Dōgen (1200-1253 CE). The founder of the Sōtō branch of Zen Buddhism in Japan. He is reputed to have been a man of noble parentage, orphaned at the age of seven, very humane, irreproachable in his conduct, and deeply religious. He taught that the Buddha-nature is to be realized by the elimination of all selfish cravings and self-centeredness. He much emphasized the practice of meditation through Zazen, which entails sitting upright with legs crossed while mentally concentrating on the realization of the Buddha-nature. He disapproved of the tendency in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism to split into various sects and held Zen to be the direct way to salvation. His most important writing is the Shōbōgenzō. See Zen and Za-Zen.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989