According to its colophon, this fascicle of the Shôbôgenzô was composed in 1243, at Kippôji, the monastery in Echizen (present Fukui) where Dôgen resided following his departure from the capital area in the summer of the same year.

The text represents a commentary on a conversation between Shenshan Sengmi and his dharma brother Dongshan Liangjie (807-869), famed founder of Dôgen's Caodong (Sôtô) lineage. The title derives from Dongshan's remark in the conversation that "there's someone inside who's talking of the mind and talking of the nature."

In the Chinese Chan literature (and perhaps even in Dongshan's remark), to talk of the mind and the nature was sometimes seen as a waste of time. There was a story, for example, of the Second Ancestor, Huike, who always talked of the mind and the nature but did not understand them. There was the opinion of the famous Song-dynasty figure Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163), who warned his followers against talking of the mind and talking of the nature.

In an earlier text, the Mountains and Waters Sutra, Dôgen seems to agree with this view; but here he takes the opposite position, arguing forcefully that talking of the mind and the nature are the very essence of the Zen tradition, what he calls "the essential functions of the Seven Buddhas and the ancestral masters." Talking of the nature, he says, is the nature "talking," the Buddha nature expressing itself in the world; and it is participation in this activity that constitutes the teaching, practice, and awakening of the way of the buddha.

From this position, Dôgen criticizes those who think that one must give up talking of the mind and the nature in order to attain the way. In particular, he singles out Dahui as someone who does not understand the mind and the nature, someone who has not "tasted the tea and rice of the buddhas and ancestors."

This attack on the Linji master Dahui, as well as a passing jibe at Linji himself, together with the fulsome praise of the Caodong founder, Dongshan, as "the most honored among the ancestors," have led some scholars to see this fascicle as in part an argument for the superiority of Dôgen's Sôtô tradition.

The following translation is based on the text appearing in Kawamura Kôdô, ed., Dôgen zenji zenshû, vol. 1, pp. 449-456, with slight changes in section formatting. It has appeared elsewhere (in a less fully annotated form) in Dharma Eye, number 16. Other translations of this fascicle can be found in Nishiyama and Stevens, Shôbôgenzô, vol. 2 (1977); Yokoi, The Shobo-genzo (1986); and Nishijima and Cross, Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, vol. 3 (1997).