Please note: This ebook is for the fourth of eight volumes only. Each of the eight volumes are available as individual ebooks.

This publication represents an English rendering of one of the great classics of Japanese Buddhism, the Shōbōgenzō 正法眼藏, by Dōgen 道元(1200–1253), founder of the Sōtō Zen school. The translation was produced by the Sōtō Zen Text Project, a team of scholars working under the auspices of the Administrative Headquarters of Sōtō Zen Buddhism. It is based on the Japanese edition of the Shōbōgenzō in Kawamura Kōdō 河村孝道, ed., Dōgen zenji zenshū 道元禅師全集, volumes 1–2, which provides what are thought to be the most authoritative compilations of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō essays, in seventy-five and twelve chapters, supplemented by sixteen additional texts.

The translations, in seven volumes, are aimed at both professional and lay audiences. They are accompanied by the Japanese texts and by extensive annotation on the language, literary sources, and interpretations of those texts. An eighth volume provides a lengthy study of the history and contents of the Shōbōgenzō, supplementary notes to the translation, and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary works.

Volume I (The Seventy-five-Chapter Compilation, Part 1)

Volume II (The Seventy-five-Chapter Compilation, Part 2)

Volume III (The Seventy-five-Chapter Compilation, Part 3)

Volume IV (The Seventy-five-Chapter Compilation, Part 4)

Volume V (The Seventy-five-Chapter Compilation, Part 5)

Volume VI (The Twelve-Chapter Compilation)

Volume VII (Supplementary Chapters, Variant Texts)

Volume VIII (Introduction, Supplementary Notes, Appendices, List of Works Cited

The print edition (ISBN 9780824899257) is available for sale only as a full set containing all eight volumes.

Founded in 1995 under the auspices of the International Department (Kokusaika 国際課) of the Administrative Headquarters of Sōtō Zen Buddhism (Sōtōshū Shūmuchō 曹洞宗宗務庁), the Sōtō Zen Text Project (Sōtōshū Shūten Kyōten Hon’yaku Jigyō 曹洞宗宗典経典翻訳事業) brings together teams of scholars to produce English translations of the foundational texts of the Japanese Sōtō Zen School. The following Project members contributed to this publication:
Urs App, Professor, Emeritus, Hanazono University: technical support
Carl Bielefeldt, Professor, Emeritus, Stanford University: editor-in-chief and translator
William M. Bodiford, Professsor, Emeritus, UCLA: author of Introduction and translator
T. Griffith Foulk, Professor, Sarah Lawrence College: editor and translator
Sarah J. Horton, independent scholar: copy editor
Stanley Weinstein (1929-2017), Professor, Emeritus, Yale University: translator