Womb Of The Sage

This post offers some detail for our online practice period study for this week. The compelling phrase, “womb of the sage,” comes from Dogen’s Instructions for the Cook. Here’s the Foulk translation of the sentence:

If your preparations are true, then your movements and activities will naturally become the deeds of nurturing the womb of the sage.

And here’s the Leighton and Okumura translation from Dogen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community:

If you sincerely arrange the implements and prepare the food, all of your conduct and performance becomes the activity for the sustained development of a womb of sages.

Leighton and Okumura note that the sustained development of a womb of sages (or shotai choyo in Japanese) is the usual term for practice after enlightenment.

Victor Hogen Sori has this about shotai choyo (click here for full essay) in contemporary Rinzai Zen:

…the Zen practitioner who has finished his formal training engages in an informal training in which he thoroughly detaches himself from his accomplishments and willingly assumes anonymity for service to others.

Hori tells of Daito Kokushi finishing his formal training and then living under a bridge in Kyoto with homeless people for twenty years before founding Daitokuji and several other compelling examples.

What strikes me here with the sustained development of a womb of sages, post-satori practice in Dogen’s Zen, is that it looks like pre-satori practice!

Before satori, arrange the implements and prepare the food. After satori, arrange the implements and prepare the food.

Womb of the Sage