home	back to Zen Teachings Dogen

thezensite: The Shōbōgenzō

The Shōbōgenzō (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) is the master work of the Japanese Sōtō Zen Master Eihei Dōgen (1200 - 1253). It consists of a series of lectures or talks given to his monks as recorded by his head monk, Ejo, who became his Dharma successor although Dōgen was involved in the editing and recording of some of the Shōbōgenzō. This is the first major Buddhist philosophical work composed in the Japanese language.
There were only two complete English translations of the Shōbōgenzō previous to this version: Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross's Master Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō in four volumes and Shobogenzo, The Eye and Treasury of the True Law, by Kosen Nishiyama and John Stevens. There are many translations of sections of the Shōbōgenzō. There are also many commentaries on Dōgen and his work. A search on this website will uncover articles on Dōgen and his teachings.

The Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross's Master Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō in four volumes is now available for download for free from thezensite: Dogen Teachings page

The Complete Shōbōgenzō is available here (this site) and here from Shasta Abbey, translated by Rev. Hubert Nearman. Please Note: These links automatically download a pdf version to your computer.
WARNING: the complete text is 1144 pages in .pdf and 8, 675 Kb. Not recommended for dial-up modems. If you have difficulty downloading this from this website, try the Shasta Abbey link. Below are links to each of the 96 chapters and other parts of the book. All pages are in .pdf format.

Another translation was in progress through Stanford University. These translations were part of the now suspended Soto Text Project. However, some translations are still available via Soto Zen Buddhism International Center journal, Soto Zen Journal. There are 47 volumes available but no overall index. Each volume does have an index so one will have to go through each volume to find the Soto Zen Text Project translations.