view of expression (dotoku) exemplified his dynamic view of Chinese
language and symbols, and his originality. Dotoku consists of two characters:
do (道), "the Way" and "to say," and toku (得), "to attain" and
"to be able." Thus it signifies both actuality and possibility of expression —
in other words, expression and expressibility. What is expressed intimates
what is yet to be expressed — it is the Way. It also implies the understanding
and grasping of the Way by expression. Furthermore, it expresses not what
humans express so much as what the Way expresses.
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[T]he following admonition is given [by Dogen in the Dotoku]:
Do not loathe wordlessness for it is expression par excellence.
Regarding the problem of expression, Dogen guided us to not only take
into consideration semantic possibilities in metaphors, images, gestures,
and moral and aesthetic activities in the human realm, but also those
possibilities in the activities of nonhuman and nonliving realms.
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