In Place 29

 From the end of this pasture

she looks back: if there were

suddenly no hut, there would still be

grass, trees, stones and stream





Pasture with the little dog, late May.

Everything here is exactly as it is.



The body and mind of the Buddha way is grass, trees, tiles and pebbles, as well as wind, rain, water and fire.

— Dogen (tr. Tanahashi)

In Place 28

The young-old monk, watcher
over infants and mad crones,
gets a late spring offering —
handful of vinca blossoms





Jizo once greeted visitors to the homestead, but lost his head more than once as water hoses were hauled around the garden. In his new location at the hut he is a hermit, but has never left off his practice. The stone behind him was raised from the dry creek bed the preceding summer.

Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines --
jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it.

-- Shitou, "Song of the Grass-Roof Hut" in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (1924-33) reprinted in Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field, 2000, tr. Leighton and Yi Wu

 

In Place 27

Winds from the river by day

winds from mountains at night

sing to cottonwood branches:

cottonwood branches clack back






Though the old woman has a cot in the hut and naps there often, she has seldom slept in it overnight. But she does lie long abed in the afternoons, attending the rustling leaves or rattling twigs.


The dharma does not rise up alone—it can’t emerge without reliance on the world. If I take up the challenge of speaking I must surely borrow the light and the dark, the form and the emptiness of the mountains and hills and the great earth, the call of the magpies and the cries of the crows. The water flows and the flowers blossom, brilliantly preaching without ceasing. In this way there is no restraint.

— Ziyong Chengru in The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, Caplow and Moon, 241 

In Place 26

Dark of the year, her altar lacks

flowers: a moss covered oak branch

makes do; in spring

she finds a spray of quince





Flowering quince goes well with the red altar cloth and bowls, so she enjoys the three weeks or so that the blossoms may be available. Still, every offering is quite right.

One day Daowu and Yunyan were out walking with Yaoshan, who pointed at two trees with his finger. One was healthy and the other was withered up. He asked Daowu, "Which is better, the withered tree or the healthy tree?" Daowu answered, "The healthy one is better." Yaoshan said, "So everything around it becomes bright and colorful." Then he asked Yunyan the same question. Yunyan said, "The withered tree is better." Yaoshan said, "So everything around it looks gray and withered up." An attendant named Gao appeared suddenly. Yaoshan asked him the same question. Gao said, "The withered one is withered and the healthy one is healthy." Yaoshan turned to Daowu and Yunyan and said, "You were both wrong."

-- Soto Zen Ancestors in China, James Mitchell, 62

 

 

In Place 25

 

25

Through the reed shade,
watch leaves fall in autumn,
branches rattle in winter, foliage
tremble in spring or droop in summer





This is part of her tea "ritual" in all seasons.

In the spring, cherry blossoms.
In the summer the cuckoo.
In autumn the moon.
In winter the snow, clear, cold.

— Dogen (after Tanahashi)

In Place 24

Ritual averse, yet she has such:

brewing tea of blackberry leaves,

chard, kale, squash leaves, maple blooms; 

pour, settle, sip, sit

 

"Yard tea" steeping.  Such tisanes are best dried and crumbled and then sealed away from air, 'tis true, but simply gathering the herbs and foliage and steeping them fresh works well enough for the purpose.

The Way does not have any particular form that can be cultivated, the Dharma does not have any particular form that can be validated. Just unrestricted no-recollection and no-thought, at all times everything is the Way.

— Wuzhu, Lidai fabao ji in The Teachings of Master Wuzhu 141 (Adamek)

In Place 23

Spring advances, sun returns;

grey skies give way

to flocks of round clouds;

worms, birds and mice are busy

 

View toward East Gate, in late May.

A mother mouse tunneled into the old woman’s mattress to give birth. Mrs. Mouse and her brood died one spring day as the old woman lay down for a nap. The old woman mourned more than she would have expected.

Were it not for the suffering of sentient beings, no need for compassion would arise. 

-- John Daido Loori in The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans xxxii)

In Place 22

A quiet fellow waits out

morning service, anxious

for his daily walk along

green country ways, reading sign





Shown here at age seventeen, this cairn terrier is mostly blind and deaf, but can find warm sunny spots and lives by scent. The old woman thinks of their walks as a kind of kinhin, or walking meditation.

On either side of the footpath rises a row of green pines.
Over the valley, the scent of a wild plum is wafted to me.
Each visit to this place yields me a fresh spiritual gain.

-- Ryokan (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa, The Zen Poems of Ryokan 57)

 

In Place 21

The carpet comes in handy

for nine bows; with hands

uplifted, the old woman pauses,

thoughtlessly thoughtful of all






These bows are supposed to be prostrations from standing, but the old woman’s back and legs are beginning to fail her, so she now uses the railing of the cot as a grab bar to get to her knees and does her bows from there. This is sometimes accompanied by the grunts and groans of the elderly.

...we should know why we do prostrations. We do not do them to endear ourselves to somebody else. We do not do them for the Buddha. Such concepts are completely wrong. The Buddha is not a god of this world. We bow down to purify all situations from the past where we did not respect others.

-- Lama Gendyn Rinpoche

 

In Place 20

Mornings she repeats ancient texts

abjuring illusion, anger, fear;

speaks the names of

friends and others, ill or passed





Morning service at "Gogo-an" consists of Robe Chant, zazen, Heart Sutra, nine bows, Dedications (reading of the current Memorial List, reading of the current Well-Being List), Bodhisattva Vows, Refuges, six days a week. One can see from all the capitalization that there is certainly some risk of pietism, which she guards against warily. Heart Sutra is supposed to be chanted, but she’s not good at this and just reads it aloud.

Beings are numberless; I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha’s way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

-- Bodhisattva Vows