DOGEN WAS BORN INTO AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY IN KYOTO, EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS AGO. HIS FATHER WAS A HIGH-RANKING GOVERNMENT MINISTER AND HE HIMSELF WAS AN UNIQUELY INTELLIGENT CHILD. IT IS SAID THAT HE BEGAN TO READ CHINESE POETRY AT THE AGE OF FOUR.
AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN DOGEN WAS FORMALLY INITIATED.
HE WAS FORMALLY INITIATED INTO THE MONKHOOD ON MOUNT HIEI, THE CENTER OF TENDAI BUDDHIST LEARNING IN JAPAN. FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS HE STUDIED THE SCHOOLS OF VERSIONS OF BUDDHISM, UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF HIS TEACHER, ABBOT KOEN.
BY THE TIME HE WAS FOURTEEN DOGEN HAD BECOME TROUBLED BY A DEEP DOUBT CONCERNING ONE ASPECT OF THE BUDDHIST TEACHING.
IF, AS THE SUTRAS SAY, "ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE ENDOWED WITH THE BUDDHA-NATURE," WHY IS IT THAT ONE MUST TRAIN ONESELF SO STRENUOUSLY TO REALIZE THAT BUDDHA-NATURE, TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT
IN SEARCH OF SOMEONE WHO COULD HELP RID HIM OF HIS DOUBT, DOGEN FOUND HIMSELF WITH ANOTHER TEACHER, MYOZEN.
Teachers are many. Just to graduate into a certain branch of knowledge is not anything unique or special. But to find a master is really arduous, in that they both speak the same language -- the teacher, the master. And sometimes it may be that the teacher speaks more clearly, because he is not worried about his own experience. The master speaks hesitantly, because he knows whatever he is saying is not perfectly appropriate, does not express the experience itself ... that it is a little way off.
The teacher can speak with full confidence because he knows nothing. The master either remains silent or, if he speaks, he speaks with a great responsibility, knowing that he is going to make statements which appear to be contradictory, but which are not.

But every teacher wants to be known as a master. For the seeker this creates a problem. Myozen also proclaimed himself a master, but time proved that he was not a master.
IN SPITE OF LONG YEARS OF TRAINING UNDER MYOZEN, DOGEN STILL FELT UNFULFILLED. AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE HE DECIDED TO MAKE THE JOURNEY TO CHINA WITH MYOZEN, IN ORDER TO STUDY ZEN BUDDHISM FURTHER. LEAVING THE SHIP, DOGEN FOUND HIS WAY TO T'IEN-T'UNG MONASTERY, WHERE HE TRAINED UNDER MASTER WU-CHI.
STILL UNSATISFIED, FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS HE VISITED NUMEROUS MONASTERIES. JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP HIS SEARCH AND RETURN TO JAPAN, HE HAPPENED TO HEAR THAT THE FORMER ABBOT OF T'IEN-T'UNG HAD DIED, AND THAT HIS SUCCESSOR, JU-CHING, WAS SAID TO BE ONE OF CHINA'S FINEST ZEN MASTERS.
He changed his plan to go back to Japan and went again to the same monastery where he had been.
The old master, who was just a teacher, was dead, and he had been succeeded by Ju-ching -- a man who had soared high and touched the peaks of consciousness, who had dived deep and touched the depths of his being, who had moved vertically upwards and downwards, who had traveled through all his conscious territory. This man Ju-ching proved to be a man who answered doubts, settled them, because Dogen was still carrying the same question: that if buddhahood is your nature, then why is any discipline needed?
It was Ju-ching who said, "No discipline is needed. No discipline, nowhere to go, no way to be traveled ... just be, silent, settled, at the very center of your being, and you are a buddha. You are missing it because you are looking and trying everywhere else except within you. You will never find your buddhahood by changing this monastery for another monastery, this master for another master. Go in!"