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1 The Earliest Manual and the Origins of Dogen's Zen According to traditional histories,Japanese Soto Zen began in 1227. On this date the young Dogen, fresh from hisenlightenment on Mt. T'ien-t'ung, returned to his native soil. Such was the strength of his new conviction and the urgency ofhisnew mission that, almost immediately upon disembarking, he proclaimed the gospel of S6t5 Zen and set to work transmitting to his countrymen the teachings ofits Chinese Patriarch, his master,Ju-ching. To this end his first act was the composition of a Zen meditation manual, the Fukan z.az.en gi, in which he enunciated the characteristic Soto doctrine of enlightened practice and described the unique Soto meditation of nonthinking in which that practice is realized. This tradition that the Fukan zazen gi directly reflects the religion of Ju-ching and represents its initial statement inJapan is based on the theory that the work was written within months of Dogen's return from the continent , and that, therefore, it should be read as a manifesto of the Buddhism he had brought back from Mt. T'ien-t'ung. Apart from its larger assumptions about the nature ofJu-ching's religion and its transmission to Dogen, the theory rests on the evidence of two passages in the latter's writings, both of which seem to indicate an early date for the text. One of these passages occurs in the Bendo wa, a well-known tract in Japanese from 1231. At the conclusion of the work, in the course of explaining his reasons for writing it, Dogen adds, "The procedures of meditation should be carried out in accordance with the Fukan zazen gi, composed during the Karoku era [I225-27]."1 i. DZZ.i 1746, 763. 16 Texts The second passage appears in a brief, untitled manuscript in Chinese, apparently in D5gen's own hand, discovered during the Edo period at Eihei ji. In this note, after lamenting the fact that no meditation manual had yet been transmitted to Japan, Dogen says, "When I returned to my country from the land of the Sung in the Karoku era, there were students who asked me [to compose a zazen gi\\ and so, I felt obliged to go ahead and compose one."2 Since the Karoku era ended within a few months of Dogen's return to Japan, the manual he mentions here must have been composed almost immediately upon his arrival.3 The relationship of this manual, however, to the extant texts of the Fukan zazen gi remains problematic. Prior to the twentieth century, it was assumed that the text referred to in these passages was the vulgate version of the Fukan zazen gi in use in Soto monasteries; but the discovery, at the beginning of this century, of a second version of the work has shown that assumption to be false. This new version is preserved in an ancient manuscript belonging to Eihei ji. It first came to the attention of the scholarly community in 1922, when it was put on public display at Tokyo Imperial University.4 The document, in one roll, is in a remarkable state ofpreservation. Its mounting, which appears to date from the late Edo period, bears a colophon identifying the manuscript as an authentic example of Dogen's calligraphy (shinpitsu) and stating that it was donated (presumably to Eiheiji) by the calligraphy 2. DZZ.a : 6. For a translation of the full text, seeDocument i. The manuscript is badly deteriorated and was already difficult to decipher in the eighteenth century when it wasstudied by Menzan. The phrase in brackets in the translation here is illegible in the original and follows Menzan's interpolation. (See DZZ.a:6, note.) Given the context, there seems little reason to question his reconstruction. 3. Early sources for Dogen's biography do not agree on the exact date of his return from China, and the issue has long been a subject ofdispute. We know, however, from the certificate of transmission (shisho) Dogen received from Ju-ching that he was still at T'ien-t'ung shan during the third year of the Chinese Pao-ch'ing era (1227). (DZZ.2:287.) On the fifth day of the tenth month (November 15) of this year, he wrote a brief note in Japan, entitled "Shari soden ki," concerning the delivery of his teacher Myozen's remains to one of the latter's disciples. (DZZ.2:3g6.) Hence Dogen must have reached Japan...

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