This page is now added following a page I recently published - Shōbōgenzō Butsudō. - I published the other page disliking the translation of the title of “Yadonashi Kodo Hokusan” as “the Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo”. It was so before but I was disappointed that a new translation still held this name. It is of course not just about that, but as for allowing a point Master Dogen refers to there to be easily noticed. - Anyway, this page is not about that and I won’t relate to the matter here, there too it didn’t seem necessary beyond quoting what I did, and here too I wish to bring a quote from Master Dogen relating to a different issue which seems important to me. Due to poetic and refined or subtle means of expression and due to attempts to express what is said to be inexpressible, and also due to the time in which many things have been said or written, - long ago, - when the abilities and tendencies of humanity were not the same as they are seemingly today, some - perhaps many, - seem to pick up a notion as if common sense and logic in itself are tools to be disposed of and as if the structure of the spirit constructed upon the most fundamental rules of nature through which we gain our basic abilities of thinking and consideration is one that could be replaced by some contradicting structure unobliged to logic. Thus the following quote I consider important:
“At the present time in the great kingdom of Song, there is a group of unreliable fellows who have now formed such a crowd that they cannot be beaten by a few real [people]. They say that the present talk of the East Mountain moving on water, and stories such as Nansen’s sickle, are stories beyond rational understanding. Their idea is as follows: “A story which involves images and thoughts is not a Zen story of the Buddhist patriarchs. Stories beyond rational understanding are the stories of the Buddhist patriarchs. This is why we esteem Ōbaku’s use of the stick and Rinzai’s shout, which are beyond rational understanding and which do not involve images and thoughts, as the great realization before the sprouting of creation. The reason that the expedient means of many past masters employ tangle-cutting phrases is that [those phrases] are beyond rational understanding.” Those fellows who speak like this have never met a true teacher and they have no eyes of learning in practice; they are small dogs who do not deserve to be discussed. For the last two or three hundred years in the land of Song there have been many such demons and shavelings [like those] in the band of six. It is pitiful that the great truth of the Buddhist Patriarch is going to ruin. The understanding of these [shavelings] is inferior even to that of śrāvakas of the Small Vehicle; they are more stupid than non-Buddhists. They are not laypeople, they are not monks, they are not human beings, and they are not gods; they are more stupid than animals learning the Buddha’s truth. What the shavelings call “stories beyond rational understanding” are beyond rational understanding only to them; the Buddhist patriarchs are not like that. Even though [rational ways] are not rationally understood by those [shavelings], we should not fail to learn in practice the Buddhist patriarchs’ ways of rational understanding. If ultimately there is no rational understanding, the reasoning which those [shavelings] have now set forth also cannot hit the target. There are many of this sort in all directions of Song China, and I have seen and heard them before my own eyes. They are pitiful. They do not know that images and thoughts are words and phrases, and they do not know that words and phrases transcend images and thoughts. When I was in China I laughed at them, but they had nothing to say for themselves and were just wordless. Their present negation of rational understanding is nothing but a false notion. Who has taught it to them? Though they lack a natural teacher, they have the non-Buddhist view of naturalism.”.
The quote is of course as the title implies from chapter 14 of the Shobogenzo (chapter 13 in the Nearman translation) Sansuigyo. Since I did not include the footnotes two points still need to be mentioned: - “shaveling” - “tokushi” - literally “bald child” means according to Nishijima and cross someone who has become a monk in form but who has no will to the truth. According to Nearman it was a term applied to monks who shaved their heads so that they could partake of monastic food and lodging, but who had no interest in spiritual training. It seems here this would not necessarily mean such a severe idea but generally merely some who have undergone some training but who do not as yet truly posses understanding which would emerge as a result of practice individually and diverse in the time and effort it would require. Second, - “tangle” in “tangle-cutting phrases” is “Katto” - literally “arrowroot and wisteria” - as the title of chapter 46 (47 in the Nearman translation) in our main book quoted here.
Also, for anyone interested, here is the link for the same Chapter, there called “Sansuikyō”, from Nearman’s translation. I have not read it, I did read the quote here there too, I don’t think the translation is as good, but anyone interested could use it. I don’t know the Tanahashi translation at all. I don’t think it’s on the web and I have not bought the books, so far.
It’s all just about the quote, of course. Dogen says it and I hope the point will be met.
