Dōgen

Dōgen (Kyoto, 1200 – Kyoto, 1253) is one of the central figures of Zen Buddhism in Japan. A monk, writer and poet, he founded the Sōtō school, which brought the Chinese Cáodòng tradition to Japan. His writings, above all the Shōbōgenzō, remain among the most studied sources in the Sōtō tradition and among readers interested in Buddhist philosophy.

Born into a noble family in Kyoto, probably as an illegitimate child, he lost his mother at an early age and was raised by an older brother. At thirteen he entered the monastic community on Mount Hiei, the headquarters of the Tendai school, where he was troubled by a question he could not answer: if all beings are already enlightened by nature, why practise at all? Seeking an answer, he travelled to China in 1223. He was disappointed by the heavy emphasis on kōans, but found in the master Rujing, of the Cáodòng line, the teaching he had been looking for. According to later accounts, he experienced a liberation of body and mind when he heard the master say, "cast off body and mind". He received Dharma transmission in 1227 and returned to Japan.

Back home, he promoted zazen, seated meditation, through works such as the Fukanzazengi and the Bendōwa. For Dōgen, practice and realisation are not two separate things: practice itself is original realisation. Zazen therefore does not aim at a goal beyond itself; it expresses an enlightenment that is already present. In his teaching, shikantaza, or simply sitting, means being alertly attentive without fixing on any object, not straining to avoid thinking. His view of buddha-nature was also unusual. It is not a permanent essence hidden in beings, but the totality of things in constant change. Thus even mountains and rivers are buddha-nature, and impermanence itself is buddha-nature. In his metaphysics of time-being (uji), time and being cannot be separated.

After tensions with the Tendai community and a period of crisis, he criticised the Rinzai school sharply and in 1243 moved with his community to Echizen province, where he founded Eihei-ji, still one of the two head temples of the Sōtō school. He died in Kyoto in 1253, shortly after naming his disciple Koun Ejō as abbot. His influence endures in contemporary Zen, and his work has drawn the attention of Western philosophers, who have compared it with thinkers such as Heidegger.