Eiheiji owes its existence to Dôgen (1200-1253), the Buddhist monk who today is remembered as the founding patriarch of the Sôtô Zen lineage in Japan.  Not only did Doôgen found the temple complex that evolved into Eiheiji, but after his death Dôgen's memory or, rather, the exploitation of that memory has ensured Eiheiji's survival and growth for more than seven-hundred years.  Without special efforts by Eiheiji's leaders to promote Eiheiji as the sacred locus for worship of Dôgen it is doubtful if Eiheiji could have survived, much less thrived, as the head temple of the Sôtô school.  For the past five hundred years Eiheiji's leaders have exploited Dôgen's memory by seeking the endorsement of the royal court, by demanding attendance at memorial services for Dôgen, by asserting that only Eiheiji maintained the traditional practices advocated by Dôgen, by placing their imprimatur on publications of Dôgen's writings, by organizing celebrations of Dôgen's birth, and by promoting scholarship concerning Dôgen.  A brief examination of the ways that the promotion of Dôgen served the institutional needs of Eiheiji will help us better understand how Dôgen and the concept of "Dôgen Zen" acquired such importance for Sôtô Zen teachings and such prominence in modern accounts of Japanese religious history.

Foulk's presentation began by listing and outlining the relationships between all of the Ch'an and Zen monastic rules, from Sung China down to twentieth century Japan, that have contributed directly or indirectly to the compilation of the Sôtôshû gyôji kihan, which he is currently translating as part of the Sôtô Zen Text Project. He noted that the many so-called "rules of purity" (shingi) do not comprise a single, homogeneous genre. Rather, they include a wide variety of materials, such as: (1) rules describing the functions and ideal attitudes of various officers in a monastic bureaucracy; (2) procedures for major ceremonies and rituals in the life of a monastery; (3) handbooks for monks who are new to communal sangha hall training; (4) meditation manuals; (5) daily, monthly, and annual schedules of activities for particular monasteries; and (6) liturgical texts, such as merit dedicating verses. Foulk criticized the methods and findings of previous scholarship, which has compared Dôgen's shingi with that of Keizan (and subsequent works based on the Keizan shingi) and concluded that Dôgen's Zen was somehow more "pure" than the Sôtô Zen that developed in later generations. Such an approach, he argued, amounts to comparing apple and oranges. Foulk concluded that Dôgen's rules were rather typical in that they focused on some aspects of monastic life and took others for granted. Just because he did not leave writings that dealt with every type of shingi material does not mean that he rejected or neglected the practices that were prescribed in them. There is ample evidence elsewhere in his writings that he embraced the model of the Sung Ch'an monastery in its entirety, including most of the ceremonies and rituals that are treated in the Keizan shingi.

This paper deals with two of the main works that are representative of Dôgen Zen, which abbreviated versions of much lengthier writings by the Kamakura-era Sôtô master constructed by later editors. One of the abbreviated texts is the Eihei Dôgen zenji goroku (Recorded Sayings of Dôgen, Founder of Eihei Temple), a one-volume edition that consists of sermons, lectures, verse commentaries on kôans, and lyrical poems culled from the 10-volume Eihei kôroku. The Eihei goroku was compiled in China by Dôgen's Dharma-brother I-yüan (Japn. Gion) in the 1260s, about ten years after Dôgen's death. It was published in 1358 by Donki, the main disciple of fifth Eiheiji patriarch Giun, who became the sixth patriarch, as the very first publication of the still fledgling Sôtô sect. Dôgen's approach to Ch'an/Zen literature and practice in these records seems to reflect influences received from Chinese Ts'ao-tung (Japn. Sôtô) patriarchs. The second abbreviated work is the Sôto kyôkai shushôgi (The Meaning of Practice-Realization in the Sôtô Zen Fellowship), also known as Shushôgi, a compact, 5-section/31-paragraph text that consists of selections of brief passages extracted from the 95-fascicle edition of the Shôbôgenzô. This text was created over a period of a few years in the late 1880s by several contributors, especially the lay leader Ouchi Seiran, and was published in 1890 by the Sôtô sect; it emphasizes repentance and precepts rather than zazen meditation. The paper examines how the texts were constructed and to what extent they represent a legimitate distillation or inappropriate distortion of the structure and content of the source materials.

This paper discusses the historical background, as well as some of the more controversial aspects, of the Shushôgi - a compilation of Dôgen's teachings adopted by the Sôtô sect in 1890 as its official creed. Despite the text's omission of zazen and the criticism this has drawn, it has remained a central pillar of Sôtô teaching for over one hundred years. This paper first examines the social, political, legal and institutional changes of the early Meiji period which created the need for a doctrinal standard. It then traces the process of attempting to create such a standard which culminated in the adoption of the Shushôgi.

In the Teiho Kenzeiki, a legend about the miraculous cure of an ill Dôgen by the deity Inari and Dôgen's travel companion, Dôshô, appeared for the first time. Previous versions of the Kenzeiki neglected to mention this legend and the medicine Gedoku'en (which would be manufactured later at Dôshô'an in Kyoto) because this legend was first circulated in the 1610s by a certain Dôshô'an Bokujun. This paper deals with the emergence of the linkage of Dôgen, Dôshô, and the medicine Gedoku'en, which through this legend and the emerging network of 17,500 temples in the Edo-period honmatsu system, was sold at Sôtô temples. Direct marketing by Dôshô'an at temples and the distribution of the medicine at Dôshô'an (where abbots from around the country stayed when in Kyoto to receive promotions) led to a growing popularity of this sacred medicine. Marketed as a manbyôyaku (all-purpose pill) that could cure anything from the common cold to malaria, its popularity even invited imitators (who were caught by Sôtô temples and legal pharmacists). The Sôtô school was able to expand in the Edo period in part because of healing activities such as selling Dôgen's medicine, Gedoku'en.