Doing Inside Out, Outside In

Usually on Fridays I post a summary of the discussion from our Thursday night Dogen study. Last night we spend more time sharing capping phrases and discussing an article from the NYTimes (I’ll probably blog about it soon), to do the much of the planned Genjokoan summary.

So instead I’ll discuss another angle on practicing our insights.

A Zen teacher friend recently pointed out the following passage from Dogen’s Instructions for the Zen Cook:

Getting to eat a single grain of Luling rice enables one to see the monk Guishan; getting to supply a single grain of Luling rice enables one to see the water buffalo. The water buffalo eats the monk Guishan, and the monk Guishan feeds the buffalo.

What!?

Here’s a little background. First, there was this interaction:

A monk asked, what is the ultimate meaning of the buddhadharma?

The master [Qingyuan] said, “What is the price of Luling rice?”

Or in contemporary terms, “What’s the ultimate meaning of the buddhadharma?”
“What’s the Dow at today?”

Maybe the ultimate isn’t so far from the business of taking care of business.

And then there was this one from Guishan:

After I pass away I will become a water buffalo at the foot of the mountain. On the left side of the water buffalo’s chest the characters, ‘I am a monk of Guishan’ will be written. When you call me the monk of Guishan, I will be water buffalo. When you call me a water buffalo, I will be a monk of Guishan. Then how are you going to call me?’

Katagiri Roshi loved this story and told it very often. He liked to laugh loudly afterwards and then ask, “Do you understand?”

Guishan brings us upsidedown and rightside up, inside out and outside in – a beautiful dharma presentation (like the iris above from the Yugeji garden).

Now Instructions for the Cook was one of Dogen’s very early writings and this is one of the first passages of Dogen really getting Dogen-esque. For one thing, he is using koans to teach everyday, practical behavior. I think it is Steve Heine who mentions in one of his books that this was not done in Chinese Ch’an. The precepts governed daily life and koans governed the great matter. So here’s Dogen teaching us how to cook with a koan, teaching and demonstrating the fundamental.

Moreover, Dizzying Dogen knowingly conflates two koans. You might think with all the Luling rice and water buffalo, eating and feeding that the point is to show the limits of the discursive mind.

I think not.

And if you get inside the passage, I think you’ll see too that the point is that to practice Zen in our work it is necessary to know our business inside out, outside in and to have the capacity to swing either way.

Dogen demonstrates this with his work – rolling out the dharma. The message is in both the content and the process.

Knowing our business thoroughly and practicing it freely is one important face of Zen.