Dōgen Kigen道元希玄
- Born
- 1200
- Died
- 1253
- Teacher
- Tiantong Rujing (transmission, 1225)
- Studied with
- Butsuju Myōzen
- Dharma heir
- Koun Ejō
- Founded
- Kōshō-ji (1233)Eihei-ji (1244)
- School
- Sōtō
Japanese monk who brought the Caodong line of Chan from Song China to Japan, where it became the Sōtō school. Author of the Shōbōgenzō.
He was ordained on Mount Hiei in 1213, trained under Myōzen at Kennin-ji in Kyoto, and travelled with him to China in 1223. Myōzen died there in 1225. That year Dōgen received transmission from Tiantong Rujing at Mount Tiantong, and he returned to Japan in 1227.
Back in Japan he wrote a short manual on how to sit, the Fukan zazengi, and in 1233 opened Kōshō-ji south of Kyoto. In 1243 he left Kyoto for Echizen Province, where a temple was founded for him the next year; renamed Eihei-ji in 1246, it is still one of the two head temples of Sōtō.
Writings and records
Formal talks and verses given at Kōshō-ji and Eihei-ji, compiled by Dōgen’s students.
Dōgen’s short manual for seated meditation, first drafted, he says, in the Karoku years (1225–1227). The Taishō prints two texts, one signed and dated 1233 and one undated; the Sōtō school’s own translation follows the undated text.
Dōgen’s essays on practice and doctrine, written in Japanese between 1231 and 1253. He edited a 75-fascicle and a later 12-fascicle version; the most common, the Sōtō school says, is the 95-fascicle edition his descendants produced in 1690.
Related people
Sources
- Keizan Jōkin, Denkōroku 伝光録 (c. 1300), Taishō T.2585 · link
- Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō 正法眼藏 (1231–1253), Taishō T.2582 · link
- Dōgen, Fukan zazengi 普勸坐禪儀 (1233), Taishō T.2580 · link
- Sōtōshū Shūmuchō, Record of the Transmission of Illumination by the Great Ancestor, Zen Master Keizan (2017), translators’ notes, by chapter · link
- Sōtōshū Shūmuchō, Shakyamuni Buddha & Two Founders, sections on Dōgen Zenji and Keizan Zenji · link
Checked against sources 2026-11-03 by pipeline/opus@a4ec06e. Report an error.