Online class: Dogen on Being “the Blossoming of the Entire World”, starting Sep 14


Event Details

This event finished on 02 November 2021


Eight-week class lead by Kosen Gregory Snyder
Class dates: Tuesday 9/14, 9/21, 9/28, 10/5, 10/12, 10/19, 10/26, 11/2

Class time:  7:00 to 8:40pm.

This class will be offered online via live stream. Participants will receive log in details after registering.


Dogen on Being “the Blossoming of the Entire World”

Join Kosen Gregory Snyder, Senior Director of Buddhist Studies at Union Theological Seminary and Co-Founder of the Brooklyn Zen Center and Ancestral Heart Zen Monastery, as we consider the teachings of Eihei Dogen. Founder of the Soto School of Zen Buddhism in 13th-century Japan, Dogen was a philosopher, poet, writer and is acknowledged as one of the foremost teachers of Zen.

In this class we will consider Dogen Zenji’s teachings on being, perception, time, activity, and suchness as guidance for our own upright and awake relationship with life, one another, and Mother Earth. In Dogen Zenji’s Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵, we will be studying selections from the following four fascicles: Uji 有時 (The Time Being, 12), Sansuikyō 山水經 (Mountains and Waters Sutra, 15), Zenki 全機 (Undivided Activity, 42), and Shohō Jissō 諸法實相 (The Reality of Things, 51).

Two to four pages from these fascicles will be assigned weekly. They will require a close reading and your thoughtful consideration as Dogen Zenji’s meaning is not always immediately apparent. Our primary source for these will be the following:  Dōgen. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi, Shambhala, 2013. You are welcome to purchase the book, though we will be sending out scanned copies of the fascicles prior. Optional supporting texts of up to 30 pages weekly will be offered as well to clarify these teachings and enhance our conversation.


Please note our new fee structure. We invite you to register at the highest level possible to help support and sustain our programs. Please note that registration for this class closed September 21.

Please note our cancellation policy for this offering: To request a refund for this class, you must notify BZC in writing by the start of the first class. Refunds will be issued in the total paid less a $15 processing fee. Please note that there are no refunds for events with registration fees under $50. Please see our complete cancellation policy here.


About Kosen Gregory Snyder

Kosen Greg Snyder is a dharma teacher and senior priest at Brooklyn Zen Center, as well as its co-founder and current President. He is also the Senior Director of Buddhist Studies at Union Theological Seminary, where he directs and teaches in a Masters of Divinity program focused on Buddhism and Inter-religious Engagement. Kosen received priest ordination and dharma transmission from Teah Strozer and is a lineage holder in the Suzuki Roshi lineage of Soto Zen. Kosen is active with multiple interfaith and community networks organizing around peace-building, anti-violence and social justice initiatives, and currently sits on the Brooklyn Borough President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Community Partnerships. Kosen’s practice of Zen and the dharma includes an understanding that personal and social liberation are a deeply integrated process of mutual unfolding. In addition to teaching in a formal Zen context, he facilitates Undoing Whiteness and Undoing Patriarchy workshops and ongoing groups that focus on investigating self-identities that may unconsciously perpetuate societal suffering. His efforts include ensuring the dharma is truly available to everyone, supporting young people in practice, developing a community-responsive Zen center, and advocating for bringing the illumination of conditioning around patriarchy, racism and economic exploitation to the center of our Buddhist exploration of self. He is devoted to co-creating an American dharma movement that fully embraces a deep social engagement focused on transforming inequity, bias and violence in ourselves, our communities and the world.