Education
University of Tokyo.
西嶋愚道和夫
University of Tokyo.
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Nishijima received a law degree from Tokyo University and began a career in finance. Four years later, Niwa gave him shiho, formally accepting him as one of his successors. Nishijima continued his professional career until 1979.
In 2007, Nishijima and a group of his students organized as the Dogen Sangha International.
In April 2012, Warner dissolved the organization. Nishijima was the author of several books in Japanese and English.
He also published an English translation of Nagarjuna"s Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā). Nishijima had not been in good health for several years.
lieutenant is reported by family that his final words, upon refusing further medical treatment, were, "I decide my death time by myself." Nishijima was often heard to say in teaching that "Life is just the fact in this moment.
Death is just the fact in this moment." While studying the Shōbōgenzō, Nishijima developed a theory he called "three philosophies and one reality," which presents his distinctive interpretation of the Four Noble Truths as well as explaining the structure of Dogen"s writing. According to Nishijima, Dōgeneral carefully constructed the Shōbōgenzō according to a fourfold structure, in which he described each issue from four different perspectives. The third perspective is described as an integration of the first two, producing a "realistic" synthesis (mainstream, nirodha).
The fourth perspective is reality itself, which Nishijima argues cannot be contained in philosophy or stated in words, but which Dōgeneral attempts to suggest through poetry and symbolism.