Koun Ejo and Everyday Affairs

Keizan's commentary

The teacher's personal name was Koun Ejō and his lay surname Fujiwara. He was said to be a fourth-generation descendant of the Kujō chief minister and a grandson of Hidemichi. He entered the room of Dharma-Seal En'nō on Mount Hiei and shaved his head at eighteen. From then he studied the two teachings of Abhidharmakośa and Satyasiddhi, and later the Great Calming and Contemplation. He came to know that study undertaken for fame and profit offered little benefit and secretly aroused the thought of awakening. Yet for a time he obeyed his teacher's command and made learning his upward duty. Once he visited his mother. She commanded him: “I did not have you leave home so that you would fill a high clerical rank and socialize with lords. I wished only that you would not study for fame and profit, but would be an unimportant black-robed monk, a hat hanging down your back, traveling everywhere only on foot.” Hearing this, the teacher consented. He immediately changed his robe and did not return to the mountain.³ He studied the Pure Land gate and heard the secret meaning of Kosaka. Later the holy man Butchi of Tōnomine, who remotely received the ancestral wind of Zen Master Fozhao, taught the meaning of seeing nature. The teacher went to inquire and surpassed the assembly in precise investigation. Once, during a discussion of the Śūraṃgama Sūtra, they reached the kalaviṅka-bottle simile: putting space into the vessel does not increase space; taking space out does not decrease it. Ejō deeply accorded. The holy man Butchi said, “How could the roots of offense and obstructions of delusion from beginningless vast kalpas fail all to disappear, and all suffering fail to be released?” The more than thirty students in the assembly all regarded Ejō as extraordinary and honored him.⁴ In the first year of Antei, Dōgen returned to Kenninji and trained there. A report spread that he had transmitted true Dharma from Great Song and intended quietly to spread it. Ejō heard this and thought, “I am not ignorant of the Tendai threefold cessation and threefold contemplation and have mastered the essential practice of the Pure Land gate. I have also studied at Tōnomine and reached the intent of seeing nature and becoming buddha. What could he have brought back?” He went to test him and immediately studied with Dōgen. During their first two or three days of conversation, Dōgen spoke only of matters matching Ejō's attainment—seeing nature and numinous knowing. Ejō rejoiced without opposition, thought his own attainment genuine, and increased his admiration. After some days Dōgen disclosed a distinctly different understanding. Startled, Ejō raised his spearpoint, but Dōgen possessed a meaning outside him and nothing was alike. Ejō aroused aspiration anew and sought to submit and receive. Dōgen said: “I carry the house style and intend for the first time to spread it in Japan. Although I could reside at this monastery, I intend to choose another place to stay. If I find a place and bind a grass hermitage, come and seek me there. We should not follow one another here.” Ejō obeyed and waited. Dōgen built his first grass hermitage beside Gokurakuji at Fukakusa and lived alone. After two years without a single visitor, Ejō arrived, in the first year of Bunryaku. Dōgen rejoiced, allowed him to enter the room, and discussed the ancestral way with him day and night. After about three years, Dōgen raised the present encounter while Ejō requested instruction: One thought, ten thousand years; One hair penetrates the many holes. Pass the examination as you pass it; Stand out from the crowd as you stand out.⁵ Hearing this, the teacher immediately awakened. After receiving permission, he followed Dōgen without leaving him for a single day, like a shadow following a form, for twenty years. Even when appointed to various offices, he never kept an attendant. After finishing his official duties, he returned to the attendant's quarters.⁶ I, Keizan, received precepts from Ancestor Koun and attended him for many years. I heard the Second Reverend ordinarily instruct: “Reverend Busshū had several disciples, but Dōgen alone penetrated completely. Reverend Dōgen also had many disciples, but I alone walked independently within his ten-foot room. “Thus there may be places I heard that others did not hear, but there was no place others heard that I did not hear.”⁷ After Ejō inherited the house style, Dōgen ordinarily treated him with great respect and had him conduct all Eiheiji's buddha-work. When Ejō asked why, Dōgen showed him: “My life will not be long. You will live longer than I and will certainly spread my way. Therefore, for Dharma's sake, I honor you.” Within the room his courtesies were as though Ejō were his own teacher. At each of the four seasonal observances he made offerings for Ejō's well-being. He held the meaning weighty and the courtesies deep. Teacher and disciple accorded in the way, the light of their heart-eyes intermingling, like water poured into water and space joined with space, without a hair's breadth of opposition. Ejō alone knew Dōgen's mind; it was not a place others knew.⁸ For example, while they trained at Fukakusa, the posted rule limiting travel said, “Twice each month; each departure three days.” During Ejō's grieving mother's final illness, he did not go to see her, in order not to violate the limit. As her condition became critical and she wished a final meeting, messengers came repeatedly. The whole assembly said he should go. Ejō gathered the more than fifty people and asked whether he should break the rule. All said, “Although the prohibition is like this, you will not meet your grieving mother again in this life. Earnestly ask and go. The whole assembly's mind should not be opposed; why would the reverend refuse? This is weighty and cannot be treated like a small matter.” The report reached Dōgen, who privately thought, “Ejō's mind certainly will not leave and will not follow the assembly's decision.” After the deliberation Ejō told them: “The standards of buddhas and ancestors are weightier than the assembly's decision. They are precisely the ceremonial Dharma of ancient buddhas. If I follow human feeling for my grieving mother and turn against the model of ancient buddhas, how could I escape the offense of unfilial conduct? “If I now break the Buddha's regulation, this will become my mother's final great offense. As one who has left home, I should cause my parent to enter the way. Would I follow temporary human feeling and cause her to sink for endless kalpas?” In the end he did not follow the assembly's decision. Everyone was speechless. It accorded with Dōgen's prediction, and people praised it as an aspiration difficult for others to raise.⁹ In this way his intention never to oppose the teacher's command through the twelve periods mirrored the teacher-father. The hearts of teacher and disciple truly penetrated one another. Moreover, in twenty years he was away from Dōgen's face for only ten days in all, when he went for medical treatment. Nanyue Huairang served the Sixth Ancestor eight years before penetrating and eight after, passing fifteen autumns in all. There were many others who did not leave a teacher for thirty or forty years, but one like Ejō has not been seen or heard in ancient or modern times. After succeeding to Eiheiji's Dharma seat for fifteen years, he installed an image of his former teacher beside the abbot's quarters. Every night he greeted it with reverence, and every dawn he bowed, without neglecting one day. He vowed to serve through life after life and ultimately to become like Ānanda with Śākyamuni. So that even the illusory body of this life would not be separated, he had his remains buried at the attendant's place beside his former teacher's stūpa and did not build a separate stūpa, fearing it would display him as honored. Fearing that separate services would be performed for him at the monastery, he wished to receive one day's dedication among the eight days of his former teacher's memorial. He in fact died on the twenty-fourth day of the same month and, as he had wished in life, shared one day of the Founder's memorial.¹⁰ His earnest aspiration was manifest. Moreover, in valuing principle and guarding Dharma he did not differ by one hair from the Founder's assembly. Thus all the wise and foolish, old and young of that assembly returned to him as one. All who are now called descendants of Eihei in the various regions are branches and leaves of this teacher. Because his Dharma fire blazed and appeared far away, a person in Ōno district, Echizen, dreamed of a great fire burning high to the north. Someone in the dream asked, “What fire is this, burning in this way?” The answer came, “It is the Dharma fire of the holy man Butsu-Bō.” On waking, the dreamer asked others and heard that a person called the holy man Butsu-Bō had lived on a mountain north of Usaka and had died long before, while his disciples now lived there. Considering it extraordinary, the dreamer deliberately wrote down the dream and went to study.¹¹ Ejō truly maintained the Founder's Dharma-way and spread it at Eiheiji, according with the Founder's prediction. Therefore descendants have continued to the present without the house style being cut off. For this reason the old reverend Gi of this monastery, as his direct Dharma child, raised the Dharma banner here and lifted the house style in this grove. Cloud elder brothers and water younger brothers endured hunger and cold, studied the ancient style without considering myriad difficulties, and penetrated day and night. This was entirely because the teacher's virtuous wind remained and his numinous bones were still warm.¹² If Dharma is valued like the teacher's conduct and virtue spread like his true wind, there will be no place in Japan the house style does not reach, and all under heaven will incline toward Eihei's house style. If your present art of the heart is like the ancient people's, future transmission will be like Great Song's. As for “one hair penetrates the many holes,” the teacher asked, “I do not ask about the one hair. What are the many holes?” There is not a hair-tip that can stand and not one dharma that can sprout. Therefore an ancient said, “On the ground of ultimate reality, not one dust mote is admitted.” Across the whole clear void, not a hair-tip sprouts. When Ejō understood in this way, Dōgen approved him by saying, “They have been penetrated.” Truly, the hundreds and thousands of wondrous meanings and immeasurable Dharma gates have already been pierced through upon the tip of one hair. Ultimately not a dust mote comes from outside. Thus the ten directions have no boundary and the three times no separation. It is crystalline and translucent, brilliantly and distinctly clear. At this ground, even a thousand suns shining together do not reach its brightness; though a thousand eyes turn to look, they cannot exhaust its limit. Yet every person is lucidly awake to it without doubt. Therefore it is not the Dharma of quiescent extinction and not the appearance of differentiation; it has no motion or stillness, hearing or seeing. Have you awakened to it in this way with precise completeness?¹³ If you do not shoulder this place, though you practice for tens of millions of years and meet buddhas as numerous as Ganges sands, it is only conditioned practice. You have not yet distinguished the ancestral wind by even one hair. You will not escape the painful wheel of the three realms or end wandering through the four modes of birth. You have fortunately assumed the form and use of a buddha. If you have not yet shouldered the Buddha's mind, you deceive yourself throughout the twelve periods and damage the buddhas. Thus you do not break the ground of ignorance but wander through the aggregates of karmic consciousness. Even if wholesome roots temporarily produce fortunate rebirth among humans or gods and you boast of conditioned pleasure, it is like a wheel pressing now on wet ground and now on dry. Without beginning or end, you remain a sentient being carried by karmic result.¹⁴ Therefore even if you master the three vehicles and twelve divisions of teaching and expound the eighty-four thousand Dharma gates, in the end you resemble a cat watching a mouse. The body appears still, but the mind never stops seeking. Even if practice is continuous and intimate, the ground of mind is not yet peaceful through the twelve periods. Doubt and obstruction consequently remain unresolved. It is like a fox that runs fast but progresses slowly because it keeps looking back. The transformations of a wild-fox spirit have not ceased; it is still the livelihood of manipulating the vital spirit. Therefore do not delight in extensive hearing and do not make a business of broad learning. For even a short time, even a single instant, arouse aspiration like a great mass of fire that does not retain a fine dust mote, like vast empty space on which not one needle can hang. Though you think, necessarily reach the place thought cannot attain. Though in nonthinking, necessarily reach the place that cannot be emptied.¹⁵ If aspiration has this truth and becomes firm, every person will penetrate completely, without a thread's separation from what the buddhas of the three times verify. Therefore the Founder of Eihei said: “A person's seeking the way should be like wishing to meet the highest beauty in the world, strike down a powerful enemy, or breach a strong fortress. “Because the aspiration is deep, there is finally no failure to meet that beauty or breach that fortress. “When this mind is turned toward the way, a thousand people—all thousand—ten thousand people—all ten thousand—will attain the way.”¹⁶ Therefore, venerable practitioners, do not think: “The way is the formless Great Vehicle Dharma. It necessarily selects capacities and cannot be reached by beginners or later students.” At this place there is no sharp or dull capacity and no assigned task. Arouse yourself once, and deeply accord. Now say: what is this principle? Earlier I already presented it to the assembly: Empty space from the beginning does not admit a needle; Vast and unsupported—who is there to discuss it? When you reach this ground, not even the name “one hair” is established. How much less could there be many holes? Yet though the myriad dharmas vanish, there is that which does not vanish. Though everything is exhausted, there is that which cannot be exhausted. Self-possessed and independent, it is naturally brilliant; empty through and through, it is originally numinously bright. Therefore it is called clean and naked, completely bare, alert and distinctly clear, brilliant and gleaming. There is not a hair-tip of doubt and not a hair's breadth of floating dust. It is brighter than hundreds of thousands of suns and moons. Yet it cannot simply be called white or called red. It is exactly like waking from a dream: only oneself, vividly alive. This is called vivid aliveness. Alert means simply wide awake. Bright means simply fully clear. One cannot say it has no inside or outside; one cannot say it extends through antiquity or extends through the present. Therefore do not say, “One hair penetrates the many holes.” What final penetration could there be? If you call it “one hair,” that is already what the Second Reverend attained. What, further, is the essential body of the one hair? Do you wish to hear?