Dōgen’s legacy can be seen most clearly in the way it crystallized the identity of Sōtō Zen. His insistence on shikantaza—“just sitting” as wholehearted, objectless meditation—became the hallmark of Sōtō practice, distinguishing it from the kōan-centered emphasis of Rinzai while still drawing on kōan literature. Closely bound to this was his teaching of practice-realization (shushō-ittō), the view that practice is itself enlightenment rather than a means to a later goal. This vision permeated monastic life through his detailed regulations, in which eating, cleaning, and working were treated as complete expressions of the Way. In this manner, every moment of daily life came to be regarded as full practice, not a mere preparation for some future awakening.

Within the Sōtō lineage, later masters received and elaborated this inheritance. Figures such as Keizan Jōkin broadened Dōgen’s vision and helped spread a Dōgen-inspired but flexible Sōtō style through temples and lay communities. Others, notably Menzan Zuihō, devoted themselves to recovering, editing, and systematizing Dōgen’s writings, treating him as a definitive doctrinal authority. Through this commentarial tradition, his subtle teachings on impermanence, Buddha-nature, and being-time shaped how subsequent Sōtō teachers understood both meditation and doctrine. The result was a school whose self-understanding was deeply marked by the unity of practice and enlightenment and by the sacralization of ordinary activity.

Dōgen’s influence did not remain confined to Sōtō circles. His major work, the Shōbōgenzō, became a point of reference for Rinzai masters and other Zen teachers, especially in later periods, who engaged his reflections on non-duality, Buddha-nature, and time. Although institutional and pedagogical differences remained, elements of his thought—such as the rejection of a gap between ordinary and enlightened mind—quietly informed broader Japanese Buddhist discourse. Shared monastic networks and overlapping training environments also meant that his holistic vision of disciplined, integrated practice helped shape the common culture of Zen training beyond sectarian boundaries.

Over time, Dōgen’s rigorous and often poetic language fostered a rich intellectual and spiritual conversation within Zen. His way of presenting zazen as the direct manifestation of Buddha-nature, and of treating every aspect of monastic routine as full realization, offered later masters a framework for uniting seated meditation with the flow of daily life. Through textual study, institutional development, and lived practice, his teachings became a touchstone for how many Zen masters, across different lineages, came to articulate the nature of awakening and the path that embodies it.