1. These first two paragraphs recount the legend of the transmission of Zen from the Buddha Shâkyamuni and his disciple Mahâkâshyapa, down to Bodhidharma and his disciple Huike.

2. A saying found in the recorded teachings of Dôgen's master, Tiantong Rujing (1163-1228).

3. The famous account of the occasion on which Bodhidharma is supposed to have designated the monk Huike as his successor.

4. "For the person, engaging the person, picking up grass, falling into grass": Two common Zen expressions for the teaching techniques of the masters. "Holding up a flower" refers to the legend of the transmission from Shâkyamuni to Mahâkâshyapa, in which the Buddha held up a flower, and Mahâkâshyapa smiled; "transmitting the robe" likely refers to accounts of the handing down of the robe of Bodhidharma through the generations to the Sixth Ancestor, Huineng.

5. A tentative rendering of a highly odd locution; generally interpreted to mean something like, "you've got me as I am in my skin" or "you've got the skin that is me."

6. A tentative translation of another odd phrase, which might also be rendered, "got me and you"; similarly, in the next paragraph.

7. "Escape the body: A tentative translation for a term that can also mean "to extract the essence"; here, generally taken to mean that the master-disciple relationship frees the disciple to intertwine with the master. "Interacting and not enteracting" (or "not interacting while interacting,") is a common Zen expression for the interdependence and independence of things.

8. From the recorded sayings of the famous Tang-dynasty monk Zhaozhou Congshen (778-897). "Kâshyapa transmitted to Ânanda" is a reference to the tradition that Mahâkâshyapa transmitted the dharma he had received from the Buddha to his disciple Ânanda. "You don't get even the skin": Literally, "you feel for but don't touch even the skin" (a sense Dôgen will play on below). The Chinese expression, "to feel (or grope) without touching," has the idiomatic sense "can't understand," or, as we might say, "doesn't get it."

9. "They do not escape the observances of skin, flesh, bones, and marrow that change the face": This rather obscure passage might be paraphrased somewhat as follows: although in one sense, at the moment of dharma transmission, Kâshyapa and Ânanda are identified ("hide their bodies" in each other), their individual awakening ("change of face") must still be expressed in the actual give and take of the transmission (exemplified by the "skin, flesh, bones, and marrow" of the Bodhidharma story).

10. "The four Dharmas": Dôgen seems here to be treating Bodhidharma's four followers as four versions of Bodhidharma.

11. After a reference to Zhaozhou Congshen and Muzhou Daozong (Chen Zunsu, 780-877), by Xuedou Zhongtou (980-1052).

12. "What one has already said": A tentative translation for an ambiguous clause. It can be interpreted to mean, "what the self has already said," or "[Zhaozhou] himself has already said," or perhaps "[the buddha dharma] itself has already said."

13. A saying by Xuefeng Yicun (822-908).

14. At issue here is the famous legend that, after Bodhidharma's death, the Chinese emissary Song Yun encountered an Indian monk in the Pamirs with one sandal. Subsequent investigation of Bodhidharma's grave revealed an empty tomb and one sandal. Mt. Xiong'er, the traditional location given for Bodhidharma's grave, is in Shanzhou (present-day Henan).