Abstract
Zen Master Dogen used the Lotus SUtra in a variety of different ways. It is the aim of this chapter to demonstrate how this appropriation is expressed in his rhetorical style. Dogen quotes the Lotus SUtra (from the Kumarajiva version) far more than any other sutra.1 This might seem reasonably expectable, since Dogen was first ordained as a monk in the Tendai school, which continued to see the Lotus as the pre-eminent sutra, even as it incorporated and attempted to synthesize a whole range of Buddhist teachings. However, while prominent Kamakura innovators Eisai, Dogen, Honen, Shinran, and Nichiren had all been Tendai monks, they vary greatly in their subsequent application of the Lotus SUtra. The Lotus is the fundamental object of devotion for Nichiren, but is scarcely mentioned explicitly by Shinran, although it may be discerned as part of the background of Shin thought.
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