Shobogenzo Ch14 (III) Sansuigyō - Water: Not Matter, Not Not Matter

In the first part of Sansuigyō Dogen draws parallels between the existence of mountains and human existence. Here, in the second half, Dogen is drawing a parallel between water and the human spirit, soul or even, to go a step further, agape — unconditional, absolute love. Maybe its just the romanticist in me, but I like using those terms here because I sense it so readily in this Chapter, even though the more Buddhisty terms are Buddha nature, true self, Universal self, unconditioned self, etc... I say 'human' spirit, but I don't see any reason why we can't include all spirit. Water is the bones and marrow of the Buddhist patriarchs and it is by virtue of riding on the water that the mountains, even though they are physically stuck in the same place are 'unstuck':

Great Master Unmon Kyōshin says, “The East Mountain moves on water.” The point realized in these words is that all mountains are an East Mountain, and every East Mountain moves on water.

“The East Mountain moves on water” is the bones and marrow of the Buddhist patriarchs. Waters are realized at the foot of the East Mountain; thereupon mountains ride the clouds and walk through the sky. The crowns of the waters are mountains, whose walking, upward or downward, is always “on water.” Because the mountains’ toes can walk over all kinds of water, making the waters dance, the walking is free in all directions and “practice-and-experience is not nonexistent.”

Dogen describes many qualities or virtues of water, which, to me, seem to parallel qualities we associate with spirit. The following quote is just one example of several in this Chapter:

Water is neither strong nor weak, neither wet nor dry, neither moving nor still, neither cold nor warm, neither existent nor nonexistent, neither delusion nor realization. When it is solid it is harder than a diamond; who could break it? Melted, it is softer than diluted milk; who could break it? This being so, it is impossible to doubt the real virtues that [water] possesses.

When I think of spirit or true self, I get the sense that spirit, instead of being contained or caged within our individual selves, is something that we share with all of the rest of the Universe. In fact, we tap into spirit in our experience of 'emptiness' when we sit:

..water is the palace of real dragons; it is beyond flowing and falling. If we recognize it as only flowing, the word “flowing” insults water, because, for example, [the word] forces [water] to be what is other than flowing itself. Water is nothing but water’s “real form as it is.” Water is just the virtues of water itself; it is beyond “flowing.”

Although Dogen tells us not to think of water as flowing, water does, in fact, flow and Dogen recognizes this in the following quote:

We can say that the way of water is beyond the recognition of water, but water is able actually to flow. Water is [also] beyond non-recognition, but water is able actually to flow.

What happens when water flows and falls? It forms clouds, rain, puddles, rivers, lakes, and oceans. This is the cycle of water...:

Common and stupid folk today assume that water is always in rivers, streams, and oceans. This is not so. Rivers and oceans are realized in water. Thus, water also exists in places which are not rivers and oceans; it is just that when water descends to the earth, it takes effect as rivers and oceans.

So in the parallel to human existence, what are these clouds, rain, puddles, rivers, lakes, and oceans that water results in the realization of...?

None other than cause and effect.

And it is in this context that the quote "although there are many kinds of water, it seems that there is no original water, and no water of many kinds" makes sense to me. We all have spirit/soul/agape/true self, but the way that spirit falls and flows is cause and effect realized in our lives. Spirit is transformed by our selves and the way we're able to connect with others as that spirit is converted into cause and effect.

It is also in this context that "Because the mountains’ toes can walk over all kinds of water, making the waters dance, the walking is free in all directions" gains meaning. Without the mountains that make the waters dance, water would just be water, and clouds, rain, puddles, rivers, lakes, and oceans would not be realized. Even though the mountains are stuck as mountains, by virtue of their walking on water, their walking becomes free in all directions.

If cause and effect are just the manifestation of spirit or true self, why does life seem so difficult at times? Because the transformation/conversion processes are not clean, they are contaminated by our desires, distortions and errors in our perception and conceptualization (how we fit perceptions into the ongoing stories in our head), as well as by our inability to communicate/connect with others clearly due to habits we've been taught or suffer from due to injuries we've sustained. And its not only our own transformation/conversion processes we have to consider, but those of everyone we come into contact with.

Once we have incorporated the teachings of the mountains and water into our understanding, the following quote gains special significance for our practice, or my practice anyway...:

For the present, we should learn in practice the moments in which it is possible to put on the eyes and look in the ten directions at the water of the ten directions. This is not learning in practice only of the time when human beings and gods see water; there is learning in practice of water seeing water. Because water practices and experiences water, there is the investigation in practice of water speaking water. We should manifest in reality the path on which self encounters self. We should advance and retreat along the vigorous path on which the external world exhausts in practice the external world, and we should spring free.

To summarize some of what I've learned from Sansuigyō so far:

1. Most of us in our lives are stuck just like mountains. Moreover, each of us has flaws and faults just like mountains do, and these flaws and faults are also what makes us beautiful and unique.
2. But like mountains we flow in our forward and backward walking.
3. Like the mountains, our walking causes water, or our true self or spirit, to dance and to be manifested as cause and effect.
4. Once we begin to accept the "mountain-like" aspects of our existence, once we recognize that cause and effect are just true self manifested, and once we see that it's the transformation/conversion processes of ourselves and others that are the main cause of the difficulties we encounter in our lives, we can acknowledge things as they are, "spring free", and begin to work on those processes.

Haiku for the second half of Sansuigyō:

The toes of mountains
Make waters dance, walking free
In all directions.

Water knows water
Yet water knows not — it flows
From clouds to oceans.

Shobogenzo Ch14 (II) Sansuigyō - The Meaning of Water

This song, also named 'The Water Song', is one of the most beautiful songs I've discovered in the last year. I can just hear the sun shimmering on the surface of the water, the love and forgiveness of it, how water wears away all differences. Wherever the water is -- a river, a lake, an ocean, or held in the clouds. If I die today or 30 years from now, I hope this song is played for me.

Peace to us all...



...and don't you just love Blixa's thump on the bass? So simple. So perfect.

Reflections: SkullCandy and Nothing to Attain

Yesterday I managed to pick up a new pair of earbuds to replace the ones which were pushing static on one side. I listen to a lot of music as well as podcasts as I walk to and from work and wherever else I happen to be going. They're actually pretty helpful keeping the wind out of my ears as I walk in this cold weather.

Unfortunately I also managed to loose my fav pair of reading glasses. They were pretty cool, but not so cool as to make me stand out as someone trying to look cool. I'm pretty bummed to tell the truth. They're $200/pair!!!  Though the expense seems justified because I use them all the time, like shoes or boots. Unfortunately the store isn't around here either..

It's weird how easy it is to get attached to, sentimental about, this seemingly small scale stuff when we actually know we have the essentials to survive. It's also weird how hard it can be to apply logic sometimes. When we get attached to these things could it be because we don't yet have that over the rainbow something?

For today I'm going to be patient and hope for the best — that the glasses turn up, but I kind of doubt it since they haven't already. My sitting this morning included speculation that, mindlessly, they fell out of my coat pocket while I was walking. Things are impermanant. It was bound to happen sometime. Shikanstupid.

In the meantime, I'm making do. I'm wearing a pair of outrageously cool (but somewhat geekier?) reading glasses — problematic because it takes more effort to coordinate the uncoordinated look if you know what I mean...

And that is making me long for a simpler life sort of like Antaiji (sort of, because yeah life there was hard, physically, but also in terms of peer pressure, like with smoking) where I was uncoordinated in attire with no effort at all!  A life with nothing to attain.

Shobogenzo Ch14 (I) Sansuigyō - The Mountains are Teaching Us

Mountains and water —
Words of eternal buddhas
Sung loud into life.

Walking, we keep time
Flowing with mountains, through sky
And, always, the ground.


Mount Sumeru:


Sansuigyō means the Sutra of Mountains and Water.

The mountains and water of the present are the realization of the words of eternal buddhas.

The mountains and the water are sutras because they have something to teach us. The sutras can be regarded as living words that have something to teach — truth to realize and celebrate, and the mountains and water are living examples of those words.

Beginning with the mountains:

Master Kai of Taiyōzan preaches to the assembly, “The Blue Mountains are constantly walking. The Stone Woman bears children by night.” Mountains lack none of the virtues with which mountains should be equipped. For this reason, they are constantly abiding in stillness and constantly walking. We must painstakingly learn in practice the virtue of this walking. The walking of mountains must be like the walking of human beings; therefore, even though it does not look like human walking, do not doubt the walking of the mountains.

..it is because [the mountains] are walking that they are “constant.” ...If we doubt the walking of the mountains, we also do not yet know our own walking. It is not that we do not have our own walking, but we do not yet know and have not yet clarified our own walking.

Forward walking never ceases, and backward walking never ceases. The moment of forward walking does not oppose backward walking, and the moment of backward walking does not oppose forward walking. We call this virtue “the mountains flowing,” and we call it “the flowing mountains.”

The mountains are walking because they are moving forward or expressing themselves through time. Because (I assume) the mountains are not tangled up in thought, living in past and future like we humans often are, the mountains are living their existence in the immediate moment of Now. Both because they are always in the immediate moment of Now and because another way to think about Now is the entirety of the mountains existence, the mountains are constant. (This all is understood on the basis of Chapter 11, Uji.) The mountains lack none of the virtues because, for example, in addition to their walking and constancy, they are experiencing and expressing their true self.

All this is magical and poetic. I can sense and appreciate the virtues of the mountains. But guess what? For all of these virtues, the magic and the poetry, the mountains are stuck being plain old mountains and they are stuck in the same place no matter how much walking they do. What this means, is that no matter how 'enlightened' we are or become, no matter how much and/or how hard we practice, there is no way we can escape being who we are. No way we can escape the conditions and circumstances we find ourselves in. This is at least part of what I think Dogen was trying to say in the next quote:

Though there may be eyes in which grass, trees, soil, stones, fences, and walls are realized, that moment is beyond doubt and beyond disturbance; it is not “total realization.” Though moments are realized in which [the mountains] are seen to be adorned with the seven treasures, [those moments] are not “the real refuge.” Though visions are realized [of the mountains] as the area in which buddhas practice the truth, [those visions] are not necessarily something to be loved. Though some have got the brains to realize a vision [of the mountains] as the unthinkable merit of the buddhas, reality is not merely this. Every “realization” is an instance of object and subject.

If the above sounds harsh, then it's probably because, like me, you had some remnant of a romanticized notion of what practicing 'Buddhism' was going to accomplish. But there's more, in emptiness we experience oneness with all things, and this is something we can bring with us into our daily lives— an existence filled with dualities:

“The Blue Mountains are constantly walking. The Stone Woman bears children by night.”

The act of walking exists, the act of flowing exists, and moments in which mountains give birth to mountain children exist.

Every “realization” is an instance of object and subject.

The mountains need us to be fully realized as mountains. And I can apply this to all of the ten thousand things, not only the mountains.

It works the other way around too, I need the mountains, the ten thousand things and you — to accept them and you for what or who you are to be fully realized, to fully realize myself, what I can give, and to experience the richest life I can...

Gratitude to you and all the ten thousand things for being here, for being there, for being whatever and wherever you are.

Now I have the incredible luxury of being able to sit while an arbitrarily defined invisible line of time passes over me moving me from the year 2010 into 2011... Just because what folks call it changes, doesn't mean it ends, but it does change— becoming more beautiful than any single one of us alone could realize or imagine.

Reflections: Weird Plasma Field Dream, Gridlines & the Ten Thousand Things

I had this ‘dream’ yesterday morning I thought it would be fun to share. It’s a bit wacky though, kind of in the science fiction vein, and it wasn’t actually a dream because it occurred as I was waking up. 

It seemed like I was waking up to a colorful plasma field. It was a bit like the molecules of air had slowed down and condensed and I had expanded to match (in wavelengths or impedance or something) because I wasn’t solid either, I was part of the plasma. Anyhow, if I moved even a little I could see and feel ripples and swirls and even backwashes of energy and changing colors rolling through the plasma in several directions as far as I could see and sense it. I hung out there for awhile between sleep and wakefulness because it was a warm and cozy space to be in, pleasant -- as long as I didn’t move much. (I didn’t want to move much because it actually made me dizzy or sea-sick.)

The reason I wanted to share this is because, as I became more conscious, it reminded me of this drawing Okumura had on his white board much of the time he was lecturing on the Genjo-Koan. It was of a circle with gridlines, a bit like one of those little screens you would put in a faucet. Each node or crossing point was a person and the gridlines were cause and effect. It seemed like Okumura’s grid could be a simpler version of the plasma field I was experiencing. 

Another thing that Okumura said that left an impression and relates to the above imagery is that delusion is not like a sickness that can be fixed by working only on ourselves (like, for example, cutting out cancer), we also have to work on our relation with all beings -- the way we interact with the whole grid (or plasma field), which means practicing the noble eightfold path. Its one of the first Buddhisty things I learned about, but I seem to have a long way to go in practicing it well...

Both Dogen and Muho-san’s comments on practice-enlightenment seem to offer some good advice though. Paraphrasing Muho-san: ..its what we can discover in each moment -- Do we project ourselves (mainly our preconceived notions of how things should be) onto the ten thousand things, or do we let the ten thousand things approach and interact with us, discover what they can awaken in us? The first approach results in delusions about the permanence of things, boredom, and suffering as a function of loss, whereas the latter allows life to be richer, because the things we allow ourselves the freedom to perceive and the ‘self’ that we experience is constantly fresh and new. It's pretty amazing what we can discover about ourselves.

Well, whatever. The dream sure was cool. That's about all I can think of to share at the moment. So time to wrap this post up.

Reflections: Happy Bodhi Day Everybody!

Bodhi Day or, in Japan, Rohatsu (meaning: the 8th day of the 12th month) is the day Buddhists celebrate Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, his great realization of truth.

Enlightenment isn’t such a big deal as I understand it. There are a lot of words out there that suggest this. For example, the quote most Buddhists have heard ‘Before enlightenment, the laundry; after enlightenment, the laundry.’ Or a better version I heard from Okumura, ‘Before enlightenment, the noble eight-fold path; after enlightenment, the noble eight-fold path.’

To honor the day, I did a little sitting until the sun came up… not the week long event celebrated at many places, although I did attend a short sesshin over the weekend.

I did have a bit of a realization I thought I should share, given that I vow to free all beings and all that…  And the realization is

Most suffering arises not because of impermanence, but because we view most things and circumstances as if they're permanent when, in actuality, they're not. 

Isn't this one of the things we realize from engaging in an outwardly simple seeming, actually infinitely complex, activity like zazen? Maybe due to zazen we learn to pay more attention.

Life would be pretty insufferable without change.

Shobogenzo: Ch 12 (II) - Kesa-kudoku (Merits of the Kasaya)

(This is a longer post... You don't have to read the haiku if you don't have time.)

Five fundamental merits and ten excellent merits of the kesa are cited in Kesa-kudoku. Of the ten excellent merits Dogen says:

These ten excellent merits broadly include all the merits of the Buddha’s truth. We should explicitly learn in practice the merits present in [these] long lines and [short] verses of praise, not just glancing over them and quickly putting them aside, but studying them phrase by phrase over a long period. These excellent merits are just the merits of the kaṣāya itself: they are not the effect of a practitioner’s fierce [pursuit of] merit through perpetual training.

In Chapter 13 (Den-e), which seems to be a first draft of Kesa-kudoku, Dogen includes some justification for these merits (which admittedly seem pretty extraordinary) but then drops them out (or off) of his final draft. Although it's speculation on my part, I don't think he does this because we should take these claims on faith or for-granted, but rather, because we should continue to question them, study them, and keep them close to heart — every day.

Even not having taken vows yet, this practice has already caused me to experience a feeling akin to 'rebirth', and this is something very different than blind faith. To me, the kesa represents a promise we make to ourselves and renew daily. Otherwise why would Dogen have cried when witnessing the kesa ritual upon his arrival in China? It's through honoring and revering the kesa we are likely to realize its gifts — whether we actually need to do so or not. Moreover, recognizing that these are merits of the kesa, and not our own merits, reminds to be humble and grounded in our practice.

As an initial effort to study these merits phrase by phrase I've gone ahead and written haiku for each of them... (Quoted passages are italicized.)

Five Fundamental Merits:

(A vow made by the bodhisattva mahasattva Great Compassion to the Buddha Jewel Treasury):

A single moment

Honoring the Buddha robe

Grants affirmation.

‘World-honored One! If, after I became a buddha, there were living beings who had entered my Dharma and left home and who wore the kasaya—even if they were bhiksus, bhiksunis, upasakas, and upasikas who had accumulated heavy sins by violating the grave prohibitions, by enacting false views, or by contemptuously disbelieving the Three Treasures—and in a single moment of consciousness the reverence arose in their mind to honor the samghati robe and the reverence arose in their mind to honor the World-honored One (the Buddha) or the Dharma and the Sangha but, World-honored One, even one among those living beings could not, in [one of] the three vehicles, receive affirmation, and as a result regressed or went astray, it would mean that I had deceived the buddhas who are present now in the worlds of the ten directions and in countless, infinite asamkheya kalpas, and I surely should not realize anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

One look at the cloth

Prevents regression of one

Within the yanas.

‘World-honored One! After I have become a buddha, if gods, dragons, and demons, and human and nonhuman beings are able to wear this kasaya, to venerate, to serve offerings to, to honor, and to praise it, as long as those people are able to see a small part of this kasaya, they will be able not to regress while within the three vehicles.

Fragment of the cloth –

Freedom from all affliction

To those who claim it.

‘When living beings are afflicted by hunger or thirst—whether they are wretched demons, miserable people, or living beings in the state of hungry ghosts—if they are able to obtain a piece of the kasaya even as small as four inches, they will at once be able to eat and drink their fill and to accomplish quickly whatever they wish.

Virtue of the robe –

Soft flexible mind for those

Remembering it.

‘When living beings offend each other, causing ill will to arise and a fight to develop—or when gods, dragons, demons, gandharvas, asuras, garudas, kimnaras, mahoragas, kumbhandas, pisacas, and human and nonhuman beings are fighting each other—if they remember this kasaya, in due course, by virtue of the power of the kasaya, they will beget the mind of compassion, soft and flexible mind, mind free of enmity, serene mind, the regulated mind of virtue, and they will get back the state of purity.

Survive all conflict –

Retain and honor the robe

Emerge the victor.

‘When people are in an armed conflict, a civil lawsuit, or a criminal action, if they retain a small piece of this kasaya as they go among these combatants, and if in order to protect themselves they serve offerings to, venerate, and honor it, these [other] people will be unable to injure, to disturb, or to make fools of them; they will always be able to beat their opponents and to come through all such difficulties.

The Ten Excellent Merits:

(from Vol. 5 of Daijōhonshōshinchikankyō)

The World-honored One says to the bhikṣu Wisdom-Brightness:

“The Dharma robe has ten excellent merits:

1) It is able to cover the body, to keep away shame, to fill us with humility and to [make us] practice good ways.

Robe of the Dharma —

Abundant happiness blooms

From humility.

2) It keeps away cold and heat, as well as mosquitoes, harmful creatures, and poisonous insects, [so that we can] practice the truth in tranquility.

The robe guards against

Distracting bugs and weather

To move us towards truth.

3) It manifests the form of a śramaṇa who has left family life, giving delight to those who behold it and keeping away wrong states of mind.

Showing all respect,

Renouncing secular ways,

Staying untainted.

4) The kaṣāya is just the manifestation to human beings and gods of a precious flag; those who honor and venerate it are able to be born in a Brahmā heaven.

To honor the robe

And all it represents brings

Highest happiness.

5) When we wear the kaṣāya, we feel that it is a precious flag; it is able to extinguish sins and to produce all kinds of happiness and virtue.

When wearing the robe,

The Buddha's light shines brightly —

Shines like a tower.

6) A fundamental rule in making the kaṣāya is to dye it a secondary color, so that it keeps us free from thoughts of the five desires, and does not give rise to lust.

Yield of real practice —

Freedom from afflicting thoughts,

Sincere in our hearts.

7) The kaṣāya is the pure robe of the Buddha; for it eradicates afflictions forever and makes them into a fertile field.

The robe seeds bodhi —

Wearing it, our deeds are hands

Doing Buddha work.

8) When the kaṣāya covers the body, it extinguishes the karma of sins and promotes at every moment the practice of the ten kinds of good.

The robe takes the shape —

Naturally manifesting

A monk's right practice.

9) The kaṣāya is like a fertile field; for it is well able to nurture the bodhisattva way.

The robe seeds bodhi —

Our selves the field yielding up

Joy to all beings.

10) The kaṣāya is also like a suit of armor; for it makes the poisoned arrows of affliction unable to do harm.

Armor of the truth —

The arrows of affliction

Pass through without harm.

Wisdom-Brightness! Remember, through these causes, when the buddhas of the three times, and pratyekabuddhas and śrāvakas, and pure monks and nuns, cover the body in the kaṣāya, [these] three groups of sacred beings sit as one on the precious platform of liberation, take up the sword of wisdom to destroy the demons of affliction, and enter together into the many spheres of nirvana which have one taste.”

Joining together —

Our selves growing rich in truth's

Abundant harvest.

Reflections: Gratitude Day Again Already?

In case you haven't noticed its Thanksgiving here in the US.. In fact, if you haven't noticed you probably won't be reading this little blog post either.

I'm gearing myself up for a big Turkey dinner with family. Yeah there's been a small change-over in persons attending, and changes in the lives of those attending, but for the most part it won't be that different from the way it was last year or the year before that. (Actually, I'm smiling because last year I wasn't even in town for this as I recall now, but still, you get the picture) Today I sat a bit longer than usual building that inner monastery...  I'm about to collect a knitting project to take along...

There's a lot of folks out there talking about gratitude, noting all the wonders of our lives we can be grateful for, and the importance of saying thanks to those folks who've helped us along the way. There's so much I'd like to say on days like this. But the weird thing is, I really feel like this most every day, though I often don't know what to do with that gratitude.

So, instead of emphasizing the gratitude and thank you part of Thanks-giving, I'm going to try to emphasize the giving part of Thanks-giving. And give in the small ways that present themselves to me today.

May your day be filled with peace and ease along the way.

Shobogenzo: Ch 12 (I) - Kesa-kudoku - Summary

“At that time, there arose in me a feeling I had never before experienced. [My] body was overwhelmed with joy. The tears of gratitude secretly fell and soaked my lapels.”

Dogen had practiced for several years in Japan, but the ritual of placing the kasaya, the Sanskrit term for robe or kesa, on top of one’s head and reciting the robe verse was something he only witnessed once in China. The above quote is his description of how seeing this ritual practiced made him feel. Why did this ritual move Dogen so deeply? One way to answer that is to ask the question: What is the kesa (or in Sanskrit, kasaya)?

In short the kesa is a symbol of authentic transmission, a robe worn by monks and nuns following Sakyamuni Buddha, protection and transformation for the person wearing it, and finally, the Buddha-Dharma itself. Quotes from Kesa-kudoku that suggest this include:

1) The kesa is a symbol of authentic transmission:

When Sakyamuni Tathagata passed to Mahakasyapa the right Dharma-eye treasury and the supreme state of bodhi, he transmitted them together with a kasaya...

The ancestral masters who have authentically transmitted the right Dharma-eye treasury have, without exception, authentically transmitted the kasaya.

Such rags and [cloth] obtained from a pure livelihood are not silk, not cotton, and not gold, silver, pearls, patterned cloth, sheer silk, brocade, embroidery, and so on; they are just rags. These rags are neither for a humble robe nor for a beautiful garment; they are just for the Buddha-Dharma. To wear them is just to have received the authentic transmission of the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow of the buddhas of the three times, and to have received the authentic transmission of the right Dharma-eye treasury. We should never ask human beings and gods about the merit of this [transmission]. We should learn it in practice from Buddhist patriarchs.

2) The kesa is a robe (or, more precisely, three robes) worn by monks and nuns following Sakyamuni Buddha. Instructions for the material for, making, wearing, care, and honoring of the robe also are discussed in this chapter. E.g.,

The kasaya is said to include three robes. They are the five-stripe robe, the seven-stripe robe, and the large robe of nine or more stripes. Excellent practitioners receive only these three robes, and do not keep other robes. To use just the three robes serves the body well enough.

The method of washing [the kasaya] and the method of receiving and retaining [the kasaya] cannot be known without learning in practice in the inner sanctum of the legitimate face-to-face transmission of those methods.

 3) The kesa is protection and transformation for the person wearing it. The merits of the kesa are numberless, but Dogen quotes the Karuna-pundarika-sutra, words spoken by the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the Buddha, presenting five and ten fundamental merits of the kesa, respectively (I’m planning on putting these merits in a separate post). In addition, there are sections in this chapter that indicate even a single instance of honoring the robe or wearing it as a joke are sufficient to receive and retain these merits.

The kasaya has been called, since ancient time, “the clothing of liberation.” It can liberate us from all hindrances such as karmic hindrances, hindrances of affliction, and hindrances of retribution.

Clearly, once we have shaved the head and put on the kasaya, we are protected by all the buddhas. Relying on this protection of the buddhas, [a person] can roundly realize the virtues of the supreme state of bodhi.

Even if [the people who receive and retain the kasaya] are ourselves, we should venerate them, and we should rejoice.

Having been born to meet the spread of this Dharma, if we cover our body with the kasaya only once, receiving it and retaining it...that [experience] will surely serve as a talisman to protect us in the realization of the supreme state of bodhi.

We should throw away the view [that discriminates between] silk and cotton, and study rags in practice. …Some teachers of the Small Vehicle have a theory about transformed thread, which also may be without foundation. People of the Great Vehicle might laugh at it. What kind [of thread] is not transformed thread? When those teachers hear of “transformation” they believe their ears, but when they see the transformation itself they doubt their eyes. Remember, in picking up rags, there may be cotton that looks like silk and there may be silk that looks like cotton. There being myriad differences in local customs it is hard to fathom [nature’s] creation—eyes of flesh cannot know it. Having obtained such material, we should not discuss whether it is silk or cotton but should call it rags. Even if there are human beings or gods in heaven who have survived as rags, they are never sentient beings, they are just rags.

 4) The kesa is the Buddha-Dharma itself:

This [transmission] may be the Buddha-Dharma itself; the proof in due course will become evident. We should not liken [the transmission] to the dilution of milk with water. It is like a crown prince succeeding to the throne. …the authentic transmission from Buddha to buddha and from patriarch to patriarch is like the succession of a crown prince.

…the authentic transmission to the present of the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow of the World-honored One, is the kasaya robe.

When we dye the body and mind with a single phrase or a single verse, it becomes a seed of everlasting brightness which finally leads us to the supreme state of bodhi. When we dye the body and mind with one real dharma or one good deed, it may be also like this. Mental images arise and vanish instantaneously; they are without an abode. The physical body also arises and vanishes instantaneously; it too is without an abode. Nevertheless, the merit that we practice always has its time of ripening and shedding. The kasaya, similarly, is beyond elaboration and beyond non-elaboration, it is beyond having an abode and beyond having no abode: it is that which “buddhas alone, together with buddhas, perfectly realize.

>

Receiving the robe

We become Buddha-Dharma --

Old rags patterned fresh.

Reflections: Not A Kyosaku

Yep... I've been reading Kesa-Kodoku (Chapter 12 of the Shobogenzo). I know there are several folks out there eagerly await my next installment. It's a longer-ish Chapter though.

So here's an example of my whacky sense of humor. Who knows, maybe someone else will get a laugh out of it too: