Navigation bar
  Print Start Previous page
 3 of 5 
Next page End 1 2 3 4 5  

the koan tells.
The eleventh Ancestor Punyashas
5
is standing with his hands folded
before the Venerable Parshva. Parshva asks, “Where have you come from?”
Punyashas says, “The mind never moves.”
Parshva asks, “Where do you dwell?”
Punyashas says, “The mind dwells nowhere.”
Parshva asks, “Then do you just float?”
Punyashas says, “The Buddhas are also like this.”
Parshva says, “You are not a Buddha and the Buddhas are not like
that.”
Hearing these words, Punyashas practices continuously for twenty-one
days and realizes the flexibility of the Unborn. He says, “The Buddhas are not
like anything and neither are you.”
The Venerable Parshva approves this and transmits the True Dharma
to him.
The Venerable Parshva sang this verse:
“This golden ground is my sense 
that a sage would appear.
You shall sit beneath the bodhi tree
where awakening blooms in fullness.”
Punyashas answered with this verse:
“The Master sits on golden ground,
always displaying the True Dharma,
turning the light of luminosity
and showing the entry to samadhi.”
The Chuandenglu says that Parshva sealed the Transmission to Punyashas by
saying,
“The Vast Luminosity of the Eye of Dharma Wisdom is now being entrusted to
you. Care for it well. Listen:
“The true body is self-existent Reality,
and through it is presented the Dharma.
Knowing the Dharma of Reality
one is beyond motion and stillness.”
Then Parshva demonstrated transcendent manifestations and created the fire
for his own cremation.
The stories of the Indian Ancestors tend to be more or less like this.
Sometimes they seem to be mixtures of both Indian and Chinese legends and
folktales. While both cultures often give the protagonists of stories unusual births,
the element concerning Parshva staying in his mother’s womb for sixty years seems
to be a Chinese Daoist influence. Many of the Daoist immortality practices involve
things such as the “foetal breath,” and Parshva’s aged appearance upon his birth
seems like a typically Chinese folk symbol for someone who was preternaturally
wise.
Dogen zenji presents us with this story for several reasons. He says,
Who could continue to be lax and not be moved by his wise example?
Do not disparage or worry over old age. It is difficult to understand what this
life of ours is. Is it born, or is it not born? Is it old age, or is it not old age?
Water is seen differently by the four perspectives
6
and viewpoints differ
amongst all kinds of beings. Be whole-hearted and diligent in your practice of
                                                
5
Funayashya in Japanese.
6
Shinken. Water is seen differently by humans, fish, demons, and shining beings. See the Sansui kyo.