Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; also Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, or Eihei Dōgen 永平道元, or Koso Joyo Daishi) (19 January 1200 – 22 September 1253) was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He was a leading religious figure of his time, as well as being an important philosopher. Dōgen is most known for the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Shōbōgenzō, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Budd...
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Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; also Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, or Eihei Dōgen 永平道元, or Koso Joyo Daishi) (19 January 1200 – 22 September 1253) was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He was a leading religious figure of his time, as well as being an important philosopher. Dōgen is most known for the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Shōbōgenzō, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Buddhist practice and enlightenment.
Dōgen was born into a noble family. His father may have been Koga Michichika (久我道親), a high-ranking minister in the imperial court, while his mother was likely the daughter of Fujiwara Motofusa (藤原基房), who had once been a regent in the court. Dōgen's father died when Dōgen was three years old, and his mother when he was eight, which strongly impressed Dōgen with the Buddhist notion of impermanence (Japanese: 無常 mujō).
At the age of thirteen, affected by this early glimpse of impermanence and faced with the...
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