Copyright©2020 Misaki C. Kido
Dōgen’s Chinese Poems (30)
The Night of the Sixteenth;
Verse on “Practitioners in each place share the bright moon.”
十六夜、頌処処行人共明月 （十六夜、「処処行人明月を共にす」に頌す）
Without discussing south and north or east and west,
For fifty years I have been riding this moon.
How regrettable, the silver laurel branch of the heavens
Is mistakenly called a dried shitstick by people.[1]
| 不論南北及東西、 | （論ぜず南北及び東西、） | |
| 五十年来乗此月、 | （五十年来此の月に乗ず、） | |
| 可惜上天銀桂枝、 | （惜しむべし上天銀桂の枝、） | |
| 人間錯道乾屎橛。 | （人間錯って道う乾屎橛と。） |
This is verse 29 in Kuchugen and verse 85 of volume 10 of Eihei Koroku (Dōgen’s Extensive Record). This is the fifth of the six poems about “harvest moon” in Kuchugen based on Rujing’s dharma hall discourse, which I commented on earlier in the series. Manzan’s version of the poem is exactly the same as the Monkaku-bon version.
Without discussing south and north or east and west,
For fifty years I have been riding this moon.
Without discussing south and north or east and west (不論南北及東西) refers to seeing the world with the prajna eye which sees emptiness. Dōgen Zenji introduced Rujing’s poem on the wind bell in Shobogenzo Makahannyaharamitu (Mahaprajnaparamita):
The whole body [of the wind bell] is like a mouth hanging in empty space-
Without distinguishing the winds from east, west, south, or north
Together expressing prajna equally to all beings-
Di ding dong liao di ding dong[2]
The shape of a wind bell hanging from the eaves of a large temple building is like a mouth. Within the empty space inside the bell, a piece of metal called zetsu (舌tongue) is hanging. When the wind blows the bell, the metal piece hits the bell and make sounds. Rujing used the wind bell as a metaphor of prajna, the wisdom that sees and expounds the emptiness of all things without discrimination.
The directions of east, west, north, and south are concepts created by the human mind to make our world understandable and share information among people. We call the direction from which the sun rises east, the direction in which the sun sets west, and when facing the rising sun, the left-hand side is north and the right-hand side is south. This definition works in most parts on the earth, except at least two points, the north pole and the south pole. When we are at the exact point of the north pole, all directions are south. There are no east and west. At the south pole, it is the same. Conventionally, we use the names of the directions because it works for us human beings. However, before human beings appeared and tried to think and share information, there were no such directions.
In Japan, after a funeral ceremony is done at the home of the deceased or at a temple, the mourners walk in procession to the burial yard. A few of the people walk each holding a banner on which a Buddhist verse is written, such as these:
迷故三界城 Because of delusion, the three worlds [in samsara] is like a fortress.
悟故十方空 Because of realization, the ten-direction [world] is empty.
本来無東西 Originally there is no east or west.
何処有南北 Where is south or north.
We have certain images about each direction in the human world depending upon where we are. In Japanese culture, the east refers to the Tokyo area, and the west refers to the Kyoto, Osaka area. There are some historical and cultural differences between these two areas. Sometimes people compare them, and look down and insult each other in a stereotypical way. On a larger scale, the East means Asia and the West means Europe and America.
However, in emptiness there is no such separation, the entire earth is one; even the entire universe is one without any separation. Prajna wisdom is free from our conceptual and discriminative way of thinking about our images of the differences between Osaka and Tokyo, or between Eastern or the Western civilizations. That is what Rujing is saying in his poem about the wind bell’s ringing working together with the wind from any direction. In this poem, Dōgen is also talking about the reality of our life seen with prajna wisdom, without discrimination. Each and every thing in this entire world is illuminated by the boundless moonlight, the metaphor of prajna wisdom. We are living within a certain karmic, conditioned way, but at the same time, we are living the reality beyond discrimination.
Dōgen says he has been living in the world of emptiness for fifty years. This means that even before he became a Buddhist monk, and studied and understood emptiness, he lived in the world of emptiness. This poem was composed on the sixteenth day of the eighth month, so if he was exactly fifty years old, it was written in 1249.[3] Dharma hall discourse 344 in Dōgen’s Extensive Record was given the day before he wrote this poem. At the end of that discourse, Dōgen said, “Why has our ancestor Yunyan’s ‘Which moon is this?’ suddenly appeared as a round sitting cushion?”[4] Yunyan’s saying is from his conversation with his dharma brother Daowu, from case 21 of Book of Serenity (Shoyoroku):
As Yunyan was sweeping the ground, Daowu said, “Too busy.”
Yunyan said, “You should know there’s one who isn’t busy.”
Daowu said, “If so, then there is a second moon.”
Yunyan held up the broom and said, “Which moon is this.”[5]
In his discourse 344, Dōgen goes on to say that the full moon becomes the round cushion we use for our zazen practice.
How regrettable, the silver laurel branch of the heavens
Is mistakenly called a dried shitstick by people.
In the previous poems, Dōgen mentioned two living beings dwelling in the moon according to Chinese mythology; a toad and a rabbit. Here he refers to another one. It is said that there is a woodcutter living in the moon and cutting a laurel tree. Actually, in the same Dharma hall discourse 344, Dōgen quotes Hongzhi (Wanshi)’s discourse directly. At the end of his discourse, Hongzhi said, “Completely break the laurel tree in the moon and the clear light will increase.”
This man’s name is Wu Gang (呉剛, Go Gou). It is said that he was forced to cut the tree every thousand years, otherwise, the tree grows too big and darkens the moonlight. This is what Hongzhi was referring to. In another version of the story, as punishment for something he did, he has to cut the tree every day, but the tree grows an equal amount each day. This version of the story reminds me the story of the stone of Sisyphus.
The name of the tree in Chinese is 桂花 (guihua) or in Japanese 月桂樹（gekkeiju, katsura tree in the moon). Often this tree is mentioned as laurel, and “laurel wreath” is translated into Japanese as gekkeikan (月桂冠). (Sake lovers may be familiar with this word.) However, the tree in the moon is not laurel, but mokusei (木犀, Osmanthus fragrans). The flower of this tree has a strong fragrance and blooms around the time of the mid-autumn moon. Chinese people drink osmanthus wine on the occasion of the moon festival.
In this poem by Dōgen, the silver laurel branch of the heavens (上天銀桂枝) refers to the moonlight. When Dōgen uses the image of moonlight, he is referring to the true reality of all beings; moonlight illuminates all things without discrimination.
In the final line, Dōgen says that in Zen literature, this fragrant branch of the laurel tree in the moon is called “a dried shitstick.” “A dried shitstick” is a well-known expression in Zen. For example, Linji (臨済 Rinzai) said:
The Master ascended the hall and said, “Here in this lump of red flesh there is a True Man with no rank. Constantly he goes in and out the gates of your face. If there are any of you who don’t know this for a fact, then look! Look!”
At that time there was a monk who came forward and asked, “What is he like – the True Man with no rank?”
The Master got down from his chair, seized hold of the monk and said, “Speak! Speak!”
The monk was about to say something, whereupon the Master let go of him, shoved him away, and said, “True Man with no rank – what a shitty ass-wiper!”
The Master then returned to his quarters.[6]
Traditionally, 乾屎橛 (kanshiketsu) was interpreted as a wooden spatula used to wipe oneself in the toilet, before toilet paper began to be used. But these days, scholars think this may refer to dried shit itself. Another well-known example is from Yunmen (雲門 Unmon):
Someone asked. “What is Shakyamuni’s body?”
The Master said, “A dry piece of shit.”[7]
Dōgen did not use this expression in Shobogenzo at all, but he used it in Eihei Koroku (Dōgen’s Extensive Record) about ten times. It is said that when Dōgen used this expression in his dharma discourse while he was at Koshoji near Kyoto, a high-ranking Pureland Buddhist priest in the audience said, “Zen teaching is terrible. They use such a nasty word to refer to the sacred teaching of the Buddha.” Upon hearing that, Dōgen Zenji said, “I would like to cry. Such an eminent priest said such a foolish thing.” In this poem also, I think, “dried shitstick” is used in a positive way, even though he says this expression is mistakenly used. This is an expression by Zen masters to show that we need to go beyond the dichotomy between sacred dharma teaching and mundane things. As a dharma teaching, this means the same thing as the full moon becoming a round cushion for our zazen practice.
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[1] Dōgen’s Extensive Record 10-85, p.634 © 2010 Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura. Reprinted by arrangement with Wisdom Publications, Inc., http://www.wisdompubs.org.
[2] Okumura’s translation in Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom (Wisdom, 2018) p.6.
[3] The traditional Japanese way of calculating a person’s age is different from the current way. Traditionally, when a person is born, the person is 1 year old.
[4] Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, Dōgen’s Extensive Record (Wisdom) p.309.
[5] Translation by Thomas Clearly in Book of Serenity (Lindisfarne Press, 1990) p.91.
[6] Translation by Burton Watsom, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi (Shambhala, 1993) p.13.
[7] Translation by Urs App in Master Yunmen, (Kodansha America, 1994) p.127.
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Translation and commentary by Shōhaku Okumura Roshi.
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For further study:
> More of Dōgen Zenji’s Chinese Poems
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