Gudo Wafu Nishijima (, 29 November 1919 – 28 January 2014) was a Japanese
Zen
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
priest and teacher.
Biography
As a young man in the early 1940s, Nishijima became a student of the Zen teacher
Kōdō Sawaki
was a prominent Japanese Sōtō Zen teacher of the 20th century. He is considered to be one of the most significant Zen priests of his time for bringing Zen practice into the lives of laypeople and popularizing the ancient tradition of sewing the ...
.
Shortly after the end of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Nishijima received a law degree from
Tokyo University
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
and began a career in
finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
. It was not until 1973, when he was in his mid-fifties, that Nishijima was ordained as a Buddhist priest. His preceptor for this occasion was
Rempo Niwa,
a former head of the
Soto Zen Soto may refer to:
Geography
*Soto (Aller), parish in Asturias, Spain
* Soto (Las Regueras), parish in Asturias, Spain
*Soto, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles
* Soto, Russia, a rural locality (a ''selo'') in Megino-Kangalassky District of the Sakha ...
sect. Four years later, Niwa gave him
shiho, formally accepting him as one of his successors. Nishijima continued his professional career until 1979.
During the 1960s, Nishijima began giving regular public lectures on Buddhism and
Zen meditation
''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition.
However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technicall ...
. From the 1980s, he lectured in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and had several foreign students. Nishijima was the author of several books in
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
and English. He was also a notable translator of
Buddhist texts
Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...
: working with student and Dharma heir Mike Chodo Cross, Nishijima compiled one of three complete English versions of
Dōgen
Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師; 26 January 1200 – 22 September 1253), also known as Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), Eihei Dōgen (永平道元), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (高祖承陽大師), or Busshō Dentō Kokushi (仏性伝東国師), was a Ja ...
's ninety-five-fascicle ''Kana
Shobogenzo''; he also translated Dogen's ''
Shinji Shōbōgenzō
The ''Shinji Shōbōgenzō'' (真字正法眼蔵) or ''True Dharma Eye 300 Cases'' (''Shōbōgenzō Sambyakusoku''), or ''Treasury of the True Dharma Eye'' (''Mana Shōbōgenzō''), compiled by Eihei Dōgen in 1223–1227, was first published in ...
''. He also published an English translation of
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...
's ''
Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way'' ().
In 2007, Nishijima and a group of his students organized as the Dogen Sangha International. In April 2012, the president of the organization,
Brad Warner
Brad Warner (born March 5, 1964) is an American Sōtō Zen monk, author, blogger, documentarian and punk rock bass guitarist.
Biography
Brad Warner was born in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1964. His family traveled for his father's job and Warner spent so ...
, dissolved it subsequent to Nishijima's death.
Three philosophies and one reality
While studying the ''Shōbōgenzō'', Nishijima developed a theory he called "three philosophies and one reality," which presents his distinctive interpretation of the
_as_well_as_explaining_the_structure_of_Dogen's_writing._According_to_Nishijima,_Dōgen_carefully_constructed_the_''Shōbōgenzō''_according_to_a_fourfold_structure,_in_which_he_described_each_issue_from_four_different_perspectives._The_first_perspective_is_"
Four_Noble_Truths:_BUDDHIST_PHILOSOPHY_Encycl_...
_as_well_as_explaining_the_structure_of_Dogen's_writing._According_to_Nishijima,_Dōgen_carefully_constructed_the_''Shōbōgenzō''_according_to_a_fourfold_structure,_in_which_he_described_each_issue_from_four_different_perspectives._The_first_perspective_is_"idealism">idealist