“A vast, beautiful translation of the master work of the Japanese genius Dogen Zenji. English-speaking practitioners will be indebted to Kaz Tanahashi and his associates for this truly magnificent teaching, an indispensable contribution to Zen letters.”
—Peter Matthiessen (Muryo Roshi)
“At long last! A discerning, poetic, and, intimate rendering of Dogen’s true expression of the dharma. Dogen’s devotees have long awaited Tanahashi’s complete translation of the Shobogenzo into a contemporary and deeply profound version. Those new to the wisdom of this great teacher as well as those who treasure him will delight in the extraordinary work by our foremost translator and interpreter of Dogen’s masterpiece.”
—Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Abbot, Village Zendo, New York, New York
“Kaz Tanahashi, a renowned translator of Dogen and noted artist, has put together an outstanding team of co-translators to create a complete rendering of Dogen’s magnum opus, the Shobo Genzo. This publication, which will be in great demand by all scholars, students, and practitioners of Zen Buddhism and Eastern thought more generally, is both accurate and accessible in following the original text literally while capturing the spirit of Dogen’s poetic genius. Although there are numerous versions of the work available in English, this new edition is sure to be the one turned to and cited consistently by knowledgeable readers.”
—Steven Heine, Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Asian Studies, Florida International University, author of Zen Skin, Zen Marrow and Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters
“Reading over Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo, I am astonished first by the incredible range and variety of Dogen’s writings, and second by the immense task that has been done to translate this major text. With the possible exception of Hakuin’s complete writings, there is nothing in Japanese Zen to equal the immense breadth and depth of Dogen’s work, which ranges from direct instructions in simple language to the most complex and profound teachings that use words to go far beyond words. I am convinced that Zen students will find this text especially valuable to contemplate, study, and absorb over the entire course of their lifetimes.”
—Stephen Addiss, author of The Art of Zen
ABOUT THE BOOK
Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo, in Japanese) is a monumental work, considered to be one of the profoundest expressions of Zen wisdom ever put on paper, and also the most outstanding literary and philosophical work of Japan. It is a collection of essays by Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of Zen’s Soto school.
Kazuaki Tanahashi and a team of translators that represent a Who’s Who of American Zen have produced a translation of the great work that combines accuracy with a deep understanding of Dogen’s voice and literary gifts. This eBook includes a wealth of materials to aid understanding, including maps, lineage charts, a bibliography, and an exhaustive glossary of names and terms—and, as a bonus, the most renowned of all Dogen’s essays, “Recommending Zazen to All People.”
KAZUAKI TANAHASHI, a Japanese-trained calligrapher, is the pioneer of the genre of “one stroke painting” as well as the creator of multicolor enso (Zen circles). His brushwork has been shown in solo exhibitions in galleries, museums, and universities all over the world. Tanahashi has edited several books of Dogen’s writings and is also the author of Brush Mind.
Sign up to learn more about our books and receive special offers from Shambhala Publications.
Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala.
CONTRIBUTORS
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Peter Levitt
TRANSLATORS
Robert Aitken
Steve Allen
Reb Anderson
Chozen Jan Bays
Hogen Bays
Edward Brown
Gyokuko Carlson
Kyogen Carlson
Linda Ruth Cutts
Andy Ferguson
Norman Fischer
Gaelyn Godwin
Natalie Goldberg
Joan Halifax
Paul Haller
Blanche Hartman
Arnold Kotler
Taigen Dan Leighton
Peter Levitt
John Daido Loori
Susan Moon
Wendy Egyoku Nakao
Josho Pat Phelan
Lewis Richmond
David Schneider
Jean Selkirk
Alan Senauke
Kazuaki Tanahashi
Katherine Thanas
Mel Weitsman
Dan Welch
Michael Wenger
Philip Whalen
TREASURY of the TRUE DHARMA EYE
Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo
EDITED BY
Kazuaki Tanahashi
SHAMBHALA
BOSTON & LONDON • 2012
SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 2010 by the San Francisco Zen Center
The enso design on the book cover is by Shunryu Suzuki and is reproduced by permission of San Francisco Zen Center.
The Credits section constitutes a continuation of this copyright page.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dogen, 1200–1253.
[Shobo genzo. English]
Treasury of the true dharma eye: Zen master Dogen’s Shobo genzo / edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN 978-0-8348-2836-0
ISBN 978-1-59030-474-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Sotoshu—Doctrines—Early works to 1800.
I. Tanahashi, Kazuaki, 1933– II. Title
BQ9449.D654S5313 2010
294.3′85—dc22
2010015405
With deep respect and gratitude to Zen masters Shunryu Suzuki, Taizan Maezumi, and Dainin Katagiri, who pioneered the practice and teaching of Dogen Zen in North America
ON THE GREAT ROAD OF BUDDHA ancestors there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment’s gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way.
—DOGEN,
“Continuous Practice”
WHEN EVEN FOR A MOMENT you sit upright in samadhi expressing the buddha mudra in the three activities, the whole world of phenomena becomes the buddha’s mudra and the entire sky turns into enlightenment.
—DOGEN,
“On the Endeavor of the Way”
CONTENTS
VOLUME ONE
Preface and Acknowledgments
Notes to the Reader
Editor’s Introduction
Texts in Relation to Dogen’s Life and Translation Credits
WANDERING PERIOD, 1227–1233
1. On the Endeavor of the Way
KOSHO MONASTERY PERIOD, 1233–1243
2. Manifestation of Great Prajna
3. Actualizing the Fundamental Point
4. One Bright Pearl
5. Regulations for the Auxiliary Cloud Hall at the Kannondori Kosho Gokoku Monastery
6. The Mind Itself Is Buddha
7. Cleansing
8. Washing the Face
9. Receiving the Marrow by Bowing
&n
bsp; 10. Valley Sounds, Mountain Colors
11. Refrain from Unwholesome Action
12. The Time Being
13. Power of the Robe
14. Transmitting the Robe
15. Mountains and Waters Sutra
16. Buddha Ancestors
17. Document of Heritage
18. Dharma Blossoms Turn Dharma Blossoms
19. Ungraspable Mind
20. Ungraspable Mind, Later Version
21. Old Mirror
22. Reading a Sutra
23. Buddha Nature
24. Awesome Presence of Active Buddhas
25. The Buddhas’ Teaching
26. Miracles
27. Great Enlightenment
28. The Point of Zazen
29. Going Beyond Buddha
30. Thusness
31a. Continuous Practice, Part One
31b. Continuous Practice, Part Two
32. Ocean Mudra Samadhi
33. Confirmation
34. Avalokiteshvara
35. Arhat
36. Cypress Tree
37. Radiant Light
38. Body-and-Mind Study of the Way
39. Within a Dream Expressing the Dream
40. Expressions
41. Painting of a Rice Cake
42. Undivided Activity
43. The Moon
44. Flowers in the Sky
45. Old Buddha Mind
46. The Bodhisattva’s Four Methods of Guidance
47. Twining Vines
VOLUME TWO
MONASTERY CONSTRUCTION PERIOD, 1243–1245
48. Three Realms Are Inseparable from Mind
49. Speaking of Mind, Speaking of Essence
50. The Buddha Way
51. The Reality of All Things
52. Intimate Language
53. Buddha Sutras
54. Insentient Beings Speak Dharma
55. Dharma Nature
56. Dharani
57. Face-to-Face Transmission
58. Rules for Zazen
59. Plum Blossoms
60. Ten Directions
61. Seeing the Buddha
62. All-Inclusive Study
63. Eyeball
64. Everyday Activity
65. Dragon Song
66. Spring and Autumn
67. The Meaning of Bodhidharma’s Coming from India
68. Udumbara Blossom
69. Arousing the Aspiration for the Unsurpassable
70. Arousing the Aspiration for Enlightenment
71. Tathagata’s Entire Body
72. King of Samadhis
73. Thirty-seven Wings of Enlightenment
74. Turning the Dharma Wheel
75. Self-Realization Samadhi
76. Great Practice
DAIBUTSU MONASTERY PERIOD, 1245–1246
77. Space
78. Eating Bowl
79. Practice Period
80. Seeing Others’ Minds
81. King Wants the Saindhava
EIHEI MONASTERY PERIOD, 1246–1253
82. Instructions on Kitchen Work
83. Leaving the Household
84. Eight Awakenings of Great Beings
FASCICLES NOT DATED BY DOGEN
85. Karma in the Three Periods
86. Four Horses
87. Virtue of Home Leaving
88. Making Offerings to Buddhas
89. Taking Refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
90. Identifying with Cause and Effect
91. Monk of the Fourth-Stage Meditation
92. Only a Buddha and a Buddha
93. Birth and Death
94. Heart of the Way
95. Receiving the Precepts
96. One Hundred Eight Gates of Realizing Dharma
Afterword · Michael Wenger
Appendixes
1. Recommending Zazen to All People · Dogen
2. Dogen’s Life and Teaching · Keizan Jokin
3. Dogen’s Editions of the Book
4. Lineage of Chinese Zen Ancestors
5. Maps Related to the Text
6. Eihei-ji Presumed Original Layout
7. Monks’ Hall
8. Time System
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
E-mail Sign-Up
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book contains Chinese and Japanese characters. If you encounter difficulty displaying these characters, please set your e-reader to publisher defaults (if available) or to an alternate font.
VOLUME ONE
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IT IS MY GREAT pleasure to present the lifework of Zen Master Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), an extraordinary meditator, thinker, visionary, teacher, poet, writer, scholar, leader of a spiritual community, and reformer of Buddhism in Japan. We translate the original Japanese title, Shobo Genzo, as “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.” The “eye” here indicates the understanding as well as the experience of reality through meditative endeavor.
Dogen offers a practical, profound, and comprehensive teaching on meditation, presented in a series of sections known as fascicles. The word “fascicle,” literally a bundle of pages, refers to a section of a written work that is an installment of a larger work. (In the present edition, we refer to the fascicles sometimes as “essays” and sometimes as “texts.” Also, for convenience, we refer to the work consistently by its English translation in the introductory comments and notes.)
We present the most comprehensive collection of the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye texts. Our basic original text is Kozen’s ninety-five-fascicle edition, published in the seventeenth century. In addition, we have included “One Hundred Eight Gates of Realizing Dharma,” from Giun’s twelve-fascicle version, a thirteenth-century copy not known by Kozen. The inclusion of this fascicle brings our version to ninety-six fascicles.
Dogen’s poetic and perplexing essays reveal startling visions and thoughts, often paradoxical and impenetrable. You might call Dogen a thirteenth-century postexistentialist. He sees the world of impermanence, and yet his voice is always active and high-spirited. He challenges us with an urgent question: how do we live each moment fully and meaningfully? He makes us feel not confined and tiny, but free and enormous.
Since Dogen is one of the greatest writers in Zen Buddhism throughout time and space, this book serves as an overall guide to the history, literature, philosophy, and practice of Zen. As he is also one of the most extensive elucidators of Buddhist scriptures, this book summarizes how he, as an East Asian Buddhist of ancient times, viewed and explained the dharma to his students. Dogen is primarily regarded as the founder of Japan’s Soto Zen School where he established forms and procedures for Zen meditation. Today his way of practice is spreading throughout the Western world. You may be surprised how much of the movement in the meditation hall as taught by Dogen in the thirteenth century is practiced in a Zen center in your own city almost seven hundred years later.
Treasury of the True Dharma Eye Page 1
