This book is a collection of articles by one of the leading scholars in Japanese thought
dealing with three areas of Japanese philosophy and religion: Dôgen's Zen view of liberation
including the key doctrines of casting off body-mind being-time and spontaneous manifestation
of the kôan the relation between Buddhism literary aesthetics and folk religion and a
comparison of Japanese and Western thought particularly Heidegger on science language and
death. The central theme throughout these essays is the meaning of time and impermanence in
Japanese religion and culture based on Buddhist contemplation. The book's title refers to a
phrase used by Dôgen the dramatist Chikamatsu and others that plays on the twofold image of
dream representing either the fleeting world of illusion or the nonsubstantial realm of
ultimate reality. One of the articles is a new annotated translation of Dôgen's Shôbôgenzô
Muchû setsumu (Disclosing a Dream Within a Dream) fascicle. Other essays offer novel
interpretations of Chikamatsu and Kyoto-school thinkers Kuki Shûzô and Nishitani Keiji in
addition to Japanese folk religion.
