Daily Zenrin Kushu

Wang Wei, Passing Xiangji Temple

2008-05-28T13:23:00.001-07:00

I did not know Xiangji Temple.
I moved beneath many li of low clouds
old trees and deer runs
from deep in the mountain, somewhere, the sound of a bell

The muffled call of a rillet from beyond the rocks.
The sun’s cold white on the blue pines.
In the evening, at the bend of a mountain stream,
I sit zazen and tame the poison dragon of mind.

Note: Xiangji Temple is literally "Piled-Up Fragrances" temple, or "Incense-Storing" temple, and is a Pure Land sanctuary some fifteen miles from old Chang'an. The graphic of the characters (which I use since NJStar is not working today) is from www.chinese-poets.com.

Stonehouse's Peachtree

2008-05-26T09:22:00.001-07:00

A poem by Shiwu 石屋 (1272-1352), the poet and hermit.

有人問我何年住
坐久纔方省得來
門外碧桃親手種
春光二十度花開

Somebody asks me when I first came to live here -
I sit zazen until the answer comes:
the peachtree my hands planted outside my door
has come to blossom some twenty springs.

Two Arrows, No Bird

2008-05-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

一箭兩垛

Chinese: Yi (1) jian (4) liang (3) duo (3)
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One arrow, two targets.
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Shibayama Roshi has: Is-sen ryo-da
Zenrin Lewis has: “Two targets with one arrow"
Eido Roshi notes the similarity to the obvious English cliche.

Cutting Cats

2008-05-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

With summer, I hope to return to this project - which completely fell by the wayside as classes began.

I will start with 4-character jakugo.

一刀一斷

Chinese: Yi (1) dao (1) yi (1) duan (4)

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One knife, one slice.
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Shibayama Roshi has: It-to ichi-dan
Zenrin Lewis has: “A single knife cuts it in: one"

Eido Roshi notes that this jakugo is drawn from Nansen's parable of the cat, and cites Dogen: "The whole universe, which the knife is in, so one piece results, whether the knife actually cuts or not."

Before making a note, I will present the next jakugo:

一刀兩斷

Chinese: Yi (1) fang (1) liang (3) duan (4)

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One knife, two cuts.
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Shibayama Roshi has: It-to ryo dan.
Zenrin Lewis has: "A single knife cuts it in two"
Eido Roshi comments: "Cut pro-and-con, right-and-wrong, win-and-lose - asunder at one blow".

Reflection:

The question of oneness - it is impossibly large because it is a question of infinitude, and of an erasing of distinctions between the one observing and the one who observes. All cuts are thus impossible, and any cut, just a slice. But a cut is still a cut, and something sliced is left in slices: thus, as with the well-shot arrow, a cut must be true and efficacious - singular and focused. Oppose this species of insight to the insights of overdetermination, where any cut makes many slices, and where any slice cuts through layers, tree-rings, other slices. The perfect insight - in Zen as in psychoanalysis - thus stands, as the allegory runs, as the life-giving, life-taking sword. It is too bad, though, that what the blade slices can no longer purr.

What is this?

2007-11-11T16:17:00.001-08:00

This website aims to publish daily, original translations of the Classical Chinese phrases that form the basis of the 'Zen Grove Handbook', Zenrin Kushu (ZRKS). The ZRKS is a crucial text in the 臨濟宗 Rinzai (Linji) school of Japanese Buddhism: it represents the cannon of Classical Chinese poems, puzzles, and epigrams used in conjunction with Rinzai's koan practice. The ZRKS was compiled by Zenkei Shibayama and translated into Japanese early in the last century.

I am working from Zenrin Chido Robert E. Lewis superb 'Zen Grove Handbook', which was published by the Zen Studies Society Press in 1980. The book is excellent, and simply a beautiful volume, with a marvellous appendix, lovely character printing, and several reproductions of caligraphy. I strongly encourage you buy the volume at: http://www.jaxzensangha.org/publications.php

The Japanese "reading"-translations, which I am posting alongside the Chinese, are those of Zenkei Shibayama; they are featured followed by Zenrin Lewis' translation and the commentary of Shimano Eido Roshi. I have abbreviated Zenrin Lewis' impressive syntactical commentary apparatus - if you want to know how he arrives at the readings he does, or how to rephrase the Kanbun syntax into modern Japanese, you'll have to buy his book.

I want to be clear about something: this is a translation of the Chinese phrases, which have existed for centuries. Because Zenrin Lewis' book is recommended as a Reader, I feel comfortable rendering both Zenrin Lewis and Eido Roshi's words together online in that they function as simultaneous translation-commentaries of a text that both resists and strongly invites translation that is also commentary. That said, I will be glad to modify or replace the use of quotations if the Society requests.

I have several objectives with this site.

(1) To keep up my Guwen, and maybe learn some kanbun in the process. If there is enough interest in Korean or Vietnamese romanizations in addition to the Chinese and Japanese, I will consider posting these also.

(2) To get better at working with non-Roman character sets online.

(3) To improve my daily Zen practice and generate merit.

Though, starting next week (I need some time to get the appropriate references together), I will posting translations in order of there listing in the ZRKS, I have chosen a particular jakugo which seemed a good note on which to begin this kind of translation. It is number 5.126.

知恩方解報恩

Chinese: zhi(1) en(1) fang(4) jia(1) bao(4) en(1)

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To know your debts is to repay them.
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Shibayama Roshi has: On-o shi-te masa-ni on-o hozen-koto-o gesu
Zenrin Lewis has: “Be aware / of your debt of gratitude / to see how to repay it.”
Eido Roshi Comments: "If you know being really grateful, you won’t fail to requite the gift of it."