33. She Who Listens

Master Ungan Donjo asks Master Dogo Enchi, "How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use her so many hands and eyes?"

Dogo says, "Like somebody in the night-time reaching back to grope for a pillow."

Ungan says, "I get it! I get it!"

Dogo says, "How?"

Ungan says, "The whole body, all over, is her hands and eyes."

Dogo says, "Nice one! You have expressed eighty or ninety percent of it."

Ungan says, "That is me. How about you, brother?"

Dogo says, "Something being communicated throughout the whole body: that is her hands and eyes."

In saying who She Who Listens is, there have been many voices heard, before and since, but none has been a match for Ungan and Dogo. If we want to learn Listening, we should get to the bottom of what Ungan and Dogo have now said. The one they are talking about, the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, is the Bodhisattva Listening to the Sounds of the World. She is also called the Bodhisattva of Listening Spontaneously. We also study her as the father and the mother of all the buddhas. Do not learn that, in comparison with the buddhas, hers is a less mature expression of the truth: she is a Thus-Come, a past Clarifier of the True Sitting-Method.


-- to be continued.

30. Getting and Staying In The Groove

The Great Way of the buddha-ancestors consists, in every case, of getting and staying in the Supreme Groove, which continues in an unbroken cycle, so that kick-starting the mind, training, awakening, and nirvana have not the slightest interval between them: it is a continuing cycle of keeping it in the groove. Thus, it is beyond our own straining, and we are not pulled and pushed into it by anybody else: it is grooving that has never been tainted. The good vibrations of this grooving let me be and let everybody else be. The fundamental point is this: when I keep it in the groove, the whole earth and the whole sky through the ten directions are totally covered by those good vibrations. Nobody else knows it, and I do not know it myself, but it is so. Thus, thanks to the buddhas and ancestors keeping it in the groove, our own grooving is realized and we keep right on to the end of the Great Road; and, thanks to us keeping it in the groove, the grooving of the buddhas is realized and the buddhas keep right on to the end of the Great Road. The good vibrations produced from this virtuous circle exist as result of our keeping it in the groove. As a result of this, every buddha and every ancestor lives the buddha-life, negates the buddha-non, beats the buddha-heart, and realizes the reality of buddha, unceasingly. Thanks to us keeping it in the groove, the sun, moon, and stars exist. Thanks to us keeping it in the groove, planet Earth and space exist. Thanks to us keeping it in the groove, object and subject, and body and mind, exist. Thanks to us keeping it in the groove, the four elements and five aggregates exist. Keeping it in the groove is not what people in the world love, but it might be the real refuge of all human beings. The buddhas of the past, present, and future, through keeping it in the groove, really are the buddhas of the past, present, and future. The good vibrations produced by them keeping it in the groove are, at times, not hidden from us -- which is why we kick-start the mind and undergo training. Those good vibrations are, at times, not apparent to us -- which is why we fail to find out about them or wake up to them. We should learn that even when they are not apparent to us, they are not hidden from us -- because they are not tainted by covering up and showing off, or by carrying on and fading out. When we do not understand, in the hiddenness of now, what kind of things are present, having arisen from the grounds of grooving, in the grooving that realizes ourselves, the basis of this non-understanding is this: understanding of grooving, as some new and special state, is never it at all. Rising from the ground is being in the groove: we should work out in detail and learn in practice that this is because being in the groove is not dependent on grounded arising. What realizes being in the groove as now described, really being in the groove, is just our own keeping it in the groove here and now. That the now of being in the groove is the original possession and the original abode of the self, is not it. That the now of being in the groove comes to and leaves the self, that it gets into us and deserts us, is not it. "Now" does not express something that exists prior to being in the groove: the realization of being in the groove is called "now." This being so, one day of being in the groove is the seed of the buddhas, and is being in the groove of the buddhas. Not to get in and stay in this groove in which the buddhas are realized and kept in the groove, is to despise the buddhas, is to fail to serve offerings to the buddhas, is to despise being in the groove, is to fail to live the same life and die the same death as the buddhas, and is to fail to study the same study and go on the same trip as them. The opening now of flowers, the falling now of leaves, is just the realization of being in the groove. There is no polishing of mirrors, nor any breaking of mirrors, that is other than being in the groove. If, for this reason, we decide to set aside getting in the groove; or if we intend to go directly for the groove, on the basis that we can get in the groove even when setting aside the effort to get in the groove, with designs on concealing the wrong mind that wishes to avoid getting in the groove; though this might look like the will to get in the groove, it is to be the wretched son who threw away treasure in the homeland of his true father, and then went wandering off in foreign lands. Even though, during our wandering, the winds and waters have not caused us to lose body and life, we ought not to throw away the treasure of our true father -- to misconstrue the real asset of our true father, which is Sitting. Thus, being in the groove is the Truth of Sitting, into which boredom does not come, even for an instant.




-- to be continued

23. The Integrity of Buddha In the Groove

Buddhas always groove integrity, which is just the grooving of buddha. Grooving buddha is neither being rewarded as buddha nor being converted into buddha. It is neither being buddha as the essential me nor being buddha as the essence of somebody else. It is neither instigated awakening nor original awakening, neither being inherently enlightened nor being without enlightenment. These kinds of buddha cannot even come close to matching shoulders with a buddha in the groove. Remember, when buddhas are on the buddha-way, they are not hanging around waiting for enlightenment. A pair of grooving shoes on the path of buddha going on up, is something that nobody but grooving buddha has attained. It is something that buddha as the essential me, and the rest of them, have never even dreamt of.





-- to be continued, maybe, if I get back in this groove

1. Talk of Pursuing the Truth

When the buddhas, each having received the one-to-one transmission of the wonderful Way of Sitting, experience the ultimate awakening, they are masters of a supreme and subtle art, which has to do with spontaneity. The reason it is transmitted without deviation only from buddha to buddha is that the stillness of accepting and using the self is its standard. To play in this stillness, the true gate is sitting-zen -- upright sitting as Zen practice. This Way of Sitting is already there, abundantly, in each human being, but it does not show itself until we practise it, and it is not realized unless we experience it. When we let go, the hands are already filled with it...



-- to be continued, maybe

70. Kick-Starting the Bodhi-Mind

Broadly, there are three kinds of mind: The first, citta, is here called the thinking mind. The second, hridya, is here called the mind of grass and trees. The third, vriddha, is here called the collected and vital mind. Out of these three, the one we use to kick the bodhi-mind into action is, in every case, the thinking mind. The Indian word "bodhi" is here called the truth, or the way, or enlightenment. The Indian word "citta" is here called the thinking mind. Without this thinking mind there is no chance of rousing the bodhi-mind to action. To see this thinking mind as the bodhi-mind itself, is not it. But it is with this thinking mind that we kick the bodhi-mind into action. Kicking the bodhi-mind into action means making, and sticking to, the following vow: "Before crossing myself over to the far shore of enlightenment, I shall cause all living beings to cross over." One who kicks into action this mind, even if he is coarse in appearance, is already the guiding teacher of all living beings....

-- to be continued


Constant spontaneous production of this thought:
"How to make living beings
Able to enter the supreme truth,
And quickly realize a buddha's body?"

This is the very lifetime of the Thus-Come....


-- to be continued

7. Cleansing

There is practice and enlightenment that the buddha-ancestors have guarded and observed: it is called the negation of tainting.

The sixth ancestor in China, Daikan Eno, asks Nangaku Ejo: "Are you into practice and enlightenment?"

Nangaku Ejo replies, "It is not that there is no practice and enlightenment, but tainting them is just what is not allowed."

Daikan Eno says, "This not tainting, and this alone, is what the buddhas guard and attend to. You are like that and so am I, and so were the ancestral masters of India..."



-- to be continued, maybe...

91. Buddha Alone Together With Buddha

The Sitting of Buddha is not what people recognize as such. That is why, since ancient times, no ordinary bloke has woken up to the truth of the Sitting of Buddha, and no intellectual know-all or healy-feely naturalist has got to the bottom of the truth of the Sitting of Buddha. Because it is realized by nobody but Buddha, the Lotus Sutra says: "Buddha alone, together with Buddha, is able to get to the bottom of it."



-- to be continued, maybe... or maybe not

58. Rules of Sitting-Zen

Zen practice is sitting-zen. For sitting-zen a quiet place is good. Lay out a thick sitting mat. Do not let wind and smoke get in, and do not let rain or dew seep through. Preserve an area big enough to contain the body. There are traces of ancients sitting on a diamond seat or sitting on a bed of rock, but they all spread out a thick carpet of grass and sat on that. The sitting place should be bright; it should not be dark, day or night. To be warm in winter and cool in summer is the way. Cast aside all involvements and cease the ten thousand things. Good is not considered. Bad is not considered. Mind, intention, consciousness, is not it. Awareness, thought, reflection, is not it. Do not have designs on becoming buddha. Drop off sitting down and lying down. Eat and drink sparingly, and guard time closely. Enjoy sitting-zen unreservedly -- as if putting a fire out, on your head. The fifth ancestor on Obai-zan mountain had no other occupation: he practised nothing but sitting-zen.

For sitting-zen wear a kasaya and use a round cushion. The cushion does not go under the whole of the crossed legs; it goes under the backside. So the underside of the folded legs is on the sitting mat, and the sitting bones are on the cushion. This, in the time of the sitting-zen of the buddhas and the ancestors, is THE Method of Sitting -- whether it is full lotus sitting or whether it is half lotus sitting. In full lotus sitting the right foot goes on the left thigh and the left foot goes on the right thigh, with the toes placed symmetrically on each thigh, not out of proportion. In half lotus sitting the left foot just goes on the right thigh. Let robe and gown hang loosely and keep them neat. The right hand goes over the left foot and the left hand goes over the right hand. The thumbs at their tips connect into each other. The hands, like this, are drawn in towards the body, and placed so that the tips of the thumbs meet opposite the navel. Letting the body right itself, practise upright sitting -- neither leaning left nor leaning right, neither slumping forward nor arching backward. Allow without fail the ears and the shoulders to be opposed and the nose and the navel to be opposed. Let the tongue rest against the roof of the mouth. Let the breath pass through the nose. Let the lips and teeth come together. Let the eyes be open -- not wide open and not half-closed. Having readied the body-mind like this, let there be one full out-breath. Sit totally still, thinking into that zone which is the negation of thinking. How is it possible to think into the zone that negates thinking? It is by non-thinking, which is the key to Sitting in sitting-zen. Sitting-zen is not the zen that is learned. It is the gate to the great and effortless ease of Sitting. It is untainted practice-and-experience.

Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting;
Rules of Sitting-Zen

Delivered to the assembly at Kippo temple in the Yoshida district of Esshu [Fukui prefecture], in the 11th lunar month, in the winter of the first year of Kangen [1243].










* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sitting with a small 's' is the sitting of sitting down and standing up, sitting that we should drop off.

Sitting with a big 'S' is sometimes called, by people who have never realized it even in a dream, "the Buddha-Dharma."

Thy key to realizing the latter, Sitting with a big 'S', is non-thinking.

So what non-thinking is, and what it is not, what Sitting is, and what it is not, are questions that I wish to raise by publishing this translation.

This translation copyright Mike Cross, 2008.
If you wish to use it, please ask. If you would like clarification of anything, please ask. If you object to anything, speak up. If you notice any typos or other mistakes, please let me know.

28. The Matter of Buddha Going On Up

The high ancestor Tozan is the close and direct heir of Ungan, going on up through thirty-eight ancestors from the Buddha. He is the thirty-eighth ancestor in going on up above himself. One day he preaches: "When we physically get the matter of buddha going on up, then we can speak a bit." A monk asks: "What is it to speak?" Tozan says: "When speaking, governor, you are not listening." The monk says: "Are you listening, Master, or not?" Tozan says: "Waiting in my own non-speaking-time, I am just listening."

This teaching of the matter of buddha going on up has Tozan as its original ancestor. Buddha-ancestors other than him, having learned his teaching in practice, physically get the matter of buddha going on up. Know exactly: the matter of buddha going on up is a matter neither of latent causes nor of effects coming to fruition. Even so, it is experienced to the full, by physically getting non-listening, in speaking-time. Without reaching the level of buddha going on up, buddha going on up is not physically got. Without speaking, we do not physically get the matter of buddha going on up. It is neither revealed by one to another nor concealed by one from another, it is neither conferred by one to another nor stolen by one from another. Therefore, when speaking is really realized, it is a matter of buddha going on up. When the matter of buddha going on up is really realized, the governor is non-listening itself. "The governor is non-listening," means the matter of buddha going on up is spontaneous non-listening. Thus, "When speaking the governor is non-listening." Remember, speaking is neither tainted by to listen nor tainted by not to listen. For this reason, to listen or not to listen is not relevant. The inside of non-listening contains the governor and the inside of speaking contains the governor -- but [others discuss] "meeting a person and not meeting a person," "being like this and not being like this." The time when the governor is speaking is itself the governor/non-listening. The fundamental point, with regard to this condition of non-listening, is this: because it is held by the bones of the tongue, it is non-listening; because it is blocked by the insides of the ears, it is non-listening; because it is pierced by shining of the eyeballs, it is non-listening; and because it is plugged up by the body-mind, it is non-listening. Because [conditions of non-listening] are like that, they are non-listening. They are not to be twisted and turned into speaking. It is not that non-listening equals speaking; it is non-listening, in speaking time -- only that. In the high ancestor's words "In speaking time, the governor is non-listening," the whole head-to-tail truth of speaking is like wisteria clinging to wisteria; and at the same time it might be speaking entwining with speaking -- or being restricted by speaking itself. The monk says, "Is the Master himself listening, or not?" He is not speculating what it is to be a listening/speaking Master -- the question he now asks has nothing to do with him being a Master, or with speaking. Rather, what the monk is now getting at is whether it is possible to learn, in speaking time, just to listen. For example, he is aiming to hear whether speaking can be just speaking, and is aiming to hear whether listening itself can be listening itself. That said, governor, the saying is not of your own tongue! We must definitely investigate the words of the high ancestor Tozan, "Waiting in my own non-speaking-time, I am just listening." In other words, in the very moment of speaking, just to listen is totally not it. Real just listening must be in non-speaking time. It is not that he idly sets aside non-speaking time and waits not to speak. Neither, in the time of just listening, does he make a bystander of speaking -- because that really is being a bystander. It is not that, in the time of just listening, speaking has gone off and remained on one side. Nor is it that, in the time of speaking, just listening is intimately hiding its body inside the eyes of the speaking, then to strike like a thunderbolt. The point, then -- whether, as in the case of the governor, speaking-time is non-listening; or whether, as in the case of [Tozan's] own my, non-speaking-time is just listening -- is truly to possess the means to speak a bit, and is physically to get the matter of buddha going on up. And that means, for example, physically to get, in speaking-time, just listening -- hence, "Waiting in my own non-speaking-time, I am just listening." Though described thus, the matter of buddha going on up is not a matter prior to the Seven Buddhas; it is the matter of the Seven Buddhas going on up.

Great Master Gohan, the high ancestor of Tozan mountain, tells the assembly: "Know that there are people who are buddhas going on up." Then a monk asks, "What kind of person is a buddha going on up?" The Great Master says: "A non-buddha."

Unmon says: "Unable to name it and unable to describe it, we say 'non'."

Hofuku says: "Buddha-non!"

Hogen says: "Telling a white lie, we call it buddha."


Broadly, the one who is our buddha-ancestor, having gone on up beyond being a buddha-ancestor, is the high ancestor of Mount Tozan. How so? Because many others have the facades of buddhas and the facades of ancestors, but none have glimpsed, even in a dream, the truth of buddha going on up. Even if it is explained for the likes of Rinzai and Tokuzan, they are a target that cannot be hit. The likes of Ganto and Seppo, pulverize their bodies though they might, do not know the flavour of this fist. The teachings of the high ancestor, such as "When we physically get the matter of buddha going on up, then we can speak a bit," and "Know that there are people who are buddhas going on up," cannot be experienced to the full merely through the training and enlightenment experiences of one, two, three, four or five triple-whammies of hundred-enormities of aeons. The means may be present only in those who have it in them to learn the profoundly hidden path. We should know that there are people who are buddhas going on up. We are talking, in other words, of vivacious lives of letting the soul play. And yet we can pick it up from the examples of olden buddhas, and we can glean it from the holding up of fists. If we have thus been able to see it, we know that there are people who are, through being, buddhas going on up, and we know that there are people who are, through being without, buddhas going on up. What he is now telling the assembly is not to try to become a person who is buddha going on up, and not to try to meet a person who is buddha going on up. He is just telling us, for the present, to know that there are people who are buddhas going on up. One who has acquired command of this pivot-point truly not-knows a person who is, through being, a buddha going on up and truly not-knows a person who is, being without anything, a buddha going on up. That person, a buddha going on up, is just a non-buddha. When prone to doubts about what non-buddha is, think it out! It is not called non-buddha because of being prior to buddha; it is not called non-buddha because of coming after buddha; and it is not non-buddha because it goes beyond buddha. Simply because it is buddha itself, going on up, it is non-buddha. We call it non-buddha because of its dropping off a buddha's face and eyes, and because of its dropping off a buddha's body and mind.

Zen Master Koboku tells the assembly: "Once we know of the matter of the buddha-ancestors going on up, then we can talk. Tell me, Zen do-gooders, just what is this matter of a buddha-ancestor going on up? There is, born to a human family, a child deficient in the six sense organs and imperfect in the seven kinds of consciousness. He does whatever he likes, and is without a seed of the buddha-nature. Meeting with buddha, he kills buddha. Meeting with ancestors, he kills ancestors. Heaven cannot accept him, and even Hell has no gate that would take him in. Do you lot know this person or not?" He pauses a good while and says: "You are facing one who is not quick at anticipating others' wishes, who sleeps a lot and talks a lot in his sleep."

The six sense organs being deficient means, in other words: Somebody has swapped my eyeballs for two black beads! Somebody has swapped my nostrils for bamboo tubes! Somebody has swiped my skull to make a shit-scooper! What is at the bottom of this swapping? On this basis the six sense organs are deficient. His deficiency being a function of his six sense organs, he has gone through a blast furnace and been a golden buddha, has gone through the ocean's depths and been a clay buddha, and has gone through an inferno and been a wooden buddha. The seven kinds of consciousness being imperfect expresses a broken wooden dipper. Though he kills buddha, he also meets with buddha. It is because he has met with buddha that he kills buddha. If he aimed to enter Heaven, Heaven would collapse at once, and if he made for Hell, Hell would instantly be torn asunder -- so he faces what he faces, which makes his face break into a smile. In regard to the wishes of others, he is utterly without anticipation. Even though he sleeps a lot, still he often talks in his sleep. We should know that the principle here is that all mountains, and the whole Earth, both are friends who know him well; and his whole body of jewels and stone is smashed into a hundred bits and pieces. We should quietly work on and work out for ourselves what Zen Master Koboku is telling that lot. Do not be too quick about it.

Ungo Doyo visits Tozan, who asks him: "What's your name, governor?" Ungo says, "Doyo." Tozan asks further, "Go on up and say again!" Ungo says, "If I were to reach up and say, it would not be named Doyo." Tozan says, "When I was in Ungan's order, our exchange was no different."

These words of master and disciple must be examined closely. Doyo says: "If I were to reach up and say, it would not be named Doyo." This means that Doyo is going on up. We should learn in practice that in Doyo just as he has come, there is something, not named Doyo, that is going on up. Doyo, having realized the truth that going on up is beyond being named Doyo, really is Doyo. But never say that there might be Doyo in his going on up. On hearing Tozan's words "Go on up and say again!", if he were then to blurt out his enlightenment by exclaiming, "Reaching up, I would still be named Doyo!" just that would be his expression of going on up. Why do I say so? Because Doyo instantly springs into his brain in order to contain his body. And while thus concealing his body, he makes a show of himself.

Zen Master Sozan Honjaku visits the high ancestor Tozan. Tozan asks him: "What is your name, governor?" Sozan says, "Honjaku." Tozan says, "Go on up and say again!" Sozan says, "I am saying nowt!" Tozan says, "On what basis are you saying nowt?" Sozan says, "Not being named Honjaku." Tozan affirms this.

It is not that, in going on up, there is nowt said. It is just the saying of nowt. Tozan says: "You are saying nowt on the basis of what." In other words, "You are beyond the name Honjaku!" So what going on up says is "saying nowt," and what says nowt about going on up is the unnamed. Honjaku not being named is what going on up is saying. On this basis Honjaku is not being named. So there exists non-Honjaku; there exists, as a dropping off, the being not named; and there exists, as a dropping off, Honjaku.

Zen Master Banzan Hoshaku says, "The unitary path of going on up the thousand saints do not transmit."

These words "the unitary path of going on up" are the words of nobody but Banzan. He neither speaks of going on up as a thing nor speaks of people reaching up: he speaks of going on up as a unitary path. His fundamental intention is that, even if the thousand saints come vying on it head to head, the unitary path of going on up is beyond transmission. The meaning of "beyond transmission" is the thousand saints each keeping his or her own share of what is beyond transmission. We should study it like this. But there is something else to say too, which is this: We do not deny the existence of the thousand saints and thousand sages. But even for a sage or saint, the unitary path of going on up goes beyond the boundaries of sagacity and sainthood.

A monk asks Zen Master Chimon Koso, "What is the matter of buddha going on up?" The Master says, "The head of the staff is playing keep-up with the sun and moon."

I say: The staff being held tightly in the grip of the sun and moon is the matter of buddha going on up. When we conduct research into the sun/moon-staff, and lose all our bearings completely, that is the matter of buddha going on up. That the sun and moon are just the staff, is not it. The head of the staff is totally the staff.

In the order of the Great Master Sekito, Zen Master Dogo asks: "What is the great intent of the Buddha-Dharma?" Master Sekito says, "Not getting, not knowing." Dogo says, "Going on up, is there anywhere else to move onto?" Master Sekito says, "The wide sky not restricting the white cloud's flying."

Sekito is the second-generation descendant of Daikan Eno, and Dogo is the younger brother in Sekito's order of Yakusan. One days he asks, "What is the great intent of the Buddha-Dharma?" This question is not one with which beginners and late learners can cope. It is voiced at a time when, having asked the great intent, a person might already have grasped the great intent. Sekito says, "Not getting, not knowing." Remember, in regard to the Buddha's Truth of Sitting, that there is great intent in the very first moment of mindfulness, and there is great intent in reaching the plane of the ultimate. The great intent is the getting of negation. Awakening the mind, training, and tasting enlightenment are not nonexistent: they are the getting of negation. The great intent is the knowing of negation. That practice and enlightenment do not exist, is not it. That practice and enlightenment exist, is not it. They are knowing negation and getting negation. Again, the great intent is getting negation and knowing negation. That practice and verification of the noble truths do not exist, is not it. They are getting negation and knowing negation. That practice and verification of the noble truths exist, is not it. They are getting negation and knowing negation. Dogo says, "Going on up, is there anywhere else to move onto?" If there is realization of this moving on, going on up is realized. Moving on somewhere else, in other words, is the means whereby. The means whereby, in other words, is the buddhas themselves, the ancestors themselves. And the expression used, when speaking of this, is liable to be "there is somewhere else." Though there may be somewhere else, we should not allow to leak away, and we should express, there being nowhere else. "The wide sky not restricting the white cloud's flying" is Sekito's expression. The wide sky is sweepingly negated restriction of the wide sky, and the wide sky is negated restriction of the wide sky's flying. At the same time, the white cloud is sweepingly negated restriction of the white cloud itself, the white cloud's flying is negation of restrictions, and the white cloud's flying does not restrict at all the wide sky's flying. Negating other's restrictions is negating the self's restrictions. To see it as necessary for each person's restrictions to be negated, is not it; and for each object to exist as negated restriction, is not it. Thus, each is not restricted, and each displays the essence and form of the wide sky not restricting the white cloud's flying. Just in such a moment, raising an eyebrow of this eye of learning in practice, we glimpse a buddha coming or meet an ancestor coming. We meet the self coming, and meet the other coming. This truth has been called the truth of asking once and being answered ten times. In this asking once and being answered ten times, the one who asks once must be a true person, and the one who answers ten times must be a true person.

Obaku says, "People who have left home should know a bit about a matter that has come down to us from above. Now the Great Master Gozu Hoyu, for instance, who was a pupil of the fourth ancestor in China, Dai-i Doshin, expounded the length and expounded the breadth, and yet he never knew the pivotal thing -- going on up. With this eye and and brain, you will be able to tell the false from the true among religious groups."

The matter that has come down to us from above which Obaku expresses like this, is the matter that has been accurately transmitted from above by the buddha-ancestors, buddha-to-buddha and ancestor-to-ancestor. It is called "the true-Dharma-eye treasury and the fine mind of nirvana." It is already present in the self; still, we should know it. It is already present in the self; and yet he never knew. Without an exact buddha-to-buddha transmission, it is not envisaged even in a dream. Obaku, as the Dharma-child of Hyakujo, surpasses even Hyakujo; and, as the Dharma-grandchild of Baso, he surpasses even Baso. In general, for three or four generations of their ancestral lineage, there is nobody who matches shoulders with Obaku. Nobody but Obaku has clarified the fact that Gozu, "Bull-Head," was missing a pair of horns: buddha-ancestors other than him have never known it. Zen Master Hoyu of Bull-Head Mountain was an esteemed veteran under the fourth ancestor. His expounding the length and breadth, at least if he is seen in comparison with sutra-teachers and commentary-teachers in India and China, should not be called inadequate. Sadly, however, he never knew the pivotal thing, which is to go on up, and he never expressed the pivotal thing, which is to go on up. If we were ignorant of the pivotal thing that has come down to us from above, how could we tell, with regard to the Buddha's Method of Sitting, what is fake and what is true? A bloke like that is nothing more than a student of sayings and words. So then, to know the pivotal thing of going on up, to practice the pivotal thing of going on up, and to experience the pivotal thing of going on up, is beyond the scope of ordinary folk. But wherever true effort is made to work it out, it is invariably realized. What we have been discussing, the matter of buddha going on up, means this: reaching the level of buddha and carrying on and discovering buddha afresh -- just as ordinary beings meet buddha. That said, if meeting buddha is on a par with the meeting buddha of ordinary beings, that is not meeting buddha. If meeting buddha is akin to the meeting buddha of ordinary beings, meeting buddha is an illusion. How much less could it be the matter of buddha going on up? Remember, the matter of going on up of which Obaku speaks is way beyond the ken of the shoddy charlatans of today. Sure, there are those whose expression of Sitting falls below Hoyu's level, and there are those whose expressions of Sitting might accidentally hit Hoyu's level, but all are just the older and younger Dharma-brothers of Hoyu; how could they know the pivotal thing of going on up? Others -- those in the ten stages of saintliness, the three stages of sagacity, and the rest of it -- have not even heard of the pivotal thing of going on up. How much less could they turn their own lives on that pivotal axis, opening and closing the switch of going on up? The fundamental point here is the very eyes of learning in practice. If a person knows the pivotal thing of going on up, I call her a person of buddha going on up. Buddha going on up is a matter that she physically gets.

Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting;
The Matter of Buddha Going On Up

Delivered to the assembly at Kannon-dori-kosho-horin-ji temple on the 23rd day of the 3rd lunar month in the 3rd year of Ninji [1242].







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I dedicate the English translation of this chapter to FM Alexander's niece Marjory Barlow, she of the jewel in the lotus. She was a human being who was an awakened being, going on up. She physically got, and caused others to physically get, the matter of buddha going on up. Om mani padme hum.

This translation copyright Mike Cross, 2008.
If you wish to use it, please ask. If you would like clarification of anything, please ask. If you object to anything, speak up. If you notice any typos or other mistakes, please let me know.

15. The Buddha-Ancestors

Our buddha-ancestors become real when we pick up and honour our buddha-ancestors -- an act which is not only of the past, present, and future but which may ascend even beyond buddha ascending beyond. Truly, in going over those who have kept up, and let be, their buddha-ancestor faces and eyes, we bow down before them and we see each other. By making real the good Work of our buddha-ancestors and picking it up ourselves, we have already been inhabiting them; we have already been saluting them, and experiencing them.

The Great Master Vipasyin Buddha -- "Widely Preaching"

The Great Master Sikhin Buddha -- "Fire"

The Great Master Visvabhu Buddha -- "All-Pitying"

The Great Master Krakucchanda Buddha -- "Gold Wizard"

The Great Master Kanakamuni Buddha -- "Golden Wizard"

The Great Master Kasyapa Buddha -- "Drinker of Light"

The Great Master Sakyamuni Buddha -- "Humanity and Serenity"

The Great Master Mahakasyapa

The Great Master Ananda

The Great Master Sanavasa

The Great Master Upagupta

The Great Master Dhitaka

The Great Master Micchaka

The Great Master Vasumitra

The Great Master Buddhanandi

The Great Master Baddhamitra

The Great Master Parsva

The Great Master Punyayasas

The Great Master Asvaghosa

The Great Master Kapimala

The Great Master Nagarjuna -- "Dragon-Tree" or "Super-Dragon" or "Mighty Dragon"

The Great Master Kanadeva

The Great Master Rahulabhadra

The Great Master Samghanandi

The Great Master Geyasata

The Great Master Kumaralabdha

The Great Master Gayata

The Great Master Vasubandhu

The Great Master Manura

The Great Master Hakulenayasas

The Great Master Simha

The Great Master Vasasuta

The Great Master Punyamitra

The Great Master Prajnatara

The Great Master Bodhidharma

The Great Master Eka

The Great Master Sosan

The Great Master Doshin

The Great Master Konin

The Great Master Eno

The Great Master Gyoshi

The Great Master Kisen

The Great Master Igen

The Great Master Donjo

The Great Master Ryokai

The Great Master Doyo

The Great Master Dofu

The Great Master Kanshi

The Great Master Enkan

The Great Master Keigen

The Great Master Gisei

The Great Master Dokai

The Great Master Shijun

The Great Master Seiryo

The Great Master Sogyoku

The Great Master Chikan

The Great Master Nyojo


Dogen, during the summer retreat of the 1st year of the Hogyo era of the great Kingdom of Sung, met and served my late master, the olden buddha of Tendo, the Great Master. I perfectly realized the act of prostrating to, and humbly receiving upon my head, this buddha-ancestor -- buddhas alone, together with buddhas.

Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting:
The Buddha-Ancestors

Written at Kannon-dori-kosho-horin-ji temple in the Uji district of Yoshu, Japan, and delivered to the assembly there on the 3rd day of the 1st lunar month in the 2nd year of Ninji [1241].







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This translation copyright Mike Cross, 2008.
If you wish to use it, please ask. If you would like clarification of anything, please ask. If you object to anything, speak up. If you notice any typos or other mistakes, please let me know.

72. The Samadhi That is King of Samadhis

Instantly surpassing the whole world and being, in the house of the Buddha-Ancestor, a great noble being, is full lotus sitting. Treading on the heads of strayers and demons and being, in the inner sanctum of the Buddha-Ancestor, a real human being, is full lotus sitting. What surpasses the supremacy of the Buddha-Ancestor's supremacy is only this One Dharma. For this reason buddha-ancestors practise this, being otherwise utterly jobless. Know exactly: the world of sitting, and other worlds, are far removed. Clarifying this truth, buddha-ancestors intuit and affirm awakening of the mind, training, bodhi, and nirvana. Just in the moment of sitting, investigate whether the world is vertical and whether it is horizontal. Just in the moment of sitting, what is that sitting? Is it a somersault? Is it a state of vigorous activity? Is it thinking? Is it not thinking? Is it doing? Is it free of doing? Is sitting practised inside sitting? Is sitting practised inside body-mind? Is it that, through shedding such vistas as the inside of sitting and the inside of body-mind, sitting is practised? There should be investigation of thousands and tens of thousands of points like these. Bodily practise full lotus sitting. Mentally practise full lotus sitting. Practise, as body and mind dropping off, full lotus sitting.

My late Master, the Olden Buddha, said: "Zen practice is body and mind dropping off, and just sitting has got it from the beginning. It is not necessary to burn incense, to perform prostrations, to contemplate the Buddha, to practise confession, or to read sutras."

Clearly, the one who has gouged out the Eye of the Buddha-Ancestor and sat inside the Eye of the Buddha-Ancestor, for the past four or five hundred years, is my late Master alone. Few in China have matched shoulders with him. Rarely has it been clarified that sitting is the Buddha-Dharma and that the Buddha-Dharma is sitting. Even if some understand with their bodies that sitting is the Buddha-Dharma, no-one has known sitting as sitting. How then can there be any who let the Buddha-Dharma be the Buddha-Dharma? So then, there is mental sitting as opposed to physical sitting. There is physical sitting as opposed to mental sitting. And there is sitting as body and mind dropping off, as opposed to sitting as body and mind dropping off. Actually to have got what sounds like this is the practice and the understanding of the buddha-ancestors, in mutual accord. Allow this awareness, this thinking, this reflection. Investigate this mind, this intention, this consciousness.

Sakyamuni Buddha told a great gathering: In full lotus sitting, the body-mind experience of samadhi, there is dignity that many respect. Like the sun lighting up the world, it clears away sleepy, lazy and sad states of mind. The body is light and tireless. Consciousness is also light and quick. Sit at ease, like dragons coiling! The king of demons is frightened on seeing even a picture of lotus sitting -- let alone a person experiencing enlightenment, sitting at ease without leaning or moving."

Thus, to observe just a depiction of lotus sitting makes the king of demons surprised, worried and afraid. Still more, when lotus sitting is really practised, its benefits are impossible to fathom. In short, everday sitting is happiness and good beyond measure.

Sakyamuni Buddha told a great gathering: "This is why we practise full lotus sitting." Then the Thus-Come, the World-Honored One, taught his disciples that they should, like this, sit. Among those who stray from the way some seek enlightenment by constantly remaining on tiptoes, some seek enlightenment by constantly standing up, and some seek enlightenment by constantly carrying their legs on their shoulders. Mad and stubborn mind like this is sunk in the sea of falsity, and the physical form is not quiet. Therefore the Buddha taught his disciples full lotus sitting -- sitting that rights hearts and minds. How so? Because, when we allow the body to be upright, the heart tends to mend. When the body itself rights sitting, then the heart is not faint and, with open heart and true mind, we tether our attention to what exists before us. If the mind races or becomes distracted, if the body leans or becomes agitated, [sitting] inhibits this and brings us back. When we want to experience samadhi and want to enter samadhi, and yet all kinds of thought-chasing and and all kinds of dissipation is going on, [sitting] totally puts a stop to all this. Training and learning like this, we experience and enter the samadhi that is king of samadhis.

Evidently, full lotus sitting is the samadhi that is king of samadhis, and is experience and entry. All samadhis are the followers of this king of samadhis. Full lotus sitting is righting the body, is righting the mind, is righting the body-mind, is righting the buddha-ancestors, is righting practice and experience, is righting the head, and is righting the lifeblood. Fully to cross these here human legs of skin, flesh, bones and marrow is fully to cross the legs of the samadhi that is king among samadhis. The World-Honored One constantly upholds, and leaves be, full lotus sitting. He conveys to his disciples the true transmission of full lotus sitting, and he teaches full lotus sitting to human beings and gods. The mind-seal authentically transmitted by the Seven Buddhas is just this. Sakyamuni Buddha under the bodhi tree is sitting in lotus, and thus he passes one by one through fifty minor kalpas, through sixty kalpas, through countless kalpas. Sitting in full lotus for three weeks, or sitting for hours, is the turning of the wheel of the wonderful Dharma, and is the lifelong teaching of the Buddha. It lacks nothing. It is just a yellow scroll on a red stick. The meeting of Buddha with Buddha is this moment. This is the exact moment when living beings become Buddha.

The founding ancestor, the Venerable Bodhidharma, after arriving from the west, went to the Shaolin temple on the Shaoshi peak of Mount Song and, facing the wall in lotus-sitting-zen, passed nine years. From that time through to the present, China has bulged with brains and eyes. The lifeblood of the founding ancestor is nothing but full lotus sitting. Before the founding ancestor came from the west, living beings in eastern lands had never known full lotus sitting. Since the founding ancestor came from the west they have known it. So, through one life and ten thousand lives, from bottom to top and top to bottom, not leaving the forest, day and night, just to practise lotus sitting and be otherwise jobless -- this is the samadhi that is king of samadhis.

Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting;
The Samadhi That Is King of Samadhis

Delivered to the assembly at Kippo temple in Fukui prefecture, on the 15th day of the 2nd lunar month in the 2nd year of Kangen [1244].







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This translation copyright Mike Cross, 2008.
If you wish to use it, please ask. If you would like clarification of anything, please ask. If you object to anything, speak up. If you notice any typos or other mistakes, please let me know.