T2003 Zen Texts – BDK America

11. The Meaning of “This Mind Is the Buddha”

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

point out directly that all persons are in their entireties the Buddha. You fail to recognize this now but grasp onto the ordinary and the sagely, racing after the external and in turn being deluded as to your own mind. Therefore, I say to you: this mind is the Buddha. To generate a single moment of ratiocination is to fall into a di›erent realm. Since beginningless time, [this truth] has been no di›erent from how it is today; there is no other Dharma. Therefore this is called the attainment of [the stages of] equivalent and correct enlightenment.

[The questioner] said: What do you mean when you say "is [identical to]"?

The master said: What meaning are you looking for? If there is the slightest bit of meaning, this is to be di›erent from the mind. [The questioner] said: You just said "Since beginningless time [this truth] has been no di›erent from how it is today. " What did

you mean?

The master said: It is only because of your seeking that you di›er from it. If you don't seek for it, then how could you be di›erent?

[The questioner] said: Then if it [means] "not di›erent, " why

do you say "is"?

The master said: If you do not believe in the ordinary and the sagely, who will say "is" to you? If "is" is not "is, " then the mind

is also not the mind. If the mind and "is" are both forgotten, where will you try to look for them?

12. Transmission of the Mind

with the Mind

Question:If the false is able to obstruct one's mind, I wonder how one is then able to expel the false?

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The master said: To activate the false in order to expel the false is to create the false. The false is fundamentally without basis, and it only exists because of discrimination. If you simply eliminate your ratiocination regarding ordinary and sagely you will naturally be without the false. Then how could you try to expel it? To be entirely without even the slightest bit of dependency is called "I have cast o› both arms and will certainly attain Buddhahood. "

[The questioner] said: If one is without dependency, how can [the mind of the patriarchs] be transmitted? The master said: The mind is transmitted with the mind. [The questioner] said: If the mind is transmitted, how can you say that the mind is also nonexistent?

The master said: To not attain a single dharmais called the transmission of the mind. If you comprehend this mind, then there is no mind and no dharma.

[The questioner] said: If there is no mind and no dharma,why do you call it a transmission?

The master said: You have heard me say "transmission of the mind" and have taken it that there is something that can be attained. It is for this reason that the patriarch said, "When one

recognizes the mind-nature, it should be called inconceivable. Clearly and distinctly without anything that is attained, when one attains it one does not speak of it as understanding. " If I taught

this to you how would you be able to understand it? 13. Mind and Realms, Face and Mirror

Question:But can space, which is right here, be anything but a realm [of the mind]? How could you see the mind without pointing at its realms?

The master said: What mind is it that is causing you to look at 36

13. Mind and Realms, Face and Mirror

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

the realms? If you are able to see [something], this is only the mind that reflects the realms. If you use a mirror to reflect your face, even if you are able to see your features clearly this is fundamentally only an image. How can it have anything to do with you? [The questioner] said: If one does not depend on [the process of] reflection, when will one be able to see [one's face]? The master said: If you are going to depend on causes then you will always be dependent on things, and when will you ever comprehend? Haven't you had anyone say to you, "If I open my

hand to show it to you, there is nothing there"? It would be a useless waste of e›ort to explain it to you several thousand times. [The questioner] said: If someone recognizes it completely, wouldn't there be no things to reflect?

The master said: If there were no things, then what use would reflection be? Don't talk in your sleep with your eyes open! 14. Not Seeking Anything

[The master] entered the hall and said: Rather than the hundred varieties of erudition, to be without seeking is primary. A religious person is someone who does nothing and is truly without the numerous types of mind. There is also no meaning that can be preached. There's nothing else, so you may go.

15. Worthy of Respect Is the

Truth of the Mind

Question: What is the conventional truth?

The master said: Why should I explain the tangled [predicament of this world]? Given fundamental purity, why bother with explanations and dialogues? Just be without all the [states of] 37

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

383c

mind, and this is called untainted wisdom. In all of your daily actions (lit.,

"walking, standing, sitting, and lying down") every day and in everything you say, simply do not be attached to conditioned dharmas. Every utterance and blink of the eye is identical to the untainted [wisdom].

But now, when everyone is tending toward the final period of the Dharma, all those who study the enlightenment of Chan are attached to every sound and form. Why do they pay no attention to their own minds?

When the mind is identical to space, when it is like a dead tree or a piece of rock, when it is like cold ashes or an extinguished fire—only then will one have the least bit of correspondence [with enlightenment]. If you don't, then someday Old Man Yama (the king of hell) will beat [a confession out of] you! If you simply transcend the various dharmas of being and nonbeing, so that your minds are like the orb of the sun—always in the sky, its brilliance shining naturally, illuminating without [intending to] illuminate—isn't this a matter that requires no e›ort? When you attain this, there is no place to rest. This is to practice the practice of the Buddhas, and it is to "be without abiding and yet to generate the mind.

" This is your pure Dharma body,

which is called the insurpassable bodhi.

If you do not understand this idea, then even if you study to the point of erudition, cultivating with diligent asceticism, robing yourself with grasses and eating trees, [yet] without recognizing your own mind: this is all false practice, and you will definitely become an attendant of Måra.

If you practice like this, what benefit could there be? Baozhi has said,

"The Buddha is fundamentally created by one's own mind, so how can he be sought within written words?" Even if you attain the three [stages of] sagehood and the four fruits [of the Hinayana] and complete the ten stages [of the bodhisattva], you will still remain within [the domain of] ordinary and sagely. Haven't you heard it said,

"The myriad processes are impermanent, these being the dharmas of generation and extinction"? 38

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

Its energy exhausted, the arrow falls to earth. You bring an untoward future birth [upon yourself]—how could this compare to the teaching of the unconditioned true characteristic, in which with a single leap one enters directly into the stage of the Tathågata? Because you are not the right kind of person, you must extensively study conceptual interpretations based on the teachings of the ancients. Baozhi has said,

"If you do not encounter a teacher of

wisdom who is beyond this world, you will uselessly partake of the Dharma medicine of the Mahayana.

"

Now, at all times and during all your activities you should simply study no-mind, and eventually [your e›orts] will bear fruit. It is because your abilities are slight that you are unable to make the sudden leap. If you can just get three years, five years, or ten years, then you will definitely be able to get a foothold (lit., a "place to insert the head") and you will understand naturally. It is because you are unable to do so that you must use the mind to study Chan and study enlightenment, but what connection does this have with the Buddha-Dharma? Therefore it is said,

"All that the Tathågata

has preached was [stated] in order to teach people. " For example,

to say that a yellow leaf was gold stopped the crying of a little child, but it was certainly not true.

If [you think] there is something actually to be attained, then you are not a member of my school. And what relationship will you ever have with the fundamental essence? Therefore, the sutra says, "For there to be truly not the slightest dharmathat can be attained is called the insurpassable bodhi.

" If you are able to understand

the meaning of this, then for the first time you will understand that the way of the Buddha and the way of Måra are both wrong. Fundamentally it is pure and bright, without square and round, without large and small, and without long and short and other characteristics. It is untainted and inactive, without delusion and without enlightenment. See it clearly and distinctly, without there being a single thing, as well as without people and without Buddhas. The world-systems [as numerous as the] sands [of the Ganges River] are but as foam in the ocean, and all the sages are 39

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

as [evanescent as] lightning. These are all unequal to the truth of the mind. Your Dharma bodies have been since ancient times until now the same as [those of] the Buddhas and patriarchs; where could they have even the slightest flaw?

If you understand what I mean, then you must make great e›ort for the rest of this lifetime. Breathing out doesn't mean you'll necessarily breathe back in again.

16. Why Huineng Was Able to

Become the Sixth Patriarch

Question:The Sixth Patriarch did not understand written scriptures, so why did he receive the transmission of the [Fifth Patriarch's] robe to become a patriarch? The elder [Shen]xiu was the chief monk among the five hundred [disciples]. He [served as] instructor for them, lecturing on thirty-two sutras and treatises. Why did he not [receive the] transmission of the robe? The master said: Because he (i.e., Shenxiu) took the mind as extant and considered that there were conditioned dharmas to be cultivated and realized. For this reason the Fifth Patriarch transmitted [the Dharma] to the Sixth Patriarch. At the time the Sixth Patriarch simply conformed in silence and received the intimate conferral of the profound meaning of the Tathågatas. Therefore the Dharma was conferred on him. Haven't you heard it said that The Dharma is fundamentally the Dharma as non-Dharma; the non-Dharma is the Dharma and still the Dharma. In the present conferral of the non-Dharma, how can the Dharma ever have been the Dharma?

Only if you understand this idea can you be said to have "left home,

" and only then is it well that you undertake spiritual training.

If you do not believe me, then why did head monk [Hui]ming 40

16. Why Huineng Was Able to Become the Sixth Patriarch

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind chase after the Sixth Patriarch [all the way] to Mount Dayu? The Sixth Patriarch asked him,

"What did you come for? Do you seek the robe or the Dharma?" Head monk [Hui]ming said, "I have not

come for the robe but only for the Dharma. " The Sixth Patriarch

said,

"You should concentrate your thoughts for just a short while, without thinking of good and evil. " [Hui]ming did as he was told. The Sixth Patriarch said,

"Do not think of good and do not think of evil. When you've got it just right, show me the face you had before your parents were born. " At these words, [Hui]ming suddenly [experienced a] silent conformance [with the Dharma]. He then paid obeisance [to the Sixth Patriarch] and said, "When a

person drinks he automatically knows [whether the water is] hot or cold. When I was in the assembly of the Fifth Patriarch, I labored pointlessly for thirty years, and only today have I been able to eliminate my previous errors. "

The Sixth Patriarch said,

"So it is. Only after coming here have you understood the ine›ability of [the saying] 'the patriarch [Bodhi dharma's] coming from the west, directly pointing at people's minds, and seeing [Buddha]-nature and achieving Buddhahood. '

Haven't you heard of Ånanda asking KåΩyapa, 'In addition to the

golden-threaded [robe], what Dharma did the World-honored One transmit to you?' KåΩyapa called to Ånanda and Ånanda responded ['Yes?']. KåΩyapa [then] said, 'Knock over the standard-pole in front of the gate!'"

[Gloss:] (This was the patriarch's [symbolic] standard.) [Question:] How could Ånanda have served [the Buddha] for thirty years and been scolded by the Buddha for being only erudite in wisdom?

[The master] said: For you to study wisdom for a thousand days is not equal to studying enlightenment for a single day. If you do not study enlightenment, how will you be able to use [even] a single drop of water (i.e., of what is naturally provided for you)? 41

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Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

17. Autonomy

Question:How can one avoid falling into the stages? The master said: Always eating your meals without ever chewing a single grain of rice, always walking without ever stepping on a single bit of earth—when you [function] like this then there are no characteristics of self. You are never separate from all the a›airs [of life], and yet you are not deluded by the various realms. Only then may you be called an autonomous person. Furthermore, at all times and in every moment of thought don't perceive all the characteristics and don't recognize past, [present,] and future, the three periods of time. The past does not go, the present does not abide, and the future does not come. Sitting peacefully upright, letting things happen as they will—only then may you be called liberated.

Make e›ort! Make e›ort! Of the thousand or ten thousand people in this school, only three or five [have really understood Buddhism]. If you do not take this seriously then you will su›er for it eventually (lit.,

"there will be a day when you experience a

calamity"). Therefore it is said,

"Be diligent in taking care of this

life, and how could you su›er misfortune in eons to come?" End of Chan Master Duanji of Mount Huangbo's

Essentials of the Transmission of Mind

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17. Autonomy

A TREATISE ON LETTING ZEN FLOURISH TO PROTECT THE STATE

Contents

Translator's Introduction 47 A Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State Foreword 61 Note on the Foreword Køhø Tøshun 69 Preface Eisai 71 Fascicle One Gate I 75 Gate II 79 Gate III 82 Fascicle Two Gate III (continued) 115 Gate IV 127 Gate V 129 Gate VI 137 Gate VII 143 Fascicle Three Gate VII (continued) 153 Gate VIII 168 Gate IX 176 Gate X 185 A Note on the Future Eisai 189 Postscript Køhø Tøshun 191 Appendix: List of Works Cited 193 Notes 211 45

Translator’s Introduction

Translator's Introduction

Myøan Eisai (1141-1215) was a Buddhist monk of the Tendai school. He is also known as Yøsai, and it is not clear which reading of his name he himself used. It is said that he had people chant "Eisai Yøsai" loudly as they attempted to raise a heavy temple bell, long sunk in the Kamo River in Kyoto, which was to be installed in Kenninji, the temple newly built for him along the river. In this translation I follow the more common reading of Eisai.

When young, Eisai studied and practiced the esoteric teaching transmitted in the Tendai school and became a ritual leader, an ajari (åcårya). Later, through two visits to Song China (in 1168 and 1187-91) he became an eager advocate of Zen, declaring himself to be an inheritor of the Huanglong (Øryø) branch of the Linji (Rinzai) sect of the Chan (Zen) school. In this treatise he furnishes proof of this Chan inheritance.

In 1194, three years after his return to Japan, Emperor Gotoba (r. 1183-97) issued a ban on the propagation of the Zen school by Eisai and others in the country. The next year court o‡cials summoned Eisai to give him a chance to defend himself. On that occasion Eisai almost succeeded in gaining their ear by arguing that Zen was one of the teachings introduced from China by Saichø (765-822), founder of the Tendai school, and thus that rejecting Zen inevitably would mean rejecting Saichø. In 1198 he wrote the present work, Køzengokokuron,or A Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State, which he is supposed to have presented to then-emperor Tsuchimikado (r. 1198-1209). Through this work, Eisai received imperial sanction to propagate Zen.

In 1203 the imperial government, by o‡cial document, announced to Eisai that the three schools—Tendai, Shingon, and Zen—were to 47

be represented with respective installations in his temple. Eisai immediately had two temples, one Shingon and one Tendai, built in the compound of the Kenninji in Kyoto, the Zen temple that had been built for him the previous year by the second shogun of Kamakura, Minamoto Yorii ye. Beginning around that time, warriors of the Kamakura shogunate tended to become financial supporters of the Zen school.

In 1211 Eisai wrote an article on tea, Kissayøjøki("Notes on Taking Tea for Nourishing Life"), and presented it to the third shogun, Minamoto Sanetomo. Prior to this, in 1185, two years before Eisai left for his second visit to China, the Taira (or Heike) warrior clan was decisively defeated by the Genji (or Minamoto) clan in a battle famous in Japanese history. The Taira afterward disappeared from the world of politics but they are said to have continued to financially support Eisai's activities in Kyushu. The warrior clans possibly saw in Eisai a truly reliable spiritual guide who could see beyond the contemporary political situation of Japan. The imperial mandate issued in 1194 to ban the propagation of Zen reads as follows:

[Emperor] Gotoba, fifth year of Kenky¥ (1194), July 5, kinoe-ne: Buddhist monks of the Tendai school reported to the Throne that they had heard that elder monks like Eisai, who had been to China, and Nønin, who abided in the capital, had established the Daruma school, and that they should be made to stop its propagation. The Emperor proclaimed that thereafter they should stop their activities.

This is found in fascicle ten of the Hyakurenshø(Finest Style Excerpts,seventeen fascicles, Kokushi taikei new ed., vol. XI, 1929). This record, made up of reliable annual records dating from the reign of Emperor Reizei, which began in 967, through that of Emperor Gofukakusa, which ended in 1257, gives the reason for the ban as nothing other than the introduction of a new school. For most Tendai priests, as well as priests of other traditional schools, the existence of any new school was perceived as a threat and could not be permitted. 48

Translator's Introduction

In the continuation of Gate III in Fascicle Two of the Treatise(p. 118), Eisai himself refers to those who called themselves the Daruma school and criticizes this naming of the Zen school. He introduces the view of this school, refers to its followers as "those who have no wrongs that they would never commit,

" and mentions "this kind of person,

"

who is a "holder of a fixed view on emptiness" that "no one can sit and talk with.

" Eisai goes no further and does not mention the name of "this . . . person.

" However, Kokan Shiren (1278-1346), a Rinzai Zen monk and author of the Genkøshakusho(A Book on Buddhists Compiled in the Genkø Era,1322), identifies the person alluded to by Eisai as Nønin, cited above in the Hyakurenshø.

According to Shiren, in the year of tsuchinoto-tori(1189) a person named Dainichibø Nønin heard that in the land of Song the Zen school was flourishing, and sent his disciples by sea to ask Chan Master Fozhao Deguang (Busshø Tokukø, 1121-1203), who lived on Mount Yuwang (Ikuø), his view on ultimate reality. Master Fozhao pitied the foreign monks, with their burgeoning seeds of confidence in the true self, and comforted and encouraged them heartily. He entrusted them with a Dharma robe and a painting of Bodhidharma with words of praise written above it. Emboldened by Fozhao's entrustment, Nønin then disrespectully began advocating the Zen school in Japan. Since he lacked a proper teacher inheritance and certificate (inka), people in the capital despised him. Until the time when Eisai began propagating the school of the Buddha's mind, the o‡cials, gentry, and common people tended to regard Nønin and Eisai as being of the same ilk and denounced them both. Aside from this, a Tendai monk named Ryøben of Hakozaki, Chikuzen Province, Kyushu, jealous of Eisai's Zen practice, persuaded the Tendai students in Mount Hiei to bring suit to the throne to exile the two.

As previously mentioned, it was due to Eisai's e›orts that propagation of the Zen school was eventually o‡cially sanctioned. According to the Japanese Buddhist historian Shiren, Eisai blamed Nønin for his neglect of morality and practice. However, Nønin is said to have had printed a Chan text on morality for students, which his disciples had brought along with other gifts from Fozhao. This was the 49

Wei shan Jingce (Isan Keisaiku; Weishan's Staff of Vigilance). According to Professor Seizan Yanagida and Tsuji Zennosuke (Nihonbukkyøshi [History of Japanese Buddhism], Vol. III, Ch¥seihenno. 2, Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten, 1957), this was the first Zen text to be printed in Japan. Both Shiren and Eisai failed to appreciate the significant role that Nønin might have played, as a man of Zen among the common people, in the history of Japanese Zen. It is said that Nønin was accidentally killed by his nephew Taira Kagekiyo. In 1198, the year Eisai wrote this Treatise, the Pure Land Buddhist teacher Hønenbø Genk¥ (1133-1212) also wrote his main work, Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu Sh¥(A Collection of Passages on the Nembutsu Chosen in the Original Vow,English translation by Morris J. Augustine and Tesshø Kondø, Numata Center, 1997). In 1207 Hønen was exiled to a remote region far from Kyoto, the capital at the time. The reason given for his exile was that the Pure Land teaching had caused serious moral problems in society. In both instances of new schools being advocated, in this case Zen and Pure Land, repression came from the traditional schools of Buddhism, in the form of imperial sanctions. The old forces regarded themselves as guardians of the state and wielded great influence on the nobles represented by the emperor. For priests of the traditional schools, the safety of the nobles meant the safety and security of their respective schools; anyone who might threaten their respective order was an enemy. Advocates of Zen and Pure Land practices, who were regarded as being concerned with their own religious life instead of contributing to the stability of the society, and thus outside the influence of the nobles and priests, were seen as such enemies. Eisai was a Tendai priest of the highest rank (daihosshi). On returning from his second trip to China, in 1191, he began advocating that Zen should exist as an independent school, rather than merely remaining one among other traditional Tendai teachings, but soon met with an imperial ban on his activities. Hønen had also been a Tendai priest, who practiced the nembutsu.When he began advocating Pure Land practice among those outside the Tendai school he met with grave punishment. Zen and Pure Land teachings, however, had already 50

Translator's Introduction

begun attracting popular attention. Political repression made the Pure Land teaching first advocated by Hønen decisively influential among the common people. Although the definitive establishment of an independent Zen school in Japan had to wait for some time, the significance of this event was publicly acknowledged through Eisai's e›orts, and he was later considered the founder of Japanese Zen. In 1217, two years after Eisai's death, a young way-seeker then eighteen years old, Eihei Døgen (1200-53), who later founded the Søtø branch of the Zen school, came to Kenninji to practice Rinzai Zen under the guidance of Myøzen, one of Eisai's disciples. In 1223 Myøzen and Døgen went to Song China to practice with Chan practitioners there. Myøzen died of disease in 1225 in China. The same year, Døgen finished his Caodong (Søtø) Chan practice under Tiantong Rujing (Tendø Nyojø, 1163-1228). In 1227 Døgen returned to Japan with Myøzen's relics. He entered Kenninji in 1228 but left in 1230. The next year, at Fukakusa in Kyoto, he wrote the Bendøwa (Lecture on the Wholehearted Practice of the Way,1231); he was already beginning his Søtø Zen activities. Both Myøzen and Døgen wanted Zen practice to be independent of Tendai and Shingon practices. This was the same direction Eisai had discerned that Zen practitioners in Japan should go as well. What Eisai insists on in his Treatiseis nothing less than the independence of Zen as its own school, instead of existing only as parallel practices of the other schools, though he remained a lifelong Tendai mantra practitioner as well. Eisai believed that knowledge of emptiness (prajñå; hannyaor e) which has become one with the practice of morality (Ω∆la; kai) and self-concentration (samådhi; sanmaior jø)— not prayers attended by goma(homa) ceremonies (i.e., burnt o›erings) or anything else—would protect the land and people under the emperor's rule. Knowledge of emptiness, together with the practice of morality and self-concentration, would ultimately open oneself to the truth of reality, and this opening was the way of bodhisattvas, who worked out of compassion for other beings.

As a Buddhist monk who practiced self-restraint and who knew the degenerate condition of the contemporary Buddhist schools in 51

Japan, Eisai insisted on the necessity among Buddhist priests of keeping both individual and social morality (Ω∆laand vinaya,or ritsu). For Eisai, the prevailing view in Japan of the history of the degeneration of the Buddha's teachings in the latter-day world (mappø) worked in the opposite direction. The awakened nature of all humans was already there before this world came into being, and will never decay when this world su›ers destruction. The Mahåparinirvå√a Sutradescribes this awakened nature as nirvana that is the eternal bliss of the formless self, free of all defilement. Eisai follows the view of Chinese Tiantai scholars after Zhiyi, in their interpretation of the above scripture, that nirvana, the cessation of su›ering, o›ers the true ground for morality. (According to Zhiyi's Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, Fasc. 4, Vol. 2, T. 33: 726b, nirvana stands as a support not only for Ω∆la,or keeping precepts, but also for samådhiand prajñå.) It seems to have been Eisai's belief that monks and nuns in the latter-day world are urged by ultimate reality to open themselves to ultimate reality itself, and that is why they should uphold both Ω∆la and vinaya. What urges one to maintain morality is, ultimately, not any external authority but one's own awakened nature, nirvana. Following Zhanran's phrase, "the teaching on the permanence that supports vinaya" (see the passage from his Elucidatory Commentson Zhiyi's Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra,quoted in Gate III, pp. 84-5), Eisai calls nirvana the "Zen truth that supports morality. "

Because of this nirvana-support, Eisai believed, one could and should do one's best at once to keep precepts and to be in composure. From Eisai's viewpoint, making little of precepts while emphasizing the importance of attaining awakening constituted a serious o›ense against Buddhist practices.

It was on the basis of this understanding that Eisai advocated Zen practice in Japan. With this understanding, Eisai rejected Nønin's popular Daruma Zen practice as evil. The Zen practice Eisai observed and experienced in Song China was that of the Chan school as a statesupported and state-supporting religion. He could never have dreamed of a time when Chan would have nothing to do with any sovereign 52

Translator's Introduction

support. Eisai felt it inevitable to remain a reliable Tendai priest, strange as it sounds, in order to obtain imperial support for his advocacy of an independent Zen school in Japan. He believed he had to wait for proper Zen practitioners to appear for such support to be granted. For Eisai, Tendai and Zen should be no di›erent in being religious schools that both protect the state and are protected by the state. He believed that a person in whom the three basic Buddhist practices of morality (Ω∆la), meditation (samådhi), and wisdom (prajñå) were one could be a protector of the state and thus enjoy state support. From Eisai's viewpoint, Nønin was far from the type of Zen practitioner he looked for. About twenty years after Eisai's death, Døgen, in his vigorous activities leading followers of the Søtø Zen school, emphasized the importance of keeping the precepts (Ω∆la) and practicing meditation (dhyåna). Through his remarks, recorded by his faithful disciple and successor Koun Ejø, we know that Døgen deeply respected Eisai for his religious and moral personality. Furthermore, according to Tsuji Zennosuke in the Nihonbukkyøshi,Døgen read a work by Ejø's former master Kakuan, one of Nønin's disciples, which Ejø had brought to him together with a gift from Nønin to Kakuan. On his deathbed, Kakuan had recommended Ejø to go to Døgen for guidance. Døgen knew Kakuan was a person of discernment, and at the same time admired Nønin, calling the latter Oshø (heshang,

"respected master").

In his brief Note on the Future (Miraiki,1197), Eisai predicted that half a century after his death the Zen school would greatly flourish in Japan. Kokan Shiren, the Buddhist historian, took up Eisai in his Genkøshakusho,Vol. 2, with choice quotations from the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State.Toward the end of his introduction, Shiren refers to the prediction of the Zen school's future efflorescence by Eisai and states that it came to be realized in the following manner. First, Enni Bennen (1202-80) of the Tøfukuji in Kyoto, and then Lanxi Daolong (Rankei Døry¥, 1213-78, from China) of the Kenchøji in Kamakura, presided over Kenninji, in 1258 and 1259 respectively. Shiren writes that this successive appointment by 53

the court, though brief in time and formal in nature, of these two Rinzai Zen priests as presiding priests of the temple dedicated to Eisai, revealed his contemporaries' high estimation of him. The present text by Eisai has not attracted much attention, written as it was for the special purpose of defending the standpoint of Zen against groundless rebuke. Composed in Chinese, full of passages quoted often and repeatedly from one hundred Buddhist sources (mostly Indian and Chinese), it is not easy to read. Nevertheless, we have in the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the Statea very passionate and sincere exposition of the Zen truth, based on the author's own deep experience. In this work we meet a very competent, committed person who devoted himself to exhorting people of the early Kamakura era to practice Zen, and to pray for the nation's protection from decadence both internal and external, for this was precisely what he meant by "protecting the state. "

On reading this treatise, the first question one has to ask is why a daihosshi,the highest rank of priest in the Japanese Tendai school, would come to be in the position of defending the propagation of the Zen school against imperial prohibition and predicting its future in Japan. This question naturally finds its answer as one reads the work. The Zen school predicted by Eisai to flourish half a century after his lifetime was a form that Eisai believed his contemporary Tendai school would have to accept. That was the form the Tendai school had to develop from within itself, which in his time it had not yet done, as he mentions in this Treatise.It seems that he considered himself one of those few Tendai priests who could understand the close relationship between Tendai and Zen. Eisai observed in China that Tiantai had already been replaced by Chan as a state-supported religion. He quite possibly returned home with the firm belief that this ought to be the direction of Japanese Buddhism as well. Eisai was one of those rare Japanese priests who seriously considered the future of their contemporary religion.

The Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the Stateis an excellent introduction to Zen principles and the Chan/Zen school, made for the first time in the history of Japanese religious thought. 54

Translator's Introduction

Eisai introduced Zen to the people of Japan as a religion that would protect the state and which therefore was worthy of being protected by the state. Eisai believed that the Zen school, among the four forms of transmission inherited by the Tendai school, could realize this ideal in the near future. Indeed, Eisai's notion of the ideal form of religion— at once state-supporting and state-supported—had always been held by all the eight Buddhist schools (Hossø, Jøjitsu, Kegon, Kusha, Ritsu, Sanron, Shingon, and Tendai). But it does not seem that any of the leaders of these Buddhist schools, or Eisai himself, ever concerned themselves with how a political system in which the state protected particular religions had contributed to the degeneration of the nation's religious institutions. No doubt, however, Eisai considered Buddhism in Japan to have long since been nearly dead; the Buddhist religion had to be revived by taking the form of Zen in which the Tathågata's dhyåna(chan; zen;meditation), a leading term from the Laçkåvatåras¥tra, contained the entire three teachings of Buddhism—Ω∆la, samådhi,and prajñå—as the proper activities of bodhisattvas for benefiting other beings. This is why Eisai, while still a high-ranking Tendai priest, felt compelled to announce the future efflorescence of his ideal form of Buddhism in Japan with such passion. After reading the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State,few could deny that it is a superb extant record, composed in the Song-Kamakura periods by a Japanese Tendai priest, of the introduction of the Chinese Chan school as a model for the future Japanese Zen school, with the purpose of radically improving the religious situation of the country. The revised edition of the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the Statepublished by Køhø Tøshun (1714?-1779?) of the Ryøsokuin, Kenninji, Kyoto, in the seventh year of An'ei (1778) includes a Foreword by an anonymous writer, Tøshun's own Note on the Foreword, and his Postscript after the complete text of the Treatiseand Eisai's Note on the Future. The Foreword was apparently written by a presiding priest of the Kenninji some time after 1225, when the Notes on the Memorial Temple for Dharma Master Senkø from the Country of Japan(Ribenguo Qianguang fashi Citangji, referenced in Eisai's Foreword, p. 64) was written, and before the last 55

year of Høtoku (1451) in the Muromachi period, when Nansø Ryøsaku, the seventh-generation presiding priest after Eisai of the Kenninji, went to Ming China. The unattributed Foreword was discovered in Nansø Ryøsaku's notebook, and he is presumed to be its author. The Foreword gives brief sketches of Eisai's activities in Japan and China and also mentions that after Eisai presented the Treatiseto the court, and through it succeeded in gaining imperial sanction for propagating Zen, the text did not circulate outside the Zen school. A century after Eisai passed away, Kokan Shiren quoted many important passages from the Treatisein his Genkø shaku sho,published in 1322. This seems to be the earliest extant record referring to Eisai's Treatise. Tøshun's Note on the Foreword and Postscript help us to understand how the present text has been handed down to us.

A Note on the Translation

The text of the Treatisein the Taishø Tripi†aka, vol. 80, no. 2543, pp. 2-17, contains some wrong characters—at thirty-three places in the text itself, and one in the Note on the Future—which seem to be scribal or typographical errors. In addition, one word is marked as missing in the Note on the Future. The original Taishø Tripi†aka text was the 1778 revised edition by Køhø Tøshun. Eisai's text was first printed in 1666, in the sixth year of Kanmon, by Yatsuo Rokubei in Kyoto. All the wrong characters referred to above, except two in the Taishø Tripi†aka text (T. 80: 4a24, note 59; 14a4, note 162), were corrected in a text using the Japanese reading (kundoku) by Professor Seizan Yanagida, published in a coauthored work entitled Ch¥seizenke-no-shisø (Thoughts Expressed by Men of Zen in Medieval Japan), Nihon-shisø-taikeiNo. 16, Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten, 1972. This volume includes Myøan Yøsai's Køzengokokuron(kundokutext with headnotes), pp. 8-97, the Kanmon version in Chinese characters, pp. 99-122, supplementary notes, pp. 389-401, and an article entitled "Yøsai and his problems developed in the Køzengokoku-ron, "pp. 439-86. I have relied on this work by Professor Yanagida (who prefers 56

Translator's Introduction

"Yøsai" rather than the more common "Eisai" for rendering the author's name) in tracing the sources of the passages quoted in the present text. Eisai quotes from one hundred parts of scriptures, and some passages include quotations from other texts. For these text citations, the English title is used and the source and page reference is given. The Appendix gives a complete list of all texts cited or mentioned in the Treatise,listed in order of their appearance, numbering 1-101, with the English title used in this translation, as well as providing more complete English titles and Sanskrit, romanized Chinese, and romanized Japanese titles, where applicable. Sources for the texts are also given.

In this translation, where terms have Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese equivalents, their romanization appears in that order. Most certainly the dates Eisai gives in the text are those of the lunar calendar. Dates and original terms appear in parentheses. Interpolatory words or phrases supplied by the translator appear in square brackets. The endnotes provide explanatory remarks and indicate the places where corrected words and phrases adopted from Professor Yanagida's work for the scribal errors mentioned previously have been incorporated. An English translation of Eisai's Foreword and a brief introduction to his thought have been published in Chapter XII, "Zen Buddhism,

"

in Sources of Japanese Tradition,compiled by Ry¥saku Tsunoda, William Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958). In the same volume see also "Zen Pio neers in Japan,

" pp. 235-6; "Eisai: Preface to Køzen gokoku ron (Prop agation of Zen for the Protection of the Country), " pp. 241-3; and the

material on Eisai's "Kissayøjøki"("Drink Tea and Prolong Life"), pp. 243-6.

The present translation represents an extensive revision of a previous English translation completed in November 1985, on which I received help from Mr. Je›rey Shore, MA, University of Hawaii. At the time of preparing this revised translation, more than seventeen years later, I had completed a study of the four-fascicle Chinese version by Gu√abhadra of the Laçkåvatåra-s¥tra,which was of benefit in 57

revising this translation of the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State.

For this translation I owe much to Professor Seizan Yanagida's Japanese reading of the Chinese text and his annotations, and also to the group readings of Tang and Song dynasty Chan texts, guided by the late Professor Yoshitaka Iriya, as well as Professor Yanagida, which continued for many years on the Hanazono University campus. These readings gave me much greater familiarity with Eisai's quotations from these sources. I am deeply grateful for the critical contributions to Chan textual research by these two notable scholars. 58

A TREATISE ON LETTING ZEN FLOURISH TO PROTECT THE STATE by

Myøan Eisai

Foreword

1a

After its completion this treatise has been circulating only in the gate of our Zen school. The master is the first patriarch in this country of the busshin-sh¥,the "school of the Buddha's mind. "1 Hence

the appellation,

"Founding Master" Senkø. His father, from the

Kaya clan of Bitch¥ Province,

2 was descended from Emperor Kørei.

3

His mother, from the Ta clan, prayed before an altar to the deity of music, the family's ancestral temple inside the Kibitsu Shrine, and, on dreaming of the morning star, felt herself pregnant. She gave birth to the master when the morning star appeared. At the age of eight the master took leave of his parents and went to learn the meaning of the Buddhist treatises, the Abhi dharmakoΩaand the [Mahå]vaibhå≈å-Ωåstra,in their Chinese versions, as transmitted in Mii Temple of the Tendai school. In the autumn of the third year of Ninhei, mizunoto-tori(1153), when he was thirteen years old, the master ascended Mount Hiei and was ordained a Tendai priest with the name Eisai. He learned the meaning of the "perfect principle" of Tendai, and his fame among those assembling for study already surpassed all others. However, on contemplating the world to be a floating illusion, his pessimism strengthened daily. When he was twenty-three years old, he descended from Mount Hiei and went to live on Mount Nichiø of Bizen Province.

4 He spent several years there, abstaining from [eating] grain while engaged in the esoteric practice of a rite called samaya("pledge"). He dedicated himself to keeping his body and mind free of defilement, and was versed especially in a particular observance called saµvara ("restraint").

The master had long intended to journey to Song China. However, for the past two hundred years in this country no Buddhist monks had visited China. When he happened to mention [his wish to go to China], he was ridiculed by others. Despite this, however, his determination never waivered. He said to himself: 61

1b

Careful reading of the holy teachings tells me that making sincere and concentrated prayers at places where former sages manifested miracles or where ancient Buddhas did their practices will leave no old desire unaccomplished. Thus, every time he visited a sacred area, the master prayed without fail for the realization of his wish, and he would receive a response from the deity. When he was twenty-seven years old, the master stayed in the mountains of Daisen, Høki Province, 5 to devote

himself to intensive zazen practice for a summer retreat. There he happened to have a copy of the Lotus Sutrathat had been brought from China; he regarded it as an auspicious omen of his crossing the sea. Thereupon, the master reported this to his parents, and went to Chiku Province.

6 He met an interpretor for the country of

Song, named Li Dezhao, at Hakata Harbor. Hearing from him how the Chan school was flourishing over there, the master admired it as a rarity.

When he was twenty-eight years old, in the third year of Nin'an, tsuchinoe-ne(1168), on the eighteenth [day] of the fourth month, the master boarded a trading ship and went to sea. On the twenty-fifth [day] he reached Mingzhou of Song, on the nineteeth [day] of the fifth month he went up Mount Tiantai, on the twentyfourth [day] he arrived at Wannian Temple, and on the twentyfifth [day] he made the o›ering of tea to the [five hundred] arhats7 [believed to have come from India to abide on the mountain]. In the bowl of tea o›ered to them, the master saw reflected the entire body of an arhat, and when he dared to walk across the [natural] stone bridge [that spanned a terrifying fall] he suddenly saw two blue dragons; thereupon, he came to feel something move him. He knew himself to have been an Indian monk in the former life who had come to abide on the mountain of Wannian.

On the twenty-seventh [day] the master returned to Mingzhou; on the tenth [day] of the sixth month of the year he reached Mount Yuwang, where he revered and bowed to the Buddha's relics, feeling himself penetrated by the glory that issued from them. In this 62

Foreword

way, during his pilgrimage for contemplation, there were more than a few occasions when the master experienced a spiritual response. In the ninth month of the year the master returned home, with the impression that his half-year stay in Song was far from su‡cient.

During the next eighteen years the master came to call himself the leader of the two allied gates of Buddhism, the mantra-esoteric and the exoteric. In the Tendai school, in which he had originally been ordained, the master wore the seal of the One Mind with contemplation of the threefold truth, and in the mantra part of the school he obtained the o‡cial confirmation of having entered the ma√∂ala seat and received consecration with water sprinkled upon the head. Because in this manner he had come to the root and depth of the school [in both gates], the emperor as well as the subjects regarded the master as their honored guide. His guidance accorded especially with Emperor Gotoba.

The master one day received an imperial order to o›er prayers for rain in a park named Shinsen-en [in Kyoto]. The ten fingers of his hands emitted great rays of light and illuminated all the grasses and trees there. A great amount of rain fell from the heavens. Each drop of water on the surface of leaves of the park's trees had the master's reflection in it. The emperor celebrated the occasion by giving him the special title Yøjø ("On the Leaves"). The master once more wanted to go abroad, this time to visit India and make a pilgrimage to the eight stupas that hold the relics of the Tathågata [¸åkyamuni]. In the third year of Bunji, hinotohitsu ji(1187) he entered the country of Song again. This was in the fourteenth year of Chunzi, under the reign of Emperor Xiaozong. In Song the master presented a memorial to the emperor in a petition for traveling to India. No permission was granted since the three routes from China to India, which ran through foreign lands, all belonged to the Mongols in those days and were not open [to travelers from China]. Thus he was obliged to stop at Wannian Temple on Mount Tiantai. During the five years of his stay in Song, the master read the Tripi†aka scriptures three times. 63

Further, the master dressed for burial the corpse of the Venerable [Tripi†aka Master] ¸r∆ Bhadra [from Nålandå, India], the first presiding priest of the Tiantai Wannian Temple, and repaired the surface of the pagoda which had been built in memory of the priest. The master did this because he believed the venerable monk was his own previous incarnation. Once the master composed a verse: Here where a monastery overseas has specially been built, Green hills welcome me with beaming smiles.

The bones of the blooming plums remain undecayed for three lives.

I ponder on a rock, sweeping away green moss. This appears to have been composed around that time. When the master saw that the pagoda built in memory of Dhyåna Master Zhizhe8 had become broken down and ruined, he gave up [his own] daily expenses in order to manage building operations. Subsequently the master had the porches built on both sides of the gate of Wannian Temple, which had been missing. For rebuilding a pavilion named the "One Thousand Buddhas' Towering Pavilion" on Mount Tianton, there was so great a contribution from the master that people admired it and a record of it was engraved in stone. For details, see the Notes on the One Thousand-Buddha Pavilion of the Celebrated Mountain Taibai(Taibai ming shan Qianfogeji) by Louyao (d. 1213), a Song scholar, as well as the Notes on the Memorial Temple for Dharma Master Senkø from the Country of Japan (Ribenguo Qianguangfashi Citangji)9 by Yuchu, General Taxation O‡cer. Both Notesare kept at the Celebrated Mountain Taibai. The nation of Song was su›ering from an epidemic disease, which worried both the emperor and his subjects. The emperor ordered several high-ranking priests to pray against its prevalence, with no e›ect. The emperor then ordered the master to do the same. A day after the master received the imperial edict, the epidemic had already ceased. Two days after, those who had died came back to life. The emperor praised him for this and said: 64

Foreword

You have the title Yeshang (Yøjø,

"On the Leaves"). Does it

not mean that on the leaves one thousand ¸åkyamunis made their appearance?

The emperor specially granted the master the title of honor Great Master Qianguang (Senkø,

"One Thousand Rays of Light").

Those contemporary great masters who had practiced under their own masters all over the country praised the master, calling him an Incarnate.

The master himself practiced under Chan Master Xuan [Huaichang] at both Mount Tiantai and Mount Tianlong for several years; he was permitted to enter Master Xuan's room and received the transmission of the seal of the awakened mind. Between the two, there was giving and accepting everything concerning the Chan gate, and the master's appellation Ming'an (Myøan) was established. When the master took leave to return east Chan Master [Xuan] wrote words in verse on tens of sheets of paper, and granted them to him, thereby certifying his final attainment. That was how the school of the Buddha's mind came to be transmitted and circulate to the east of the sea.

The master returned to his home country in the second year of Kenky¥, mizunoto-i (1191), and stayed in the provinces of Tsukushi10 for a few years. Then the master entered the capital of Kyoto, and in the second year of Kennin, mizunoe-inu(1202), he had a Zen temple built on the bank of the Kamo River near the fifth-street bridge, and was granted the name of the year, Kennin, for the temple. Once the master advocated the school of the Buddha's mind, students gathered like clouds to learn Zen and practice dhyåna under him. The master widely circulated the great bodhisattva Ω∆la(precepts);11 at the same time he had [his students practice] the esoteric rites of the Tendai school as well. Then the master caused Buddhist practice to flourish and made religious influence prevail in the country. On every upo≈adha(sangha ceremony of reciting the Vinaya) occasion of the dark half and light half of the lunar month, the master gave a sermon on precepts 65

1c

with no deficiency in the teaching. As time passed, the hearts of [those in] the capital turned to the master's teaching. When [a priest of the Kegon school named] Chøgen, who had been begging alms all over the country with the purpose of rebuilding the Tødaiji12 died, the imperial court ordered the master to be in charge of this work. It was soon accomplished. [In 1208] the nine-storied tower of the Hosshøji [in Kyoto] burned down in a big fire. And [when things did not go well for rebuilding,] the master, who could not but receive the imperial order to be supervisor of the rebuilding work, had three years' tax revenue collected from Suwø Province13 in order to prepare for the work. He succeeded in this as well. Besides, in other provinces some monasteries were first opened by the master, other celebrated temples were restored by him, and still others were supervised by him; the number of such temples is too many to list [all] their names here. The master had already been propagating the school of the "utmost vehicle,

" which is the "special transmission outside the scriptures,

" far and wide. Meanwhile, various lecturers of Buddhist scriptures in the southern capital of Nara and the northern ridges of Mount Hiei, who were extremely prejudiced, denounced the master and brought suit against him. Thereupon, the master wrote three fascicles of a treatise in which he quoted from Buddhist sutras and Ωåstras to prove his point and refute their rebuke. He entitled this the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State (Køzengokokuron). The master presented it to the emperor and obtained imperial sanction. It is because of this that our school has prevailed under heaven.

Those who personally entered the master's gate and attained the truth were Eichø (d. 1247), Gyøy¥, Gen'y¥, and Myøzen (d. 1225). Those who came from other gates were Køben (Myøe, 1173-1232, of the Køzanji) and Shunjø (1166-1227, of the Senny¥ ji). Those who came from the exoteric and esoteric gates of the Tendai school were too many to count.

Now I strongly expect that in coming ages, when masters of this school succeed one after another and cause it to flourish in all 66

Foreword

corners of the country—alas! this treatise might be found quite useless.

I have sketched the above outline to let our descendants know [how the treatise was made as well as what the master's life activities were]. 67

[Note on the Foreword]

1c21

The above Foreword, whose authorship remains to be verified, and which I happened to find between the pages of a notebook written by Nansø [Ryø]saku, was not given in the old edition of the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State.

14 I presume that it

was composed in [Ryø]saku's days. Then the date was only two hundred years after the founding master's days, and there is no wonder that the phrases of the Foreword were still detailed enough to stand as proof of their credibility. About the few expressions in the Foreword that are di›erent from what have traditionally been known, I think more information should be collected to verify them. It is my regret that for the present edition [printed in 1778] I have failed to obtain any original version of the entire text that may have included this Foreword, with which to collate the present one. Now I add it to the head of the whole text to be printed together.

By [Ryø]saku I mean a disciple of Zuigan Ryøsei, the seventh generation from our founding master. In the era of Høtoku (1449-51) [Ryø]saku entered the country of Ming together with Ky¥en [Ryø]chin (d. 1498), and nothing is known about his end. Noted by [Køhø] Tøshun, [presiding priest of

Ryøsokuin, Kenninji]

69

Preface

2a

By Eisai, An Ajari of Japan,

Who Studied Abroad in Mount Tiantai of the

Great Song, in the Rank of Daihosshi (Great

Dharma Master) for Transmission of the Lamp

How great is the Mind!15 The height of the heavens is such that it is impossible to reach its end; the Mind rises above the heavens. The thickness of the earth is such that it is impossible to measure its extent; the Mind comes out from beneath the earth. The rays of the sun and moon travel so far that it is impossible to exceed them; the Mind extends beyond the reach of their rays. The great thousands of worlds, comparable to [the number of] grains of sand in the Ganges River, are boundless; the Mind encompasses these worlds. You might speak of the great void and the primal energy that fills it, and the Mind envelops the great void and is pregnant with the primal energy. Heaven and earth wait for Me and then cover and uphold one another. Sun and moon wait for Me and then circulate. The four seasons wait for Me and then change. A myriad of things wait for Me and then are procreated. Great indeed is the Mind.

16

I have no other way than to forcibly name this Mind. This has been named the best vehicle (Ωre≈†hayåna), ultimate reality (para mårtha), the true characteristics of reality (dharmatå) revealed through the knowledge of emptiness (prajñå), the one true mode of being (dharmadhåtu), the unsurpassed awakening (anuttarå samyak saµbodhi),

17 the calm self in heroic advance (Ω¥raµgama

samådhi), the eye and treasury of the True Dharma (saddharma cak≈ukoΩa), as well as the sublime mind (h®daya) of nirvana. 18 This

being the case, it is in this Mind that all the expositions classified as the three wheels, the eight treasuries, the four trees, and the five vehicles find their source.

19

71

The Great Hero ¸åkyamuni transmitted this truth of mind (cittadharma)20 to the golden ascetic MahåkåΩyapa, 21 calling it the

special transmission independent of scriptural teachings. 22 When

Vulture Peak23 turned its head and was met by the smiling face of Cockfoot Ridge,

24 the flower picked up [by ¸åkyamuni] budded on a thousand branches, and the profound source poured into myriad streams. Inheritors of this truth in India and students succeeding it in China could be known in great number.

Indeed, teachings on the awakened truth having been widely propagated by those who have already become Buddhas, their Dharma robes have also been transmitted of their own accord. And the norms by which former sages (munis) practiced have solidly been established. The characteristics of the teachings on the awakened truth have made the weaving by teacher and disciple complete, and the norms for practice have been free from the mixture of right and wrong. Thereupon, Bodhidharma, the great master from the west, struck oars on the southern sea, and ever after he carried his sta› to the eastern river [and to Luoyang (Rakuyø)], the teaching of Fayan (Høgen) reached Korea, and the teaching of [Mount] Niutou (Gozu) came to Japan. As people have studied this, various vehicles have prevailed. As they have practiced this, they have had the ultimate knowing open up in one life. That which externally has the support of the teaching of nirvana for monastic discipline,

25 and which internally has the awakening of

the wisdom of emptiness (prajñå), is none other than the Chan (Zen) school.

Our court, bright with the glory of the Imperial Sun, carries virtuous winds so far and free that people from the land where roosters are worshiped (Korea) or from the land where elephants are honored (India) reach the ground with their heads at its red stone steps; people from the land of Jinlin (Sumatra) or the Yu Ridge (in the western regions) present their allegiance at its green stone steps. In this country lay o‡cials put into practice Confucian classics on administration; Buddhist priests propagate the path for going beyond worldliness. Even the teachings of the four Vedas have their use. 72

Preface

As for Zen of the five branches, how could it be abandoned? This fact nothwithstanding, there are some who slander Zen as a religion of dark testimony. Others are suspicious of Zen and speak of it as an evil attachment to emptiness. Some say Zen is not a religion suited to the latter-day world. Others say it does not meet the demands of our country. Some despise my capacity, and insist that I have had no scriptural verification. Others make little of my natural capacity, and consider it hard to stir up what is on the wane. This means nothing other than that the very upholders of the teachings on the awakened truth extinguish the Dharma treasure. Could anybody other than me know my mind? They not only block the principal gate of the Zen barrier (i.e., the Zen school) but also might possibly be ruining our patriarchal path of Mount Hiei (i.e., the Tendai school) as well. How sad and grievous! Is this right or wrong? This being the case, I have brought together general principles from the three collections of the Buddhist teachings to show them to contemporary people of wisdom. I have noted the pivotal points of the Zen school itself so as to leave them behind for posterity. I have arranged them into three fascicles, with the division of ten separate gates. I name the whole text the Treatise on Letting Zen Flourish to Protect the State (Køzengokokuron), so as to accord with the original intent of the Lord of the Awakened Truth and the Lord of the World.

26

It is only on the presumption that my talks, wild as they are, would not contradict the true characteristics of reality that I have completely forgotten myself in playing with theory, for which both priests and laypeople are to be blamed. It is because of my recollection of the benefit from Linji, which the latter-day world will certainly receive, that I have become free from the shame of errors of my pen. May the proclamation of transmission of the Lamp of Truth not be annulled but illuminate each dawn of the three Dharma meetings under the future Buddha Maitreya!27 May the bubbling spring of ultimate reality be inexhaustible and keep flowing into the world throughout the country for eons under a thousand Buddhas!28 A list of titles of the [ten] gates will be given here-73 2b

after, as you see.