Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘Nowadays, when you join the assemblies of various masters who maintain the way, and you want to receive instructions, it is hard to find an opportunity. Not merely twenty or thirty skin bags, but one hundred or one thousand faces all desire to return to the true source. The day of the masters’ guiding hand ends at sunset. The evening of pounding rice goes quickly. At the time when the masters expound dharma, you may lack eyes and ears; your seeing and hearing may be blocked. When you are ready, your teacher’s time may come to an end. While senior reverend masters clap their hands in laughter, those of you who are newly ordained and low in seniority may have difficulty even joining the assembly at the end of the mat.

There are those who do and those who do not enter the inner chambers. There are those who do and those who do not hear the essential words of the teachers. The passage of time is faster than an arrow. Life is more fragile than a dewdrop. Even when you have teachers, you may not be able to study with them. When you want to study with teachers, you may not have them. I have personally seen and heard of such cases.

Although great teachers all have the power to know people, it is rare to have a good relationship with a teacher and become intimate while cultivating the way. When Xuefeng visited Dongshan and Touzi, he must have had a hard time. We can all sympathize with the dharma aspiration of his continuous practice. Those who don’t study or practice will be filled with regret.’ (Shobogenzo Gyoji)

We read this recently in the Dogen study group. Usually we have the Nishijima-Cross translation open alongside the Tanahashi version (as above) which we read from. It was interesting that at the end of the first paragraph, the “you” of the juniors was translated as “us,” even though Dogen had been teaching for fifteen years when he wrote this.

I was also thinking of the stories of Suzuki Roshi that I have just been reading on Cuke, where some of the earliest students regretted how hard it was to see Roshi towards the end, when he had so many people clamouring to be close to him.