1. This passage, known as "Yueshan's not thinking" (Yakusan fu shiryô tei), appears in Yueshan's biography in the JDCDL (T.51.311c26ff), ZMTY (<cite fasc. 7>), WDHY (<cite ZZ.>), etc., as well as in Dôgen's SBGZ sanbyaku soku (DZZ.5,196,case 129). The passage is one of the prime sources for Dôgen's meditation teachings: it forms the core of his description of zazen in his (vulgate) Fukan zazen gi (DZZ.5.6), SBGZ zazen gi (1.224), and Bendô hô (DZZ.6.40), and is cited several times in the SBGZ and EHKR (fasc 5, DZZ.3.238, entry 373; fasc. 7 DZZ.4.104, entry 524).

The traditional Sôtô treatment of this passage as a kôan often takes it not as a set of questions and answers but as a series of declarative sentences, each expressing the mystery of zazen, a style of reading that is already suggested in the SBGZS (CKZS,4,67). Under this interpretation, the interchange of the protagonists can be read somewhat as follows: (1) Monk: "Thinking in fixed sitting is [only describable as] 'what' (somo)." (2) Yueshan: "[Such] thinking is not thinking." (3) Monk: "Not thinking is [is not merely not thinking but] 'how' (ikan) thinking." (4) Yueshan: "It is thinking of [the ultimate] 'negation' (hi)." (See, e.g., ZGDJT, s.v. "Yakusan fu shiryô tei".)

For an extended example of one modern Sôtô treatment of this passage (and Dôgen's comments on it), see Kishizawa Ian's commentary on the SBGZ zazen shin (SBGZ zenkô 11,34-102). BACK TO NOTES.

2. "How could [it] fail to penetrate beyond sitting 'fixedly' (gotsugotsuchi no kôjô nani ni yorite ka tsû sezaru)?": This sentence is subject to various interpretations, none perhaps entirely convincing. The subject here is unexpressed; given the context, this translation interprets it as the "thinking" of the previous sentence. On such a reading, then, Dôgen is asserting that thinking must operate both within and (in some sense) beyond zazen. Another reading (suggested, e.g., at Mizuno 1,227,n.11) has it that zazen must go beyond the state of sitting fixedly in zazen. Menzan (MG [CKZS.4,69]) interprets the sentence to mean that sitting fixedly in nonthinking itself goes beyond either thinking or not thinking. Nishiari (KT.2,523), on the other hand, reads kôjô here not as "beyond" sitting fixedly but as "in", or "in regard to" (ue), sitting fixedly; on this reading, Dôgen is asking how, in regard to zazen, one could fail to "penetrate" (i.e., understand) the thinking of "how do you think?" BACK TO NOTES.

3. The argument of this difficult passage might be interpreted something like the following. Although nonthinking is an enlightened activity, free from all obstructions to knowledge (as in the expression, "all eight sides are crystal clear" [hachimen reirô]), it is a distinct act of cognition, with its own agent (the "someone" present in all our cognitive states). Yet the activity of nonthinking in zazen is not merely a matter of cognitive states: it is the identification with the act of "sitting fixedly" itself. When one is thus fully identified with the act, it is beyond what can be thought of or measured, even through the notions of Buddhahood or awakening. BACK TO NOTES.

4. One way of paraphrasing this passage might be as follows. Zazen is the orthodox practice of Buddhism, yet at the same time it is not merely a utilitarian device for producing a perfected state of enlightenment (sabutsu) but the expression of a more fundamental perfection inherent in all things (gyôbutsu). When one understand it in this way, the practice of zazen itself becomes the actualization of ultimate truth (kôan genjô), and the practitioner, just as he or she is, becomes the embodiment of perfect enlightenment (shinbutsu). This higher understanding -- beyond the mundane categories (rarô) of cause and effect, universal and particular, and so on -- gives true zazen (zabutsu) its power to produce the experience of enlightenment (sabutsu) in the practitioner. In this experience, one recognizes that one's own zazen is nothing but the primordial activity of all things -- always present even before we recognize it, always perfected even in one's most benighted states, always functioning throughout the world around one. BACK TO NOTES.

5. While in one sense the admonition to "love the real dragon" can be read simply as the advice to see the true import of Nanyue's question, commentators since Kyôgô have tended to identify the "carved dragon" here with zazen and the "real dragon" with its fruit (see, e.g., SBGZCKZS 4.89). Nishiari suggests that the "carved dragon" may be taken as zazen of the body (mi no zazen), while the "real dragon" may be understood as zazen of the mind (shin no zazen). He goes on to associate the former with "what is near" and the latter with "what is far". (KT.2,538-539) BACK TO NOTES.

6. One way of paraphrasing what seems to be the point of this difficult passage is this: the effort to practice and achieve the goal of Buddhism "entangles" us in Buddhism; yet complete entanglement in Buddhism -- both in its discourse and its cultus -- is itself the goal of Buddhism; hence, the practice of "figuring" is completely "entangled" in the goal of "making a Buddha". Dôgen is clearly enjoying himself here with the multivalent notion of "entanglements": as the constricting language within which we ordinarily "figure", as the liberating language of the Zen kôan, and as the interdependence of the two in Zen study. BACK TO NOTES.

7. Huairang's metaphor of the cart and the ox here undoubtedly reflects a story in the Da zhuangyan lun jing, in which a bhiksuni, coming upon a brahmanical ascetic engaged in the pañca-tapas (gonetsu, "five fires": the yogic ordeal of sitting in the sun surrounded by four fires), criticizes him for broiling the wrong thing. When the ascetic asks in anger, "What should I broil?" the bhiksuni replies, "You should broil the mind of anger. It is like driving an oxcart: if the cart doesn't go, you should whip the ox, not the cart. The body is like the cart; the mind, like that ox." (T.4:266a) BACK TO NOTES.

8. References to various bovines appear frequently in Zen literature; we may take Dôgen's use of them here as an evocation of the rich spiritual resonance of his root text.

"The water buffalo" (suikogyu): Water buffalo often appear in Zen lore. Perhaps best known is from the saying of Nanquan Puyuan (748-835) when asked where he would be in a hundred years: "I'll be a water buffalo down the mountain." (JDCDL, T.51.259a; repeated by Guishan Lingyou [771-853] at T.51.265c.).

"The clay ox" (deigyu): Clay oxen were used in ancient China as ritual offerings at the beginning of the new year. Because they were whipped as part of an agricultural rite, the term can connote the deluded, discriminating mind. A particularly famous instance of the term occurs in the records of Dongshan Liangjie (807-869): Dongshan asked the master Tanzhou Longshan (d.u.) why he was living on Longshan; the master answered, "I saw two clay oxen fighting till they fell in the ocean, and since then there's been no report of them." (JDCDL, T.51:263a; see also DSL, T. 47:521a.)

"The iron bull" (tetsugyu): An allusion to a story about the legendary Emperor Yu, supposed founder of the Xia Dynasty circa 2000 B.C. Yu is famous for having saved his people from the devastation of a great flood. It is said that he made and worshipped a gigantic iron bull in order to help prevent the flooding of the Yellow River. From this bull derives the connotation of steadfast, immovable.

"Beat out the marrow" (tahei zui): A tentative translation. Dôgen is clearly playing with the colloquial verbal marker ta ("to beat"), but commentarial opinion on the interpretation of the predicate hei here is widely divided. The translation here follows perhaps the most common reading, that suggested by Menzan: to "ox-beat" till one's very bones and marrow gushs forth. Menzan (Shôbô genzô chûkai zensho 4:118) likes the primary sense "to scatter" for hei (Morohashi entry 38929) -- hence, his "to cause to gush forth"; Kishizawa (Shôbô genzô zenkô vol. 11, 328) prefers the sense "to put together" (Morohashi 746) -- hence, "the whole"; Kyôgô (Shôbô genzô chûkai zensho 4:118) reads "to make use of" (Morohashi 12236); hence, "to beat with the marrow". BACK TO NOTES.

9. The argument here would seem to be that (a) seated meditation is (the act of) a seated buddha, not merely human sitting; (b) yet, once we recognize why this is so, we recognize that (greater) self -- or inherent buddhahood -- that is present even in our human sitting; (c) in the light of this recognition, the distinction between our sitting and the buddha's meditation, or between ignorance and enlightenment, is no longer ultimate. BACK TO NOTES.

10. "Buddhas of previous 'discrimination'" (isô funbetsu naru butsubutsu): The translation here loses something of Dôgen's play on Hongzhi's line, "It is ever without discriminatory thought" (sô mu funbetsu shi shi). He appears to be reading the line as something like, "thought never discriminating", against which he balances his own "buddhas already discriminating". While the term funbetsu ("discrimination") typically carries a negative connotation, as in Hongzhi's line, Dôgen seems here to be using it in reference to the buddha's power to discern things as they really are. On this reading, the passage as a whole might be taken to mean something like the following. The "subtle knowing" of the buddhas clearly discriminates all phenomena (the "mountains and rivers"). We should not think that this (higher) "discriminatory thinking" is something for which we must wait; it is "already realized" in each mind's inherent power of discrimination ("the buddhas of previous discrimination"). Zhengjue's "ever without [discriminatory thought]" here refers to this inherent power, which is "realized" even in ordinary perception. The spiritual practice of one who understands this is free to travel Dongshan's "way of the birds". BACK TO NOTES.