Dogen’s A Universal Recommendation of Right Zazen

About this book

In 1977, a collection of lectures on Eihei Dogen's 13th-century work *Fukanzazgi* (*A Universal Recommendation of Right Zazen*) by the Zen priest Eko Hashimoto (1890-1965) was privately printed by one of his students, the Rev. Senryū Kamatani. Hashimoto Roshi's *Fukanzazengi no hanashi* (Commentary on the Fukanzazengi) is now available for the first time in English in this new translation by the Rev. Dr. Rosan Osamu Yoshida. In about 2015, the Rev. Hokan Saito suggested to the Rev. Dr. Rosan Osamu Yoshida, abbot of the [ Missouri Zen Center ](https://www.missourizencenter.org/) in Webster Groves, Mo., that he make an English translation of Eko Hashimoto Roshi's commentary on Dogen's Fukanzazengi. Over the course of some ten years, with editing assistance by one of his students, Erin Davis, he took up this interesting and challenging project. Dogen Zenji worked on the text of the Fukanzazengi over the course of many years, tweaking and refining it throughout his lifetime. He wrote this poem in Chinese, but the official (standard) Sotoshu version that is chanted in Japanese monasteries today has been modified for reading according to the Japanese sentence structure. Hashimoto Roshi describes the history and format of the text, and then goes through it line by line, and even word by word. As he does, he provides a number of alternative readings of the standard version, drawing on his long study of Dogen's other texts. He elucidates the many Zen stories referenced by the text, deepening our understanding of it. Description of book from < >