In the seventh session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar, Sensei Genzan explores Dogen’s Eight Awakenings of Great Beings (Hachi Dainin Gaku), weaving scholarship with lived experience to reveal how Zen practice addresses the paradoxes of daily life. “It’s not that Dogen is paradoxical,” he notes, “our lives are paradoxical.” With humor and humility, Genzan shows how the Eight Awakenings form not a list but “a holistic mandala,” where each quality—few desires, contentment, quietude, diligence, remembering the dharma, samadhi, wisdom, and refraining from idle talk—contains all the others. Through vivid stories, from a restless zazen to gently escorting a spider from his bathtub, he demonstrates how ordinary experiences embody awakening. This intimate teaching invites us to live the paradox of practice with kindness, courage, and freedom.
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