Editing Dōgen (section)

=== Great realization / satori ===
Dōgen taught that through zazen one could attain "great realization" or "great enlightenment" ({{lang|ja|大悟徹底}} ''daigo-tettei''), which is also called [[satori]] ({{lang|ja|悟り}}, "understanding", "knowledge").<ref name="leighton">{{harvp|Leighton|Okumura|1996|p=209. SUNY}}</ref><ref name=":3">Bielefeldt, Carl (1990). ''Dogen's Manuals of Zen Meditation'', p. 5. University of California Press.</ref>

According to Ko'un Yamada, Dōgen "repeatedly emphasizes the importance of each person attaining enlightenment".<ref>Yamada Ko'un, "Dogen Zenji and Enlightenment." in Maezumi, Taizan; Glassman, Bernie (2012). ''On Zen Practice: Body, Breath, and Mind.'' Simon and Schuster.</ref> Dōgen writes about this in a [[Fascicle (book)|fascicle]] of the ''[[Shōbōgenzō]]'' titled ''[[Daigo (Shōbōgenzō)|Daigo]]'', which states that when practitioners of Zen attain daigo they have risen above the discrimination between delusion and enlightenment.<ref>Kosho Uchiyama Roshi; Shohaku Okumura, (1997) ''The Wholehearted Way,'' Tuttle Publishing, p. 82.</ref>

While Dōgen did teach the importance of attaining enlightenment, he also critiqued certain ways of explaining it and teaching about it. According to Barbara O'Brien, Dōgen critiqued the term "''[[kenshō]]''" because "the word ''kenshō'' means 'to see one's nature', which sets up a dichotomy between the seer and the object of seeing."<ref name=":4">O'Brien, Barbara (2019). ''The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World'', p. 204. Shambhala Publications.</ref> Furthermore, according to Bielefeldt, Dōgen's zazen is "a subtle state beyond either thinking or not thinking" in which "body and mind have been sloughed off". It is a state in which "all striving for religious experience, all expectation of satori (daigo), is left behind."<ref name=":3" /> As such, while Dōgen did not reject the importance of satori, he taught that we should not sit zazen with the goal of satori in mind.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" />