What Am I? Galen Sharp     Further Excerpts from the Electronic
Letters of Sandeep Chatterjee  These being of the nature of
story  (New selections are added to the end of this page) (also
see Sandeep's Echo To A Sound, Shadow To A Shape)  Dogen was
born into an aristocratic family in Kyoto, Japan about 8 hundred
years back. A uniquely intelligent child, it is said that he
began to read Chinese poetry at the age of four.The Chinese
language is probably the most difficult language in the world as
it has no alphabet.It is pictorial and to read it means year of
hard work to memorize those symbols. To the born Chinese it may
not be so difficult, because from birth it is ingrained into the
mind, but to an outsider it may take 20-30 years. At the age of
seven his parents died and at that time he was translating the
most significant Buddhist scripture- "Abhidharma"- "the essence
of religion" from Chinese to Japanese.At the age of seven Dogen
took "sannyas"- renunciation.  At the age of 13, Dogen was
formally (In thos