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How to Cook Your Life “This is a book that should grace the shelves of any practitioner, not only because of Dogen’s classic text but also for the unequivocal way in which the commentary amplifies the text and makes the very important point that a Buddhist practice, if it is to mean anything, must touch every area of life and not just the confines of the meditation cushion.” —The Middle Way “I am glad to see Uchiyama Roshi’s classic commentary to Instructions for the Zen Cook back in print. Dogen’s original text (here in Thomas Wright’s lucid translation) is particularly applicable to everyday spirituality in the world, and Roshi’s commentary, full of gritty, funny stories about his early days as a monk in pre- and post- war Japan, and charming tales from Buddhist and Japanese folklore, evidence a plain-speaking, shoot- from-the hip approach to Zen that is as refreshing now (possibly more so!) as it was when the book first came out. Zen masters of this full-bodied tasty vintage are hard to find these days!” —Zoketsu Norman Fischer, author of Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up ABOUT THE BOOK In the thirteenth century, Zen master Dōgen—perhaps the most significant of all Japanese philosophers, and the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect—wrote a practical manual of Instructions for the Zen Cook. In drawing parallels between preparing meals for the Zen monastery and spiritual training, he reveals far more than simply the rules and manners of the Zen kitchen; he teaches us how to “cook,” or refine our lives, In this volume Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi undertakes the task of elucidating Dōgen’s text for the benefit of modern-day readers of Zen. Taken together, his translation and commentary truly constitute a cookbook for life, one that shows us how to live with an unbiased mind in the midst of our workaday world. DŌGEN (1200–1253) is known as the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect. Sign up to learn more about our books and receive special offers from Shambhala Publications. Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala. HOW TO COOK YOUR LIFE From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment ZEN MASTER DŌGEN AND KŌSHŌ UCHIYAMA RŌSHI Translated by Thomas Wright SHAMBHALA Bostan & London 2013 This volume contains translations of Zen Master Dōgen’s Tenzo Kyōkun (Instructions for the Zen Cook), as it appears in the Eitheigen Zenji Shingi, an official compilation of Dōgen’s works by Reiyō Endō, and of Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi’s Jinsei Ryōri no Hon (How to Cook Your Life), published by the Sōtō-shū in 1956 and 1970 respectively. Shambhala Publications, Inc. Horticultural Hall 300 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115 www.shambhala.com Protected by copyright under the terms of the International Copyright Union. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data How to cook your life: from the Zen kitchen to enlightenment/by Dōgen and Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi; translated by Thomas Wright. p. cm Originally published: New York: Weatherhill, 1983. Contents: Instructions for the Zen cook Tenzo kyōkun/Dōgen―How to cook your life Jinsei ryōri no hon/Kōshō Uchiyama. eISBN 978-0-8348-2432-4 ISBN 978-1-59030-291-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Dōgen, 1200–1253. Tenzo kyōkun. 2. Spiritual life―Zen Buddhism. 3. Cookery―Religious aspects―Zen Buddhism. 4. Monastic and religious life (Zen Buddhism) I. Wright, Thomas. II. Dōgen, 1200–1253. Tenzo kyōkun. English. 2005. III. Uchiyama, Kōshō, 1912– Jinsei ryōri no hon. English. 2005. IV. Title: Tenzo kyōkun. V. Title: ryōri no hon. BQ9449.D654.T4685 2005 294.3′444―dc22 2005048964 Contents Translator’s Introduction INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ZEN COOK (Tenzo Kyōkun) by Zen Master Dōgen HOW TO COOK YOUR LIFE (Jinsei Ryōri no Hon) by Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi 1 The Tenzo Kyōkun and Shikan-taza 2 Concerning the Religious Life 3 The True Form of the Self 4 Everything You Encounter is Your Life 5 Seeing the World Without Holding Worldly Values 6 On Parental Mind 7 Having a Passion for Life 8 Direction and Goal 9 Making Life Calculations 10 Working with Clear Vision 11 Living Through the Life of the Self 12 On Life Force and Life Activity 13 The Function of a Settled Life 14 Throwing Your Life into the Abode of the Buddha Notes Glossary E-mail Sign-Up Publisher’s Note This book contains diacritics and special characters. If you encounter difficulty displaying these characters, please set your e-reader device to publisher defaults (if available) or to an alternate font. Translator’s Introduction The following text of the Tenzo Kyōkun, or as I have entitled it in English, Instructions for the Zen Cook, was written over a period of years by Eihei Dōgen Zenji (1200– 1253), who was intimately familiar with both the Rinzai and Sōtō schools of Zen, and finally completed in 1237. More specifically, it was written for Dōgen’s immediate disciples living with him in a monastery in medieval Japan. Now what possible connection could a text written for a group of monks some 750 years ago have for present-day Europeans and Americans neither living in a monastery nor particularly familiar with a society or way of looking at life which differs totally from our modern Western societies? That is the question to which Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi addressed himself when he began writing the commentary that accompanies Dōgen’s text. The answer to that question, of course, depends upon the universal nature of the subject that is being addressed. In other words, such a text will have no relevancy at all if the problems that Dōgen deals with concern only a small group of male Buddhist practitioners of Kamakura-period Japan (1185–1336). I have personally found that not to be the case, especially thanks to my teacher Uchiyama Rōshi who, I believe, succeeded in pulling out those portions of the text that upon first glance seem very esoteric―perhaps bewildering is a better word―and discussed the significance such passages had for him as a twentieth- century disciple of Dōgen. As a translator, the original text and Uchiyama Rōshi’s commentary presented entirely different problems. At times Dōgen Zenji’s writings, just as classical literature, border on the impenetrable even for the present-day Japanese reader; much more so will they appear that way for a long time to a person not born in Japan nor educated from childhood to read Chinese characters. More that that, however, Dōgen’s logic is a big problem for Western readers, not to mention translators. If readers familiar with previous translations of Dōgen were to compare versions of the same writing, they would be startled to find a copious variety of interpretations for the same passage. One reason for this is that different translators will naturally express themselves differently. Yet another, deeper reason is that a translator, though familiar with the language, may be unaware of the reality behind the words. Here is where years of practice come in. For me, to translate any work of Dōgen’s without basing my daily life upon his most fundamental teaching, that is jijuyū-zammai, or zazen, would be meaningless. Unless the posture of one’s life addresses the same questions Dōgen Zenji addressed, there is little hope that the translation will be much more than a technically correct but totally incomprehensible work. The difficulty for me over the years in regard to Dōgen’s logic has been how to understand the route Dōgen took from his proposition to his conclusion. Though I might have been able to follow the development of his thought. it always seemed that somewhere along the line he made a twist or bend that did not fit into the expected route of the logic of my mind. For a long time I thought that this was mostly due to the fact that Dōgen was Japanese and I am American, and that that was the way Japanese people in those days thought. More and more, however, I have come to seen the arrogance of such thinking, and that the problem lay not with Dōgen’s logic, but rather with the expectations I brought to the text. Besides that, it was not logic per se that Dōgen took up as his life work, but rather the very nature and complexities of the reality of our life and death. I would never say, nor even imply, that after fourteen or fifteen years I now have a fairly good view of Dōgen Zenji’s Zen. What points this out to me more than anything else is my own day-to-day life where I am constantly discovering inconsistencies and gaps of negligence. Brooding over these aspects of one’s own attitude could lead one to a kind of self-browbeating or worse. Yet ignoring these things would lead to nothing but another kind of egotistical arrogance. Reflecting on them surely becomes an influence, albeit at times a very painful one, which can reveal to us the false and delusive motives of our actions. And, though “reflecting,” as I am using the word here, upon some object, whatever it might be, is not the same as shikan-taza (just doing zazen), it is surely something that we as human beings must not lose sight of. As to the problems Uchiyama Rōshi’s commentary presents for the translator, linguistically they are almost on the opposite end of the spectrum from Dōgen Zenji’s text.
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