Master Dogen's Shinji Shobogenzo

by Gudo Nishijima, Dōgen

The Shinji Shobogenzo is a marvelous collection of 301 Zen koan stories in three volumes that the Japanese Buddhist master Dogen collected during his four-year stay in China. The stories were written in Chinese, and are records of conversations between Buddhist masters and their students. Dogen used many of these stories as the basis for his formal lectures in his major work, the Shobogenzo. The Shinji Shobogenzo is an essential collection that encompasses many of the well-known koan stories, with many interesting and less familiar ones, together with the comments of a contemporary Buddhist master renowned for his clear and no-nonsense approach. Gudo Nishijima Roshi has published a complete translation and commentary on the stories in Japanese, and he first dictated an English translation to three of his students in the early 1980`s, together with a commentary on each story, which was produced in three volumes. Only the first of the three volumes was published, but it is now long out of print. This new and completely revised version comprises all three volumes in one edition, together with Nishijima`s refreshingly down-to-earth explanations of the stories.

Genres: Zen, Buddhism

398 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

西嶋愚道和夫

Reviews

[Lazuli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few other books have felt so deeply human to me

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am digging this a lot, especially the commentaries. I never really grokked the way koans are supposed to give one some mystical insight leading to satori or kensho or whatever one wants to call it. Nishijima shows how they actually can be understood, there's not really anything mystical going on. At least not the way he looks at them.

[Vladislav Ivanishin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nishijima Roshi did an excellent job here. Without his commentary this collection of koans would be rather useless to a western reader (I suspect to any reader at all these days as few people are versed in ancient Chinese Buddhism and those who are probably don't need the commentary).

[Leonhard Schüren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The commentary is useless. Great koan and stories nevertheless.