{"id":164,"date":"2010-05-12T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T20:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2010\/05\/one-more-thing-about-dropping-body-and-mind\/"},"modified":"2010-05-12T20:24:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T20:24:00","slug":"one-more-thing-about-dropping-body-and-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2010\/05\/one-more-thing-about-dropping-body-and-mind.html","title":{"rendered":"One More Thing about Dropping Body and Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n

One of my favorite past times is to mull the historical research about the early Zen ancestors and the connection to our practice today \u2026 although I confess that I enjoy the bootless former much more than the practical latter. There are few activities that bring the same delight in <\/span><\/span><\/span>quiet thoughts<\/span><\/span><\/span> that come when reading some historical tidbit about Dogen, Ejo, Gikai & Co.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Even among Zen people, I\u2019ve always been a bit strange. Nevertheless, I\u2019ll share a little more of my strange interests with you here.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After the last post about the dispute about Dogen and his enlightenment story, I stumbled upon the following passage (and then dimly remembered that I might have blogged about it before \u2013 click here<\/a> for the former post):<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gikai: I have attained an insight based on our former teacher\u2019s saying Shinjin datsuraku [body mind cast off].<\/span><\/span>
<\/span>Ejo: Good. Good. What do you understand?<\/span><\/span>
<\/span>Gikai: I understand datsuraku shinjin [cast off body mind].<\/span><\/span>
<\/span>Ejo: What is the meaning?<\/span><\/span>
<\/span>Gikai: I had thought only [the] barbarian beard was red, but here is another red-bearded barbarian.\u201d<\/span><\/span>
<\/span>Ejo: Among the many permitted shinjin [body mind], there is this kind of shinjin [body mind].<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This dialogue is found in Record of the Final Words of the Founder of Eiheiji<\/i>. Some scholars doubt this text but it seems to me that it\u2019s a case of excluding the evidence that doesn\u2019t fit the theory, in this case, the theory that Dogen and his crew where against personal insight and koans and that shikantaza is exclusive of koan introspection.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for Bodiford\u2019s take.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The above dialogue, if authentic, suggests personal insight was<\/i> important for Dogen\u2019s very close students and that Dogen had some special relationship with the phrase \u201cdropping body and mind.\u201d Moreover, Gikai\u2019s play with it, reversing the usual order, <\/span><\/span><\/span>reflects <\/span><\/span><\/span>the play in the dialogue between Dogen and Rujing (see the last post).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Further, Ejo plays a role in the brief dialogue that will be familiar to many koan students today \u2013 Ejo is the gatekeeper\u00a0 accepting Gikai\u2019s capping phrase, reversing the red-bearded barbarian line from the Wild Fox koan as one of those that are accepted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, there is a suggestion here of a koan curriculum that is quite intriguing.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Your quiet thoughts on all this are welcome.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite past times is to mull the historical research about the early Zen ancestors and the connection to our practice today \u2026 although I confess that I enjoy the bootless former much more than the practical latter. There are few activities that bring the same delight in quiet thoughts that come when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOne More Thing about Dropping Body and Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of my favorite past times is to mull the historical research about the early Zen ancestors and the connection to our practice today ... although I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2010\/05\/one-more-thing-about-dropping-body-and-mind.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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