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.)