Zen Buddhism Dogen and the Shobogenzo is a blog where all are welcome to share their ideas, thoughts, insights, or questions about Zen Buddhism, Eihei Dogen, and Dogen's Shobogenzo. Shobogenzo The Treasure House of the Eye of the True Teaching A Trainee’s Translation of Great Master Dogen’s Spiritual Masterpiece Rev. Hubert Nearman, O.B.C. This is a modified version of the bibliography I provided at the end of my books Don’t Be a Jerk and It Came From Beyond Zen. Complete English Translations of Shobogenzo (in Order of My Personal Preference). Nishijima, Gudo, and Chodo Cross, Master Dogen’s Shobogenz0, 4 vols. Windbell, 1994-1999 (now available as print on demand from Book Surge). Dogen is said to have been encouraged to study Zen by a high priest of the Tendai school to whom he applied with his question of why Buddhas aspire to and practice the way of enlightenment if the reality.

Dogen’s 300 Koans and the Kana Shobogenzo

John Daido Loori

Next year, as we enter the new millennium, we will be celebrating the 800th anniversary of the birth of Master Dogen, truly one of the most remarkable religious figures and teachers in the history of Zen. Though now regarded internationally as an outstanding philosopher, mystic, and poet, Master Dogen was relatively unknown during his lifetime. In modern days, his work has had a tremendous impact not only in Japan and within the Soto school, but in the West as well, where he’s been discovered by philosophers, scholars, and Buddhist practitioners. In the West, he is best known for his masterwork, the Kana Shobogenzo, or what is also called the Japanese Shobogenzo.

What is less known is that in 1235 Dogen assembled a collection of three hundred koans titled the Mana Shobogenzo, or Sambyaku-soku Shobogenzo (The Shobogenzo of Three Hundred Koans). For the most part the “300 Koan Shobogenzo” remained in obscurity for many centuries. It wasn’t until 1934 that Professor Oya Tokujo made it available to the world at large, and it wasn’t until very recently, probably within the last ten years, that its authenticity as a work of Dogen has been confirmed. Mana Shobogenzo is a collection of three hundred case koans Dogen culled from Sung Dynasty Zen texts. These koans were not given titles, nor do they contain any commentary by Dogen himself. They were written in Chinese, rather than in Japanese as was the case with the Kana Shobogenzo.

Shobogenzo Pdf

Because Dogen was an outspoken critic of koan study, it was thought that he would never have collected or used koans, yet we find over ninety of the three hundred koans seeded in his writings, particularly in the Kana Shobogenzo and the Eihei-koroku. Legend has it that before he was to leave China to return to Japan, he stayed up all night and hand-copied the Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record).2 Clearly this was someone who had more than just a casual interest in koans. Dogen is likely to have worked with koans when studying with Masters Eisai and Myozen. He must have been familiar with them also via the literature that was accessible to him at that time. Several of the major koan collections available today were also available during his time.

Aside from Steven Heine’s book Dogen and the Koan Tradition (1994), and Gudo Nishijima’s publication of the first hundred koans of the 300 Koan Shobogenzo (1990), there is little information available on the koans that Dogen deemed so important. As a result, the second of Dogen’s two Shobogenzos is essentially unknown to Western readers and practitioners. For the past two years I have been collaborating with Kaz Tanahashi in translating into English the Mana Shobogenzo, adding short commentaries, capping verses, and footnotes to each case. In the process of this work I have returned again and again to the chapters of the Kana Shobogenzo in order to understand how Dogen made use of these koans. Of special interest to me are those fascicles that use the case koans of the Mana Shobogenzo as seeds to develop the main themes of a particular chapter. The Mana Shobogenzo koans appear 178 times in the fascicles of the Kana Shobogenzo. This density of reference makes it clear that the author was not opposed to koans. In addition, 136 of the 301 koans he collected appear in the Eihei-koroku. It is obvious that the Mana Shobogenzo played a critical role in Dogen’s teachings.

My main interest in the two Shobogenzos has less to do with the argument as to whether Dogen was a critic or a supporter of koan introspection, but rather with his unique and creative way of commenting on the koans. Thetalogix (pty) driver download. I would like to share some observations about Dogen’s use of koans that were made during this translation work. I offer these points not as a scholar, but as a student and teacher of Zen, trained in traditional Rinzai koan introspection, as well as in the teachings of the Master Dogen.

In commenting on koans in discourses, Zen teachers present something substantially different from the immediacy of the expression of the koan itself, or the seeing into the koan that takes place in the direct, face-to-face meeting between the teacher and the student. A commentary on a koan, (i.e. a teisho or a discourse) addresses a large and diverse group of people, and is designed to clarify the key points of the koan, whereas dokusan demands that one dynamically manifest one’s own understanding directly. It can be said that there is no “answer” to a koan. Seeing into a koan is a manifestation of a state of consciousness rather than an intellectual understanding of its points of the dharma. It is this direct “seeing into” that the teacher looks for and tests to determine the clarity of the student’s understanding. The face-to-face meetings function in a totally different way than a discourse or commentary on a koan.

Commentaries on many of the koans found in the Dogen collection of three hundred koans can be found in classic Sung collections such as Hekiganroku, Shoyoroku, and Mumonkan. I find that a careful comparison of these with the commentaries offered by Dogen in the Kana Shobogenzo. shows no substantial differences in the expression of the dharma truth of the koan. Further, there does not appear to be any discrepancy whatsoever between the commentaries by Dogen, the commentators in the classical collections, and the truth of these koans as transmitted face-to-face in traditional koan introspection practice. In other words, what the the masters are saying, whether it’s in The Blue Cliff Record, The Book of Equanimity,3The Gateless Gate, or Dogen’s Shobogenzo is identical in principle but radically different in style.

Both the classic and Dogen’s commentaries are perfectly consistent with the traditional Mahayana teachings found in the sutras and sutra commentaries. There seems to be no departure from traditional understanding of the Mahayana teachings in either writings. None of the teachers presenting the koans invented a new dharma. Everything they said always reflected the historical teachings of the Buddha, particularly as understood in the Mahayana tradition, although they may have said it in new, perhaps dramatically different ways. There is, however, something especially unique and fresh in how Dogen expresses the Zen truth of the traditional koans that sets the Kana Shobogenzo in a class by itself. The question of interest then becomes, “What are the unique characteristics that placed Dogen’s treatment of the koans apart from the traditional commentaries?”

Dogen is a master of language. It is impossible to study his writings and not be moved by the poetry and creativity of his words. His way with language is so unusual it has earned the appellation “Dogenese.” He brings to the koans his sophistication of language, familiarity with Buddhism, and perhaps an unparalleled understanding of the Dharma. He communicates not only in ordinary logical language, but also using what he calls “the intimate words,” mitsugo. These are words that are intimate, direct and immediate, words that are grasped in an instant, intuitively rather than in a linear, sequential way. Dogen seems to have used both methods freely to transmit his understanding. His teachings had the “lips and mouth” quality found in the Zen of Masters Joshu and Unmon, using live and turning words, words that go immediately to the heart of the matter, to help the practitioner see into their own nature.

Another aspect of Dogen’s unique treatment of koans is his use of the “Five Ranks” of Master Tozan and, more than likely, the “Fourfold Dharmadatu” of Hua Yen. He never specifically talks about either system, except to summarily dismiss Tozan’s “Five Ranks,”4 but he definitely engages them in a way that reflects an understanding and appreciation for their method. In “Sansuikyo,” for example, Dogen writes:

Since ancient times wise ones and sages have also lived by the water. When they live by the water they catch fish or they catch humans or they catch theWay. These are traditional water styles. Further, they must be catching the self, catching the hook, being caught by the hook, and being caught by the Way.

Then he introduces one of the koans, case 90 (Kassan Sees the Ferryman) of the Mana Shobogenzo and comments on it, saying,

In ancient times, when Tokuju suddenly left Hyakusan and went to live on the river, he got the sage Kassan of the flower-in-river. Download stinfo laptops & desktops driver. Isn’t this catching fish, catching humans, catching water? Isn’t this catching himself? The fact that Kassan could see Tokuju is because he is Tokuju. Tokuju teaching Kassan is Tokuju meeting himself.

Let’s examine these teachings briefly to see how they relate to Tozan’s “Five Ranks of the Absolute and Relative.” The phrase, “When Kassan sees Tokuju, he is Tokuju,” is the relative within the absolute, (or the absolute containing the relative), the First Rank of Master Tozan. The phrase “Tokuju teaching Kassan is Tokuju meeting himself” (in other words, the teacher teaching the student is the teacher meeting himself) is the absolute within the relative, the Second Rank of Master Tozan. It is clear that though Dogen was cautionary about the “Five Ranks,” it was not because he did not find them true, but rather that he did not want them to become a mere intellectualization or an abstraction. He did not use them in the way they were taught classically, but more so in the manner where they would be realized face-to-face in the koan study between teacher and student.

“Catching the self, catching the hook, being caught by the hook, being caught by the way” — these are all expressions of the interplay of opposites. Again, in the Kana Shobogenzo, in the fascicle “Katto,” where Dogen writes about Bodhidharma’s transmission of the marrow to Eka, he says,

You should be aware of the phrases You attain me; I attain you; attaining both me and you and attaining both you and me. In personally viewing the ancestors’ body/mind, if we speak of there being no oneness of internal and external or if we speak of the whole body not being completely penetrated, then we have not yet seen the realm of the ancestors’ present.

For Dogen the relationship of a teacher and student is katto, spiritual entanglement, which from his perspective is a process of using entanglements to transmit entanglements. “Entanglements entwining entanglements is the buddhas and ancestors interpenetrating buddhas and ancestors.”

It’s the same statement made previously about the teacher-student relationship. All of it expresses the merging of dualities as treated in the “Five Ranks” of Tozan or the “Fourfold Dharmadatu,” or for that matter in the Sandokai: “Within light there is darkness but do not try to understand that darkness; within darkness there is light but do not look for that light. Light and darkness are a pair like the foot before and the foot behind in walking. Each thing has its own intrinsic value and is related to everything else in function and position.” This was the relationship between Kassan and Tokuju. This was the relationship between Bodhidharma and Eka. This was the relationship that Dogen directs himself to whenever he begins expounding the non-dual dharma in the koans used in the Kana Shobogenzo.

Case #105 of the 300 Koan Shobogenzo, “The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion” appears in two of the fascicles of the Kana Shobogenzo. Dogen mentions this case in Shobogenzo “Daishugyo” and devotes the entire chapter to it in “Kannon.” The same koan appears as Case #89 in the Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record) and as Case #54 in the Shoyoroku (Book of Equanimity). The Hekiganroku is a collection of a hundred koans gathered by Master Setcho, who added his own verses and remarks as an aid to his students. Sixty years after Setcho’s death, Master Engo gave a series of talks on this collection, and thus added his own commentaries to each case. The Hekiganroku is an important text used in koan study in the Rinzai school. The Shoyoroku is also a collection of a hundred koans, and it is held in high regard by the Soto school. It was collected by Master Wanshi, who added a verse to each case. Later Master Bansho added his own commentaries. Both of these koan collections were in existence during Dogen’s time.

Because “The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion,” is a koan that appears in all three collections, it is an interesting case to examine and use to compare the different commentaries by the three masters.

In the koan itself a dialogue takes place between Dogo and Ungan, who were dharma heirs of Master Yakusan. In addition to being dharma brothers, and possibly genetic brothers as well, they were also close friends and travelling companions. There are many dialogues between them recorded in Zen literature. Dogo was the more senior of the two in terms of understanding. Ungan was to later become the teacher of Master Tozan, the founder of the Soto school of Zen.

The main case of the koan says:

Dogen Shobogenzo

Ungan asked Dogo, “How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion (Kannon) use so many hands and eyes?”
Dogo said, “It’s just like a person in the middle of the night reaching back in search of a pillow.”
Ungan said, “I understand.”
Dogo said, “How do you understand it?”
Ungan said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.”
Dogo said, “What you said is all right, but it’s only eighty percent of it.”
Ungan said, “I’m like this, Senior brother. How do you understand it?”
Dogo said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.”

In the Blue Cliff Record commentary, Engo begins by extolling the virtues of both Ungan and Dogo, and identifying Ungan as Tozan’s teacher. He then refers to the eighty-four thousand arms of Kannon Bodhisattva as symbolic arms and says, “Great Compassion has this many hands and eyes — do all of you?” With this question he challenges the reader to consider the statement from the point of view of intimacy. He then quotes Master Hyakujo as saying, “All sayings and writings return to one’s self.” In the next paragraph he says, “Right at the start Dogo should have given him [Ungan] a blow of the staff across his back to avoid so many complications appearing later.” Here he emphasizes the need for Ungan to be intimate with the thousand hands and eyes by bringing him home to the reality of the moment. Whack! The blow of the stick was a traditional teaching method found in the early Rinzai school. Engo then continues, “But Dogo was compassionate — he couldn’t be like this [striking Ungan]. Instead, he gave Ungan an explanation of the reason, meaning to make him understand immediately.” As we will see, Dogen would never have called Dogo’s response an “explanation.”

Engo moves on to address “the reaching back for a pillow in the middle of the night.” He asks the question, “[In this activity] tell me, where are the eyes?” Here the question of “the night” is dealt with only briefly, in a single sentence, whereas Dogen deals with it extensively, since it is a pivotal point of the koan, necessary to appreciate Dogo’s response to Ungan. Engo also deals with Ungan’s “all over the body are hands and eyes” and Dogo’s “this is all right, but it is only eighty percent of it” and “throughout the body are hands and eyes.” He asks the question, “But say, is ‘all over the body’ right, or is ‘throughout the body’ right?” Then he himself indirectly answers this with the statement, “Although they seem covered with mud, nevertheless they are bright and clean,” implying that although Dogo and Engo may appear to be having a conversation in the weeds [being deluded], when in actual fact they are both expressing clearly the truth of the activity of Great Compassion.

Engo continues by deriding practitioners who come to the conclusion that each one of the statements made by the masters are respectively right and wrong, explaining that these kind of practitioners are people who get caught up in words and phrases, and have not yet realized the truth. He then advises his students to cut off emotional defilements and conceptual thinking and become naked, free and unbounded, since this is the only way to understand the truth about Great Compassion.

He concludes his commentary by clarifying further Dogo’s statement, “It’s all right, but it’s only eighty percent of it.” He quotes Master Sozan who once asked a monk, “How is it when the dharma body of reality is manifesting form in accordance with beings, like the moon reflected in the water?” The monk said, “It’s like a donkey looking at a well.” Sozan said, “You have said quite a lot, but you have only said eighty percent of it.” The monk then asked, “What do you say, teacher?” Sozan answered, “It’s like the well looking at the donkey.” Engo says, “This is the same meaning as the main case.” Although his example presents a similar situation, Engo does not actually address the question of whether or not there is something lacking in Ungan’s understanding, and although in Sozan’s response are implicit the “Five Ranks” of Master Tozan, Engo does not refer to them to elaborate on his explanation of Dogo’s statement. On the other hand, Dogen in his Shobogenzo“Kannon” examines this point with great detail, resolving the question underlying it, yet leaving enough of its mystery to invite the reader to investigate and penetrate it further.

In the Shoyoroku, Bansho immediately begins his commentary with a monk asking the question, “What does the Great Compassionate One use a thousand hands and eyes for?” The master answers, “What does the emperor use public officials for?” This question seems to imply that the use of the thousand hands and eyes of Great Compassion is to facilitate the bodhisattva’s functioning. It is a reasonable and logical conclusion, yet one that entirely misses the truth of this koan and clearly presents a much weaker understanding than that presented by Dogen in his fascicle.

Bansho continues with the story of a mountain man who, after it rained, would wear pure white shoes on a muddy road to go to the market. “Someone asked, ‘You’re blind. How come the mud doesn’t soil your shoes?’ The mountain main raised his staff and said, ‘There is an eye on this staff.’” Bansho says, “The mountain man is proof — when reaching for a pillow in the night, there is an eye in the hand; when eating there is an eye on the tongue, when recognizing people on hearing them speaking, there is an eye in the ears.” He then introduces Su Zizhan, who, when conversing with a deaf man, just wrote. Then he laughed and said, “He and I are both strange people — I use my hand for a mouth, he uses his eyes for ears.” Bansho quotes the Buddha when he spoke of the interchanging function of the six senses. He then caps this paragraph with the statement, “It is true, without a doubt.” It seems that the various examples introduced by Bansho would help to explain the principles presented in the koan, but they do not in any way clarify them for the reader. They just introduce more entanglements of words and ideas. Although the images of the eye on the staff, the eye on the hand, and the merging of the six senses are all solid dharma, Bansho does not use them to clarify the dialogue between Ungan and Dogo. Bansho then speaks of the thousand eyes emanating light to illuminate the darkness, and brings out the co-dependency and mutual arising of compassion and suffering sentient beings. Indeed, if it were not for the suffering of sentient beings, there would not be any need for compassion. He then summarizes, “All over the body; throughout the body” by saying, “to say ‘What is the necessity?’ — not necessarily. There seems to be shallow and deep, but really, there is no loss or gain.” With this statement he acknowledges the identity of the understanding of Ungan and Dogo. He concludes his commentary by saying that arguing over these matters is like arguing about the shortness or length of turtle hair.

Although the examinations and elaborations of these two masters indeed cover the key points present in the koan, they do not have very much depth when compared to Dogen’s treatment of the same case. Further, there are many levels of minor points to be seen in this koan which, when taken together with the key points, make it a profound expression of the functioning of Great Compassion.

It is the superficial treatment of koans that Dogen was opposed to, not koan introspection itself. His criticism of Tozan’s “Five Ranks” was of similar nature. He was not opposed to the principles conveyed by the “Five Ranks,” but rather to the very intellectual and inconsequential way that they came to be used in his time. Extending this argument even further, we could say that his creation of the fascicles on cleaning the teeth, using the lavatory, preparing and eating a meal, washing the face, were also a response to the superficiality and self-consciousness that had invaded the Buddhist liturgy of the thirteenth century.

If we examine Case #105 from Dogen’s perspective as it appears in the Kana Shobogenzo, we find that he begins by extolling the virtues of both Ungan and Dogo, and he immediately establishes their unity with each other. He then establishes the unity of Kannon Bodhisattva and Ungan, and the uniqueness of Ungan’s understanding of Kannon. He says, “Kannon is present in Ungan who has been experiencing it together with Dogo. And not only one or two Kannons, but hundreds of thousands of Kannons are experiencing the same state as Ungan.” Then, speaking of the eighty-four thousand hands and eyes of great compassion, Dogen makes clear that they are not limited to a number. He introduces infinite and limitless abundance of hands and eyes, and then goes on to say, “They are indeed beyond the bounds of countlessness and limitlessness.” He says, “Ungan speaks and Dogo verifies.” The limitlessly abundant hands and eyes are clearly the state of consciousness that Ungan and Dogo are experiencing together. With a uniquely Dogen twist he says, “Ungan is asking Dogo ‘The use (of the hands and eyes) does what?’” He is inquiring here, “Is there any other aim other than simply to function?” He is asking the reader to consider how Kannon uses her manifold hands and eyes and that we must ask “does what, moves what, expresses what?” Dogen then uses Dogo’s answer, “She is like a person in the night reaching back for a pillow” to launch into an exhaustive exploration of “in the night.” He asks us to examine the difference between “nighttime as it is supposed in the light of day” and “the nighttime as it is in the night. In sum, we should examine it as that time which is not day or night.” Further on he becomes even more specific. He says, “This nighttime is not necessarily only the nighttime of the day and night of human beings and gods.” The night that Dogen is speaking of is in the realm of the absolute, the non-dual state of consciousness in which body and mind have fallen away. Extending this concept of night into the matter of searching for a pillow he says, “You should understand that the expression used here by Dogo does not concern taking a pillow, pulling a pillow or pushing a pillow. If you try to deeply understand what Dogo means when he speaks of ‘reaching behind at night for a pillow,’ you must examine it with night eyes. Look at it carefully.” He also asks, “Is the person in the words ‘like a person’ only a word in a metaphor? Or is this person, being a normal person, not an ordinary person? If studied as a normal person in Buddhism, (the person) is not only metaphorical, in which case there is something to be learned in groping for a pillow.” He points out that Kannon’s hands and eyes are not something attached to her body, which would make them separate entities, but rather the totality of her being.

The thrust that he begins to develop in this dialectic is essentially that all bodhisattvas — indeed all beings — manifesting infinite compassion with their limitless hands and eyes, bodies and minds, are a single indivisible thusness. Dogen then brings up Ungan’s “I understand,” he says that Ungan is not saying that he understands the words of Dogo, but rather that this is an understanding of the ineffable and that it is causing the ineffable to express the truth. When Dogo asked the question, “How do you understand?” Dogen sees it as, “I understand. You understand. Could it be other than eyes understand, hands understand?” Dogen then asks, “Is it understanding that has been realized or is it understanding that has not been realized yet? The understanding described by ‘I understand’ is the eye itself. At the same time, we should consider it’s existence as ‘you,’ and ‘How do you understand?’” That is, Dogo’s statement and Ungan’s statement should be appreciated non-dualistically as the whole body itself, as hands and eyes limitlessly abundant. Dogen then concludes his fascicle by taking up Dogo’s statement, “What you said is all right, but it’s only eighty percent of it.” From Dogen’s point of view, this statement by Dogo means, “Hitting the target by speaking. Clearly manifesting something by speaking and leaving nothing unexpressed. When what has hitherto is finally expressed so that nothing remains that words might express, the expression of the truth is just eighty or ninety percent of realization.” Dogen is being very kind here by pointing this out in a way that the other two fascicles have not. He says, “An expression of the truth is eighty or ninety percent of realization.” He is making clear that the words and ideas that describe a reality can never be equated with the direct experience that is the realization of that reality itself. He goes on to point out — as the treatments in the Blue Cliff Record and Book of Equanimity did — that people generally understand the statement of Dogo’s as an indication that there is something lacking in Ungan’s understanding. Dogen says, “People think that expressions of the truth can be one hundred percent of realization, and so an expression of the truth which does not reach that level is called eighty or ninety percent of realization. If the Buddhadharma were like that, it would never have reached the present day.” Ungan’s statement, “I am just like this, Senior Brother. How do you understand it” is then taken up by Dogen. He says, “Ungan speaks about being just like this because he wants to make Dogo himself speak words that Dogo has called ‘expression of eighty or ninety percent of realization.’” Dogen points out that people interpret this as meaning that the words that Ungan had just spoken are imperfect in expression. He says, “This is not the meaning of ‘I am just like this.’” For Dogen, this expression is an expression of reality itself. He continues by saying that Ungan’s “All over the body” and Dogo’s “Throughout the body” both express the truth as clearly as words can express them, and it’s not that one is perfect in expression and the other imperfect. Dogen says, “Ungan’s ‘All over the body’ and Dogo’s ‘Throughout the body’ are both beyond relative comparisons, and rather it may simply be that in the limitlessly abundant hands and eyes of each respective master such words are present.”

Zen Master Dogen Teachings

Dogen ends by saying that the Kannon spoken of by Shakyamuni Buddha is one of a thousand hands and eyes, and the Kannon spoken of by Ungan and Dogo is one with limitlessly abundant hands and eyes. But all of this is beyond a discussion of abundance and scarcity, that is, beyond numbers. When we understand Ungan and Dogo’s Kannon of limitlessly abundant hands and eyes through our own direct experience, all buddhas realize Kannon samadhi as eighty or ninety percent realization.

Master Dogen’s exhaustive treatment of this koan clearly enters many levels of understanding and addresses many subtleties that were not presented in the Blue Cliff Record and Book of Equanimity. These are just a few examples of the style and insight that Dogen brings to the understanding of classical koans which can be found throughout his work.

We live in a country and in a period of time in which the different schools and sects of Buddhism are not so widely separated as they have been historically in their native countries. This situation affords us the unique opportunity to learn from all of the schools and not be bound and limited by sectarianism. The use of koan introspection has been a central part of training at Zen Mountain Monastery, but the teachings of Master Dogen have also played a pivotal role. We have found that Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo, as expressed in his Kana Shobogenzo, has added another dimension to the appreciation of this incredible Buddhadharma.

In the preparation of our book of translations of this Three Hundred Koan Shobogenzo (Timeless Enquiry),5 I have attempted to meld the spirit of Dogen’s style of treatment of koans with that of the more conventional treatment of koans in the way that the commentaries, capping verses and additional sayings were prepared. For example the above case, “The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion,” is presented as follows:

Dogen Shobogenzo Painting Of Rice Cakes

Mana Shobogenzo Case 105
The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion

Main Case
Yunyan [Ungan Donjo] asked Daowu [Yuanzhi, Dogo Enchi], “How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion (Avalokiteshvara) use so many hands and eyes?” (1) Daowu said, “It’s just like a person in the middle of the night reaching back in search of a pillow.” (2) Yunyan said, “I understand.” (3)
Daowu said, “How do you understand it?” (4) Yunyan said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.” (5)
Daowu said, “What you said, is roughly all right. But it’s only eighty percent of it” (6) Yunyan said, “Senior brother, how do you understand it?”(7)
Daowu said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.” (8)

Commentary
If your whole body were an eye, you still wouldn’t be able to see it. If your whole body were an ear, you still wouldn’t be able to hear it. If your whole body were a mouth, you still wouldn’t be able to speak of it. If your whole body were mind, you still wouldn’t be able to perceive it.
Because the activity of Bodhisattva of Great Compassion is her whole body and mind itself, it is not limited to any notions or ideas of self or other. Bringing it up in the first place is a thousand miles from the truth. Answering the question only serves to compound the error.
Don’t you see? Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva has never understood what compassion is.

Capping Verse
All over the body, throughout the body.
It just can’t be rationalized.
Deaf, dumb, and blind, virtuous arms, penetrating eyes
have always been right here.

Footnotes
(1) Why does he ask, is it out of curiosity or an imperative?
(2) Miraculous activity, it’s not to be taken lightly.
(3) That’s exactly the problem that you started with in the first place. Stop understanding.
(4) It won’t do to let him get away with it.
(5) Many Zen practitioners fall into this pit.
(6) It’s because he understands it that he only got eighty percent of it.
(7) Make it your own, don’t rely on another provisions to support your life.
(8) No gaps! But say did he really say it all? If you say he did — wrong! If you say he didn’t you have missed it. What do you say?

For me, the comparative utilization of the Mana Shobogenzo and the Kana Shobogenzo, in conjunction with the traditional koans that are used in our koan study and introspection, is more than a theoretical or philosophical interest. It’s very practical. It has opened up many new possibilities in the training of Western students of koan study in a way that addresses their natural philosophical and psychological inclinations, and at the same time, can enable them to appreciate the endless depths present in this incredible teaching of Master Dogen when they are seen together.

_____________________________
1. Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Nishijima and Cross, 1994, Windbell Publications.
2. The Blue Cliff Record, Cleary and Cleary, 1977, Shambala Publications Inc.
3. The Book of Serenity, Thomas Cleary, 1990, Lindisfarn Press
4. “Butsudo,” Book 3, p. 68: “How much less should there be the three phrases, the Five Ranks and the ten kinds of shared wisdom the truth of old Master Shakyamuni is not small thinking like that, and it does not esteem thinking like that as great.” “Shunju,” Book 3, p. 234: “People who have not walked the threshold of the truth of the Buddhadharma, mistakenly assert that Tozan teaches people with his five positions of the relative and the absolute, and so on. This is an outlandish insistence and a random insistence. We should not see or hear it.”
5. Timeless Inquiry, Master Dogens Three Hundred Koan Shobogenzo, Loori and Tanahashi, Spring 2000, Weatherhill