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Dōgen’s “Leaving Home Life” (Shukke 出家): A Study of Aesthetic Experience and Growth in John Dewey and Dōgen
- Philosophy East and West
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 70, Number 1, January 2020
- pp. 42-62
- 10.1353/pew.2020.0014
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
Drawing on both Dōgen’s Sōtō Zen and the later works of John Dewey, I argue that Dōgen uses the expression “leaving home life” in the “Leaving Home Life” (Shukke 出家) fascicle of the Shōbōgenzō not in the sense that a person must leave home life and become a practicing monk; rather, by looking at Dewey’s understanding of aesthetic experience as the overcoming of the means/ends dualism, I argue that Dōgen’s “leaving home life” similarly expresses the overcoming of the means/ends, practice/enlightenment dualisms. Considering the differences between Dewey and Dōgen, “leaving home life” can then be considered a form of aesthetic experience in the sense that persons achieve a greater degree of interaction with the natural world by overcoming the means/ends dualism, yet in a way that is not structured teleologically.