Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror



photograph by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho

    Now Dogen zenji says,
    Yet those who really understand this principle are rare. To think that no one knows a fish's heart or a bird's track is mistaken. You should know that fish always know one another's heart, unlike people who do not know one another's heart. But when the fish try to go up through the Dragon Gate, they know one another's intention and have the same heart. Or they share the heart of breaking through the Nine Great Bends. Those who are not fish hardly know this.
    The Nine Great Bends are a series of bends and rapids in Chekiang province. The Dragon Gate is a series of rapids in the Yangzi, the great Yellow River. Chinese legend says that when fish such as carp struggle through these rapids the exertion causes them to grow into dragons. This is a metaphor concerning the transformation from living as a usual person into living as a Buddha. For example, in his verse on case 7 in the Hekiganroku Xuedou says,
    Climbing the three-tiered falls of Dragon Gate,
    amongst high waves,
    the carp became a dragon.

    Still, at night,
    fools scoop the water for him below.
    Who can know what it must be like to swim through those rapids? Or even how it feels to breathe and move one's entire life within water? Well, obviously fish can and do know, that although we cannot. Just because we do not know something does not mean that it can't be known. And to know some things we have to let go of what and how we usually tend to know. To know who we are, to know that what we truly are is also flashing fish and is also flowing water, we need to know that we are not what self-image pretends itself to be.
    Have you ever seen a school of hundreds or perhaps millions of fish travelling like a single mass, like a single bodymind? The degree of co-ordination and sensitivity that they need to keep their distances from each other and yet swim together is astonishing. When a predator rushes at the school that single mass shatters as fish peel off in numberless directions; yet they gather again moments later, like the petals of a flower closing.
    Self-image preys upon the bodymind, shattering its integrity into bursts of hope and fear; weakening it with a steady drip of the three poisons, the klesas of passion, aggression, and stupidity. In order to know who we are we need to see past our images of ourselves and of others. We can align the mind with the body with the moment through sitting up straight in zazen. We can align the bodymind with the bodyminds of others and the field of present experience through using the forms to take care of our zafu, to stand, to step out in kinhin. During oryoki whether we are serving or receiving, whether we are eating or cleaning, a nuanced and subtle yet vivid and dynamic immediacy of alignment can be practised in each moment. The purpose of creating and maintaining and renewing environments of practice such as this monastery is to make available to us numberless Dharma Gates or openings into Openness so that we can see ourselves and each other and the great earth, the mountains, and rivers as we truly are.


     -Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, beginning teisho 8: "The Track of the Buddha" from the series, "Seeing Eye to Eye: Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji' Yuibutsu Yobutsu," Saturday, September 11, 2004.


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     The White Wind Zen Community is the Sangha of students practising under the direction of Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi at the Zen Centre of Ottawa (Honzan Dainen-ji) and its branch practice groups or centres.

     The main purpose of the Community is to provide a context in which the Transmission of the complete teachings, practice and realization of the Way of Dogen's Lineage of Zen can take place. To this end, the Zen Community provides a comprehensive and integral format of practice that is structured so that each student may practise in a manner that is appropriate for him or her.

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