This chapter of the Shobogenzo was composed in the summer of 1242, at Dogen's Koshoji monastery on the southern outskirts of the capital. According to the colophon, it was copied out over thirty years later by Dogen's disciple Ejo. The work, one of the shorter pieces in the Shobogenzo, appears as number 36 in both the 75- and 60-chapter versions of the collection.

As its title indicates, the text is a discussion of the arhat, or "worthy," one who has eliminated all his or her spiritual "defilements" (klesha) and achieved nirvana. In much Buddhist literature, the term arhat was used to refer to any fully realized Buddhist (and, indeed, was applied to the Buddha Shakyamuni himself); but, with the rise of the bodhisattva ideal, the word came to refer specifically to the goal of the Shravakayana, or "vehicle of the hearers," who were held to aspire only to nirvana and not to the anuttara samyak bodhi ("supreme, perfect enlightenment") of a buddha.

Dogen's discussion of the term dismisses the distinction between the arhat and the buddha. As in most of the chapters of the Shobogenzo, the discussion proceeds by way of comments on passages drawn from earlier literature - in this case, from the Lotus Sutra and the sayings of several Chinese Chan masters. Expanding on the famous Lotus doctrine that all Buddhism is ultimately intended to guide bodhisattvas to buddhahood, Dogen argues that the true arhat is a fully enlightened buddha. Reiterating a theme found in much of his writing, he argues that true enlightenment is the spiritual practice of the Chan masters.

This translation is based on the text in edited by Kawamura Kodo, in Dogen zenji zenshu 1 (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1991), pp. 403-408. Other English versions can be found in Nishijima and Cross, Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, Book 2 (1996); Nishiyama and Stevens, A Complete English Translation of Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo, vol. 3 (1975); and Yokoi Yuhu, The Shobo-genzo (1986).