Thursday, July 10, 2014

Chang is the bean cake, and Lee is also the bean cake


Overheard:

I read somewhere that somebody in China in the last 100 years taught the case of a Master who was enlightened by the inn keeper's daughter singing this song as she made bean cakes:



Oh, Chang is the bean cake,
And Lee is also the bean cake.
At night when you lay your head down upon your pillow,
A thousand thoughts may arise in your mind;
But when you awake in the morning,
You still continue to make the bean cakes.


 Making bean cakes is not a Zen teaching.  I don't hear the Master complaining though.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Dogenbogenzo and Shobogenzo

DOGENBOGENZO 
and Shobogenzo

Happy Birthday Dogen!

In honor of Dogen's birthday it is only fitting that his famous book be given it's own title.

Dogen took the title of another famous book, a book by Zen Master Dahui, called Shobogenzo, when Dogen decided to publish a book about his religion.  Dogen probably didn't get a chance to study Dahui, since Dahui wrote the book only a few years before Dogen was born.  Also, understandably there is confusion because much like now in America, in Japan in Dogen's day people couldn't get a copy of Dahui's Shobogenzo, but given that the title is from a famous sutra invented by a Zen Master, everyone had heard the title.

So in honor of Dogen we should give Dahui back his own title, Treasury of the Dharma Eye, Shobogenzo.

We could award Dogen a new title for his book, a title which reflects the contents of that book, and call it Treasury of Dogen's Eye, Dogenbogenzo.

Pronounced [dough Gen bough Gen zoh.]  Or something like that.  I admit, I made up the pronunciation.