What is the relationship between Zen experience and language? Is Zen awakening/enlightenment ineffable? In this article, I will address this general question by providing a panoramic treatment of Dogen's ((sic)(sic)) philosophy of language which Hee-Jin Kim characterizes as "realizational". Building on the research of Kim, Victor Sogen Hori and Dale S. Wright, I maintain that the idea of ineffable experiences in Dogen's Zen is embedded within language, not transcendent from it. My focus begins by reviewing Dogen's critical reflections on the idea of ineffability in Zen, and then proceeds to make sense of such in the context of zazen, and the practice of non-thinking, hi-shiryo ((sic)(sic)(sic)). Based upon this inquiry, I then move into an examination of how Dogen's "realizational" philosophy of language, in the context of non-thinking, conditions a 'practice of words and letters' that is effortless, vis-a-vis non-action, wu-wei (<SIC>). From there we shall then inquire into Dogen's use of koan for developing his "realizational" perspective. In doing such, I shall orient my treatment around Hori's research into koan ((sic)(sic)), specifically the logic of nonduality. This inquiry shall in turn provide a clearing for highlighting the non-anthropocentric perspectivism that is salient to Dogen's "realizational" philosophy of language. Finally, I bring closure to this inquiry by showing how Dogen's "realizational" perspective of language sets the stage for expressing a range of value judgments and normative prescriptions, both on and off the cushion, despite his commitment to the philosophy of emptiness, sunyata, whereby all things, including good and evil, lack an inherent self essence, svabhava.
