Shōbōgenzō

Introduction

Not a single book but a collection of essays, called fascicles, which Dōgen wrote and delivered as talks between 1231 and 1253. Unusually for Buddhist teaching texts of the time, they are written in Japanese rather than classical Chinese. Well-known fascicles include “Bendōwa” (1231) on seated meditation, “Genjōkōan” (1233) and “Uji” (Being-Time, 1240). Several compilations exist, with 75, 12 and, in a later edition, 95 fascicles, and their relation is still studied. Long read only inside the Sōtō school, the work reached a wider public in the 1920s through the philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō and is now often read as philosophy.

Connections

Builds on

• Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika)c. 200 · Nagarjuna