Tenzo kyôkun Notes
1. Kagamishima Genryû, Satô Tatsugen and Kosaka Kiyû,
eds. and trans., Yakuchû zen'en shingi (Tokyo: Sôtôshû
Shûmuchô, 1972), 269. |
2. Kagamishima et al., Yakuchû zen'en shingi, 116. |
3. The reference here is to Guishan Lingyou (771-853) and Dongshan
Shouchu (910-990). |
4. Baoning Renyong (n.d.). |
5. These are the so-called six stewards mentioned above. |
6. Kagamishima et al., Yakuchû zen'en shingi, 273. |
7. The references here are to Xuefeng
Yicun (822-908) and Dongshan Liangjie (807-869). |
8. Kagamishima et al., Yakuchû
zen'en shingi, 116. |
9. A famous saying taken from a
dialogue between Guishan Lingyou (771-853) and his disciple Yangshan
Huiji (807-883). As it appears in the Jingde Era Record of
the Transmission of the Flame (Jingde chuandeng lu), the
dialogue reads:
One day [Yangshan] went along
with Guishan to open a field. The teacher [Yangshan] asked, "Why
is it that this part is low and that part is high?" Guishan
said, "Water can level things; let us just use water to
level it." The teacher said, "Water is not reliable,
master. It is just that high places are high and level; low places
are low and level." Guishan assented. (T 51.282b18-21).
The dialogue appears in many
other Zen texts, including: Wujia yulu (ZZ 119.861a);
[ADD TRANSLIT] (ZZ 118.66a); and Dôgen's Eihei kôroku
and Sanbyaku soku. The saying "high places are high
and level, low places are low and level" also appears in
the Foyan chanshi yulu (ZZ 118-0515b13-14).
|
10.
This passage alludes to case 4 of the koan collection Congrong
Record (Congronglu), entitled "The World-honored One
Points to the ground" (seson shichi):
When the World-honored One was
walking with the assembly [of his follwers], he pointed to the
ground with his hand and said, "This place is suitable to
build a shrine." [The deva] Indra took a single blade of
grass, stuck it in the ground, and said, "I have built the
shrine." The World-honored One smiled (T 48.230a3-5).
For a full translation of this
case and its associated commentary, see Thomas Cleary, trans.,
Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues (Hudson, NY:
Lindisfarne Press, 1990), 17-19.
|
11. This passage alludes to a passage
in fascicle 7 of the Shurangama-samâdhi-sûtra
(Shoulengyanjing) which states that
The tathâgatas of the ten
directions, embracing the spirit of this dharani, turn the great
wheel of the dharma in lands [innumerable as] motes of dust.
(Zengaku daijiten, 1182a, s.v. mijin.)
|
12. Taigen Daniel Leighton and Shohaku
Okumura argue that
Instead of "birds,"
the common Rufubon edition has "horses." However, the
earliest
[READING]Kôshû
version, copied by the fifteenth Eiheiji abbot
[READING]
Kôshû
in the early sixteenth century, has "birds," which
is clearly correct in the poetic context of the characters for
the whole phrase. (Dôgen's Pure Standards for the Zen
Community [Albany: SUNY Press, 1996], 51n13).
[END INDENT]
However, Andô Bun'ei notes
that Dôgen was probably alluding to an "old saying"
(kogo) that goes:
The mind monkey soars [through]
the spreading branches of the five desires;
The thought horse runs [through]
the territory of the six senses.
(Eihei daishingi tsûkai [Tokyo: Kômeisha,
1969], 44n.)
In this saying, monkeys soar
(literally, "fly" [tobi]); in the popular edition
of Tenzo kyôkun, horses scatter (literally, "fly
in confusion" [funbi]). In both cases, the "flying"
is metaphorical and need not be taken literally as the action
of birds.
|
13. A double-entendre. On the literal
level, the meaning is simply that the cook should look all around
and put things away where they belong. Figuratively, he is advised
to look "there" (nahen -- the realm of the highest
truth), while putting things to rest "here" (shahen
-- the wordly realm). |
14. A play on the common expression,
"In the morning attend [the abbot's sermons] and in the
evening seek [his instruction] (chôsan boshô),"
which means to seek the dharma at all times. |
15. Luling was a district in Jiangxi
Province that produced a distinctive type of rice. The reference
to Luling rice comes from a famous dialogue found in the biography
of Chan master Qingyuan Xingsi (d. 740) in the Jingde Era
Record of the Transmission of the Flame (Jingde chuandeng lu):
A monk asked, what is the ultimate
meaning of the buddha-dharma? The master said, "What is
the price of Luling rice?" (T 51.240c2-3).
The same dialoge appears as case
5 in the Congrong Record (Congrong lu) (T 48.230a24-b24);
for an English translation see Thomas Cleary, trans., Book
of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues (Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne
Press, 1990), 20-22.
|
16. By Xuedou Zhongxian (980-1052). |
17. According to a sub-commentary
on the "Pure Practice" section of the Avatamsaka-sûtra
(Huayanjing jingxingpin dashu), the Buddha should have lived
100 years, but he gave up his life at 80 in order to bequeath
the remaining 20 years of merit to his followers in future generations. |
18. Kagamishima et al., Yakuchû
zen'en shingi, 276. |
19. The reference here is to the
famous story of a poor old woman who made an offering to Buddha
of the water that she had used to rinse rice and, as a result,
was reborn as a deva or human for fifteen kalpas, gained a male
body, and eventually became a buddha herself. The story appears
in fascicle 8 of the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom
(Dazhidulun). |
20. King Ashoka, legend has it,
tried to contribute a huge amount of gold to a monastery, but
was prevented by his son and ministers. Next he tried to donate
his own gold eating utensils to the monastery, but was again
thwarted. Finally he took half a crabapple that he had in his
own hands and tried to offer that, but was unable to do so by
himself. He enlisted the aid of another minister, who gave the
fruit to the monks. They received it courteously, ground it into
flour, and baked it into a cake, which was shared by all. This
was Ashoka's final establishment of his good karmic roots. The
story appears in fascicle 5 of the Ashoka sûtra (Ayuwangjing). |
21. A stove consumes all kinds of
wood equally, regardless of its quality. A monk, similarly, should
eat whatever is served without discriminating plain and delicious. |
22. Kagamishima et al., Yakuchû
zen'en shingi, 276. |
23. The expression "bones and
marrow" is an allusion to a famous story in which Bodhidharma
tests his four disciples. There were many variations, but the
version that Dôgen most likely knew was one found in the
Jingde Record (Jingde chuandeng lu):
After nine years had passed [since
Bodhidharma's arrival in China], he wished to return to the west,
to India, so he commanded his disciples saying, "The time
is near; each of you should say what you have attained."
At the time, the disciple Daofu replied, "As I see it, the
function of the Dao consists in not attaching to scriptures and
not being apart from scriptures." The master said, "You
have gotten my skin." The nun Zongchi said, "My understanding
now is that it is like the joy of seeing the Buddha-land of Akshobhya:
it is felt at the first glance, but not the second glance."
The master said, "You have gotten my flesh." Daoyu
said, "The four elements are at root empty, and the five
skandhas have no existence; from my point of view, there is not
a single dharma that could be attained." The master said,
"You have gotten my bones." Finally Huike, after making
a prostration, just stood at his place. The master said, "You
have gotten my marrow". (T 51.219b27-c5.)
|
24. Baizhang (720-814) was the patriarch
renowned in Song China as the founder of the first independent
Chan monastery and author of the monastic rules. What Dôgen
refers to as "Baizhang's rules," however, was none
other than the Rules of Purity for Chan Monasteries, compiled
in 1103. |
25. This passage alludes to the
famous parable of the "prodigal son" in the Lotus
Sutra (Fahuajing). For an English translation see Leon Hurvitz,
trans., Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 85-95. |
26. A reference to Guishan Lingyou
(771-853). |
27. The dialogue in which this reply
occurs is a famous koan, occurring as case 18 in the Gateless
Barrier (Wumenguan) and case 12 in the Blue Cliff Record
(Biyanlu). Leighton and Okumura suggest that the material
referred to may not have been hemp (ma) but sesame (zhima)
(Dôgen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community, 56n46). |
28. A legend about King Ashoka relates
how, as a boy in a former life, he was playing in the road with
sand when the Buddha happened to pass by. The bow offered the
sand to the Buddha as if it were dried grain. The Buddha accepted
it and explained to his disciple Ananda that, 100 years after
his entry into nirvana, the boy would be a great wheel-turning
king named Ashoka. The story appears in the "Birth karma
chapter" (Sheng yinyuan pinlo) of the Ashoka sutra
(Ayuwangjing). |
29. Kagamishima et al., Yakuchû
zen'en shingi, 270. |
30. Dôgen was familiar with
a Chinese system of weights in which 10 "bits" (C.,
wen; J., mon) equal one "ounce" or "tael"
(C., liang; J., ryô), 16 "ounces"
equals one "pound" or "catty" (C., jin;
J. kin), and 30 "pounds" equals one "stone"
(C., jun; J., kin). In the modern metric system,
a "bit" is approximately 3.75 grams, an "ounce"
is 37.5 grams, a "pound" is 600 grams, and a "stone"
is 18 kilograms. |
31. "Pennyweights" (C.
zhu; J., shu) and "ounces", or taels
(C., liang; J., ryô), were silver coins used
in China when Dôgen was there. A single ounce coin was
equivalent in value to 24 pennyweight coins. |
32. According to a story found in
the Collated Essentials of the Five Flame [Records] (Wudeng
huiyuan), completed in 1253, the monk Taiyuan Fu (n.d.),
also known as Elder Fu (Fu Shangzuo), was giving a lecture on
the Nirvana-sutra (Niepanjing) at the Guangxiao Monastery
in Yangzhou. When he was explaining a reference to the dharma
body (fashen) of the buddha, a Chan monk (chanzhe)
in the audience named Zuxue laughed. When the lecture was over
Taiyuan invited him to drink tea and asked him why he had laughed.
The Chan monk replied that he laughed because "the lecturer
does not know the dharma body." Spurred by this criticism,
Taiyuan sat in meditation in his room for ten days and eventually
awakened when he heard a drum signalling the fifth watch of the
night (Zhonghua shuju 432.101-433.61). Taiyuan Fu is known
as a disciple of Xuefeng Yicun (822-908).
Dôgen refers here to the
monk who laughed as Kassan no tenzo, an ambiguous expression
which may mean either "the cook of Jiashan [Monastery]"
or "Jiashan the Cook." In the 59th chapter of his 95-chapter
Shôbôgenzô, "Plum Flowers"
(Baika), Dôgen also refers to the great awakening
(daigo) of Elder Fu (Fu Jôza) as something
stimulated by Kassan no tenzo, but here again the latter term
is ambiguous. Leighton and Okumura translate Kassan no tenzo
as "the tenzo of Jiashan Monastery" (Dôgen's
Pure Standards, 49) and state in a note that his identity
is otherwise unknown (ibid., 57n55). Jiashan was a mountain in
Hunan Province where Chan master Jiashan Shanhui (805-881), a
dharma heir of Chuanzi Decheng (n.d.), built a meditation cloister
in 870. It is possible that Dôgen thought of the monk whose
laugh led to Taiyuan's awakening as an anonymous cook at Jiashan
Monastery, but more likely his intention was to identify that
monk as Jiashan Shanhui himself, in his younger days as a cook.
In his Rules of Purity for Stewards (Chiji shingi), Dôgen
cites a dialogue that took place between Chan master Guishan
and Jiashan when the latter was serving as cook at Guishan Monastery
(for an English translation, see Leighton and Okumura, Dôgen's
Pure Standards, 141); the dialogue is also found in the Discourse
Records of the Five Houses (Wujia yulu), compiled in 1630.
In his Eihei Extensive Records (Eihei kôroku), s.v.
"convocation to thank the cook" (sha tenzo jôdô),
Dôgen names Jiashan, along with Wuzhe, Xuefeng and others,
as an exemplary cook of the past
??(0138).??
The T'ien-sheng Era Extensive Record of the Flame (T'ien-sheng
kuang-teng lu), compiled in 1029, also mentions the name
of "Jiashan the cook" (Jiashan dienzuo) in the
company of famous Chan masters such as Jhaozhou (778-897), Yangshan
(807-883), Yunmen (864-949), and Deshan (782-865) (ZZ 135.800a).
|
33. The story referred to appears
in fascicle 6 of the Jingde Record (Jingde chuandeng lu):
Once when the teacher [Baizhang]
was working with Guishan he asked, "Have you any fire, or
not?" Guishan said, "I have." The teacher said,
"Where is it?" Guishan took a stick of wood, blew on
it two or three times, and passed it to the teacher. The teacher
said, "It is like wood hollowed out by insects." (T
51.249c28-250a1.)
|
34. This passage alludes to a conversation
that appears as case 18 of the koan collection Gateless Barrier
(Wumenguan):
A monk asked Dongshan, "What
is buddha like?" Dongshan replied, "Three pounds of
hemp." (T 48.295b5-5.)
|
|
|