Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo

This is the ultimate English translation of the most important teachings in Japanese Zen. If you're a Zen student, it is perhaps the most important text you could have (apart from the brief Heart Sutra) and will reward a lifetime of study. The Kindle edition works especially well for Shobo Genzo for two reasons: a printed version is too heavy to carry around, and a portable version allows one to dip into it and contemplate a page, a paragraph, or just a single sentence at a time. I'm making a daily practice of that. Zen Master Dogen founded Soto Zen in Japan and its most important temple, Eihei-ji, which flourishes today almost 800 years later. More importantly, he had profound realization that defined much of the Zen tradition. With regards to enlightenment, he taught that everyone is already enlightened but must realize that fact. The act of sitting Zen, he taught, is not a path to enlightenment but is itself the very manifestation of enlightenment. The Shobo Genzo collects the classic set of 95 of Dogen's essays plus a 96th discovered after the original group of 95 was established. These cover all aspects of Zen practice: some are introductory in nature, others are quite abstract, and many detail the day to day minutia of a monastery. They may be read in various ways and for various purposes. Rather than going into all of those, I'd just say this: if you practice Zen, there is much here to challenge you. It is not easy reading but worthwhile. These are texts to provoke you: "What does this mean?" "Why does this bother me?" "What on Earth is he talking about?" and "Oh, yes again, keep that non-attainment mind." This volume reissues in a single volume the contents of a very expensive two-volume set from 2011, now with the handy and readable Kindle version (although expensive for Kindle; a combo print/Kindle deal would be very nice). The translations have been in progress for 30 years by Tanahashi, the master Zen calligrapher, consulting with many others. A long list of American Zen teachers, including Robert Aitken, Chozen Bays, Joan Halifax, and John Daido Loori participated in creating and reviewing the translations. Many of the translations have been published before and used in Zen seminars over several decades. This means they are field-tested and proven in usage with Zen practitioners. Some reviewers of other versions have commented that the English translation is perhaps too seamless, insofar as there are insufficient Japanese terms to allow one to map back to Japanese. Although I speak a bit of Japanese, I don't read enough to comment on this aspect. I'm delighted with the English translation compared to other translations I've sampled. In addition to Dogen's essays, the translator's introduction presents the basics of Dogen's approach, especially the teachings on Zen meditation, with notes on how to read an admittedly difficult work. There are biographical and historical sketches, and a brief annotated summary of each essay. The annotated table of contents makes it easy to find essays I want to read (which do not have to be read in order). Postscripts include Dogen's famous essay on "Recommending Zazen to All People", bibliographic materials, and maps. And, most helpfully of all, a massive glossary of terms and references that will help you stay oriented in the bewildering thicket's of Dogen's attempts to bridge language to Zen. In short, this is a superb reference work, a gift from a lifetime of study and work. Just to be clear, I will repeat: these essays are not easy. This is not a popular, how-to book or collection of entertaining stories. This is a 13th century Zen master trying to put some part of his realization into teaching action through language. For Dogen, Zen and life are inseparable, and this work demands exactly as much struggle to read as Zen does to practice. It is a work to study and savor. Here is an example, the first paragraph of essay 54: "Speaking dharma by means of speaking dharma actualizes the fundamental point that buddha ancestors entrust to buddha ancestors. This speaking dharma is spoken by dharma." I won't propose my own understanding of this (which I think is a profound paragraph) but call it out as an example of the kind of dense and thought provoking material that Dogen presents. It demands interaction, not an expectation that depths will be delivered easily, and certainly not an attitude that surface tautologies imply meaninglessness. (If you want a general introduction to Zen, I'd instead recommend Robert Aitken Roshi's Taking the Path of Zen followed by Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind .) If you're unsure whether it's worth the significant investment, a recommended alternative place to start would be another one of Tanahashi's collection of materials from Dogen, such as Beyond Thinking: A Guide to Zen Meditation . Beyond Thinking contains some of the core essays from the Shobogenzo along with other materials, and is a great introduction both to Dogen's approach to Zen and to Tanahashi's style as a translator. If you find it hard to read and appreciate, then probably the Shobogenzo is not right for you at this time. But if you like it, then spring for the translation here, and then pass the short volume on to someone else to be inspired.

(This review discusses the first, two-volume edition of this book. The comment about the notes and glossary don't apply to this one-volume edition. See the update at the end of this review for some comments about the one-volume edition.) Dogen's Shobogenzo is the most profound and perplexing work of the Zen canon. Written in the 13th century by the founder of the Soto school of Zen, the Shobogenzo is a collection of texts written over a long period of time that examine the concepts and practices of Zen. This edition is a milestone, representing a complete English translation of the Shobogenzo, in an extremely attractive set of books. The two volumes are, while a bit expensive, very well produced. The paper is thick and opaque, the font is very readable, and the binding will last one or more lifetimes. Volume one has introductory matter about Dogen's life and the composition of the Shobogenzo, and the first part of the texts (fascicles 1-47). (For a more thorough discussion of Dogen's life and career, as well as an analysis of his thought, see Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist, by Hee-Jin Kim.) The second volume contains the remainder of the texts (fascicles 48-95 plus a 96th fascicle not included in the original edition of the Shobogenzo), and an extensive glossary explaining the terms used in the books. Some of the texts in this collection have been published previously, in Moon in a Dewdrop, Beyond Thinking, and Enlightenment Unfolds. In fact, many readers may find those there volumes sufficient in content, and more agreeable in overall price. (Another useful book is Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo, by Shohaku Okumura, which is a detailed, and very accessible commentary on this section of the Shobogenzo.) This glossary in volume two is essential to the reading and study of this work. Readers will need to look up terms to get a better understanding of what they really mean. Often a single word, or a short phrase, may seem obscure when reading, but the glossary goes into detail to explain it better. In addition, the glossary serves as an index, with references to where the terms are used. But the glossary is a bit problematic. At more than 200 pages, this is a big chunk of the text, and it is, of course, only available in the second volume. If you are reading the first volume, you still need to have this glossary handy, so you'll need to have both books. I wish that Shambhala had included the glossary as a separate volume - perhaps a paperback - so it could be more easily consulted. Or, if they could provide an ebook version, popping it on an iPad would make reading and consulting it more practical. This doesn't detract from the overall work, which is, I must say, an amazing feat of translation that has taken decades. The text is beautifully rendered, and, while just one interpretation, it certainly has the weight of experience both of the translators as translators and as practitioners. This set is a monument to the work of Dogen. Update: I bought a copy of the one-volume edition of this book. It’s a lot more usable than the two-volume edition, which, long out of print, I’d rather try and keep in good condition. It’s easier to access the glossary in the one-volume edition, and, because it uses very thin paper, the single-volume edition is about half the thickness of the two volumes together. However, this comes at a price. The paper is somewhat see-through; when reading, you see a bit of the printing of the reverse side of the page. And the font is quite light, making it a bit less comfortable to read. Shambhala should have used a slightly bolder font and a more opaque paper to make the book more readable. But none of this detracts from the content of the book, of course. With the one-volume edition, it’s easier to flip around and check the glossary. Oh, and I also have the Kindle edition of the book as well. It’s a great way to carry this great text around wherever I go, and, while I prefer reading on paper, at least you can change the font size on the Kindle (or on apps on my iPhone or iPad).

Dogen's Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi, has been my daily companion the last few years; that, and Dogen's Eihei Koroku, edited by Taigen Dan Leighton. While some translations are more poetic and readable and some exactingly literal and difficult, this volume is very readable while maintaining all the shades of the impossibly simple. There are no footnotes or bracketed explanatory text, just Dogenese. The index doubles as a glossary, which can lead you to possibilities for investigation. While Francis Dojun Cook's translations of the Shobogenzo fasicles are beautifully poetic and inspiring, the Kaz version better captures Dogen's penetrating ideas in some places. For example, in Avalokiteshvara, Yunyan's simple "I am just this. How about yourself brother?" is worthy of taking to the abbots quarters. In Cooks version the wording is, "That is my understanding brother, how about you?". Did Cook miss something? Of course, that's just one instance from this volume. Cook's Sounds of Valley Streams edition follows later with this beautiful wording from Dogen, "Yunyen's 'I understand' does not mean 'I understand Daowu's words' but rather 'I understand' is the movement of his own hands and eyes. It must be boundless activity [of hands and eyes] right here and now." I've read good reviews of the Gudo Nishijima translation, which I believe is a more literal translation directly from the medieval Japanese. A few things: The pages are thin and fascicle headings show through to the next page, forcing the reader to focus on each word. Not a bad thing. I wanted the two volume set (out of print), but it's great to have everything in one volume. The intro text is really good, documenting each fascicle according to Dogen's life. However, these periods are used as page headers throughout the book instead of the traditional chapter/fascicle names, making searches a bit more difficult. The table of contents uses English fascicle names making them harder to identify if you're more familiar with the Japanese names. All minor complaints. Thank you.

Kazuaki Tanahashi has spent most of the last fifty years translating Eihei Dogen Zenji's (1200-1253) masterwork SHOBOGENZO (THE TREASURY OF THE TRUE DHARMA EYE) into English. But even before then he spent time bringing Dogen's medieval Japanese into modern idiom. Dogen is considered the seminal thinker in Soto Zen Buddhism. It is difficult to get far into practice without coming face-to-face with Dogen, whose writings mark him out not only as one of humanity's original thinkers but as a brilliant stylist. Dogen was born into an affluent family, but lost his parents and whatever wealth they'd had before he reached the age of thirteen. He was born into a Japan undergoing social and political upheavals. In order to more completely understand the impermanence that defined his life and times he became a monk in his early teens. Eventually he traveled to China, the home of Ch'an (Zen) returning, he once said, after he had discovered that his nose was vertical and his eyes were horizontal. Not long after he arrived back in Japan, he wrote FUKANZAZENGI (INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE UNIVERSAL APPLICATION OF SITTING MEDITATION). He also began writing the first of the 95 (or more) fascicles (essays or chapters) that make up the SHOBOGENZO. Anyone can learn from Dogen, so direct are his words. Yet, the SHOBOGENZO is truly profound, whether Dogen is addressing such mundane topics as cooking or such esoterica as the nature of space-time. It is interesting to discover that many of Dogen's intuitions match Einstein's equations. At the same time, Dogen's Zen is first and foremost a Zen for Humanity, devoid of priestly trappings and temple pieties and material wealth. Dogen clearly wants his students to thrive, survive and be enlightened by the ten thousand things even in the deepest of dark nights of the soul, and even when all the world is backlit by the flames of war, disruption and unrest. In a book/collection of such a broad range, it should be unsurprising that so much of what Dogen wrote is complex and subtle. Kaz's true brilliance (aided by a team of translators) is that he was able to translate Dogen's poetical, idiomatic and epigrammatic 13th century Japanese into modern English and to do it so well. Although portions of Dogen have been translated from time to time this translation has been and still is a lifelong labor of intensively intellectual spontaneous love. This boxed set with its heavy binding, thick ecru pages, clear print, and excellent presentation, reflects all of that. Although this translation costs a pricey $150.00 it is well worth the investment. This is a book you will be reading every day for the rest of your long life.

I'm grateful to finally have all Dogen's writings in one book and especially pleased to find that Kazuaki's writing is so clear and understandable but then I've found this to be true of Kazuaki Tanahashi's book which have also prepared me to tackle this truly remarkable and hefty tome. It definitely is not for the new to Zen student and even a challenge, though pleasant one, for a 41 year student of Zen and follower of Dogen. The glossary is generous and a true assest and one really has all the essentials for study and practice in one magnificant book. Many thanks to all the fine teachers who have labored for years to ready this masterpiece for publication. Many hours and years went into the making of this epic masterpiece of Zen teachings. Dogen would be pleased. I am seriously considering purchasing an Ebook edition so I can underline and read anywhere though I would not recommend purchasing just as an Ebook. I believe that an Ebook would be an assest to serious study but the book itself is essential initially. I might suggest that one starting on this book, or any student of Zen to watch the maginficant DVD "ZEN" which follows Dogen's life and beautifully done. I recently purchased and can't praise it enough. My only complaint with this book is the paper which it is published on. The paper is so thin that's it's just steps up from tissue paper and I'm concerned about damage with all the years of use this book is going to be getting as it's definitely not going to be sitting on a shelf. I do understand the possible reason for the thin paper as a thicker paper would noticeably increase the size of this already hefty tome. I am aware that the original release was on quality paper and in two volumes. I understand the need the ultra thin paper which is why it still gets 5 stars. In this case it's definitely the quality of the book that rules.

I have been waiting for this for years, a one volume translation of the Shobo Genzo to lift from the shelf and return to at quiet moments of the evening for its tough but clear lessons. Although I think the last longer review says most of what you need to know -- that this is a work of lifetime study and delight -- I want to sing the praises of this edition (I have the hard cover that just came out) for its solid appeal. I had worried that putting all those pages between covers would make for too thin paper or the cutting of corners, but needn't have done so. This book is a thing of beauty, solidly bound and pleasurable to hold. It is more than worth its price. The physical book is not something you'll carry around in your pack every day (get the kindle version if you demand portability), but its elegant and clean layout, the smooth heft of its individual pages, and the very readable typeface are a reward equal to the content -- like the best of tools, well-made and inviting. As that earlier reviewer recommends, if you're new to Dogen, you may want to begin your introduction with one of the other volumes so selflessly edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi and his co-translators (hard to go wrong with The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master, also from Shambhala) -- these are good for testing the waters. But if you find the waters refreshing, buy this book, too -- the price will fade against the years you will have to read and re-read its many lessons. Dogen appeals not only to students of Zen. As Tanahashi writes in his preface to The Essential Dogen, his "writings today inspire many of those who contemplate in different spiritual traditions and are interested in expanding and deepening their meditative experience." If that describes you, this is it!

While this is a lovely one volume edition, it does not have the Japanese text. The titles of each chapter are all in English, with a glossary of sorts in the appendix that has the Japanese names. The Japanese names were intentional and give great context, having this would be nice. Sometimes the language is too simplified, too flowery, compared to other translations I’ve read. While it’s easier to read, in some cases there is lost meaning. Dogen was extremely intentional with his word choices and I find a more literal translation gets his many points across better. Overall, nice edition if you have others to reference.

I love Dōgen’s writing more than that of any other Buddhist teacher or philosopher I’ve encountered, and his Shobogenzo is the richest of his texts. The essays making up this collection, rooted in practice, assume familiarity with tradition and are tangled in allusion; the thinking is also extraordinarily complex. But erudition is not required here (as this fine edition affirms by eschewing notes), only attention, dedication, perseverance: reading Dōgen draws on the very qualities his meditation practice demands. Seducing us to attend and persevere is the poetic beauty of the prose and the wonder aroused by its paradoxical formulations. The book is a joy! Other translations may be more accurate and have more notes—I am currently working through the BDK text translated by Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross, which has its own virtues—but this one, prepared by Kazuaki Tanahashi and a team of distinguished others, is the most readable, the most seductive. It rewards study but also gives pleasure; it’s the translation I’m most likely to open and read from for the sheer enjoyment of being in Dōgen’s presence. The apparatus, which includes a calendar of Dōgen’s life and writing and an extensive glossary, is excellent. The essays themselves are bare of distraction (or guidance), but broken into paragraphs and sections that heighten readability.

Awe-inspiring! The very unique insights into reality by one of Japan's most gifted and most prolific Zen-Master writers, rendered into equally precise and poetic English.

Anyone who considers buying this book will be already aware of Dogen and the importance of the Shobo Genzo (or Shobogenzo), both for Zen practitioners and for students of Buddhism and/or philosophy. Here i'll compare this edition with previous English translations of Dogen, including the two other translations of the complete Shobogenzo with which i am familiar, those by Nearman (Shasta Abbey) and Nishijima and Cross (Dogen Sangha). In this edition, each fascicle (chapter, or essay) has been translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi, who is expert in the medieval Japanese (and Chinese) of Dogen's original text, in collaboration with another Zen practitioner whose first language is English. This parallels the translation of Nishijima and Cross, except that Tanahashi's own command of English is considerably better than Nishijima's, and some of his 30 collaborators are more familiar with Dogen's Japanese than Chodo Cross was at the time of his collaboration with Nishijima. Hubert Nearman has considerable experience both as translator from old Japanese and Zen practitioner, but didn't have the benefit of collaboration with others on his translations of Dogen; the language of his translations is somewhat verbose compared with that of Tanahashi et al., whose work reaps the harvest of many years' striving to render Dogen's intentions into clear contemporary English. The result makes this edition an obvious first choice for a complete Shobogenzo, though other translations are still useful, because no single English version can capture all the possible nuances of the original texts. Roughly two thirds of the Shobogenzo fascicles have been included in English translations of selections from Dogen, including some by Tanahashi and his collaborators; but that leaves about a third that are only available in a complete Shobogenzo, and most of them are no less important than the other chapters for a deep comprehension of Dogen. As in the earlier books of selections published by Tanahashi, annotation and commentary are kept to a minimum. This edition does not use footnotes as the Nishijima/Cross Shobogenzo and the Leighton/Okumura edition of Dogen's Extensive Record do. Instead, its main supplementary and explanatory additions are placed in the glossary at the end of Volume 2, which is over 200 pages long. This gives the Japanese characters and transliteration for each key term (including many proper names), concise definitions, and a selective list of page numbers where the term appears in the text. Tanahashi also gives a very concise "Editor's Introduction" (which does have footnotes, or rather endnotes). This is followed by a 45-page section which gives a timeline of Dogen's career and places an abstract of each fascicle in that context (and gives translation credits). The translators also include some explanatory phrases [bracketed] in the main text itself, but use this device very sparingly, so the text is very clean, leaving nothing to distract the reader. (There are no asterisks marking terms that have been included in the glossary.) The fundamental point of reading a writer like Dogen is to connect your own experience with your own practice on the way to realization. Dogen's way of showing how this is done - much of it by way of commentary or instruction on how to study specific Zen koans and Buddhist sutras - is uniquely valuable. By keeping the text clean, concise and cogent, Tanahashi and his collaborators have given readers an inestimable gift. Those who wish to pursue a more scholarly study of Dogen can turn to the selected bibliography at the back, but will also find this edition the best place to start.

voici enfin une traduction fluide et claire. l'ordre chronologique (bien que discuté par les spécialistes) est aussi un plus. indispensable dans une bibliothèque bouddhique

Großartige Übersetzung eines grandiosen Werkes.

O livro foi entregue em uma sacola de plástico bolha da Amazon. Por se tratar de um livro muito pesado, o mesmo veio danificado na capa dura, folha de rosto e laterais das folhas. Pq não enviaram em uma caixa de papelão? O livro é de altíssima qualidade, tanto no encadernamento quanto no papel escolhido para compo-lo. A fonte é de bom tamanho e o conteúdo servirá como fonte de estudo/consulta pelo resto da vida. Gashō.