Shobo-genzo

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Shōbō-genzō (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye). An anthology of 92 essays of varying length and on various topics composed by Dōgen (1200–53), the founder of the Sōtō school of Japanese zen. This work is important for a number of reasons. It is the first piece of literature to be written in the Japanese vernacular, rather than in the classical Chinese style. It is of high literary quality, showing the master's great skill at phrasing subtle ideas and word-play. Finally, it contains philosophical ideas of such quality as to command the attention of serious thinkers across centuries and cultures. The author's stated goal was to lead the reader to see everything, from the simple quotidian rituals of Zen monastic life to the most abstract philosophical vision, as a Buddha would. To give an example, the essay ‘Uji’ (Being Time) plays on a standard classical Chinese compound of two characters that generally means ‘at a certain time’ or ‘there was a time when’, and reinterprets the two characters as parallel nouns, i.e. ‘Being/Time’. With this play on words as the starting point, Dōgen expounds a view of time as inseparable from existence, where impermanence and change, both functions of time, also define the being or existence of things. As impermanence is the ultimate nature of things, then things are not objects that perdure through time; they are time.

Dōgen originally intended the Shōbō-genzō to extend to 100 books, but ill health cut his life short, and the project remained incomplete. Of the 92 essays in the standard edition, only twelve went through Dōgen's final revision, and so most are still initial drafts. However, the affinities of Dōgen's thought as contained in this book with currents of 20th-century Western philosophy, particularly that of Heidegger, has sparked a renaissance of Dōgen studies, both in Japan and the West.

Shōbō-genzō (Treasure Chamber of the Eye of True Dharma). A major work of Dōgen, and one of the supreme works of Japanese Zen. It is a vast and difficult work, written and compiled during the last decade of his life. Dogen intended 100 books but completed only 92–75 unrevised, 12 revised, and an appendix of 5. Much of it, including the title, is untranslatable.