by Kikan Michael Howard

Updated March 4, 2026

On this page I provide notes and links to where Katagiri Roshi commented on Zen Master Dōgen’s Bendōwa, or where he discussed key terms used in it. This document is a work in progress. I will update it as I transcribe talks and find additional references.

[SZ] indicates text from the Sōtōshū translation of Shōbōgenzō. [EB] indicates text from “Dōgen’s Bendōwa,” translation by Norman Waddell and Abe Masao in The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. IV, No. 1, May 1971, p. 124-157, which was the translation that Katagiri Roshi used most often. [MD] indicates text from Moon in a Dewdrop, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi.

Title

辦道話
Bendōwa

[SZ] Talk on Pursuing the Way
[EB] Discourse on Negotiating the Way
[MD] On the Endeavor of the Way

  • Ben (辦) is translated as “pursuit”, “negotation”, etc.

  • Dō (道) is “Way”, in Chinese tao or dao. Dōgen Zenji’s name, Dō-gen (道元), means “Way Origin.”

  • The term “Way” is discussed extensively by Katagiri Roshi; perhaps the best place to start is the “Principles of Practice” series. Basically:

    “The Way means the universal life beyond conscious or unconscious worlds. This is the Way, where all beings exist in peace and harmony, prior to the germination of any subtle ideas. […] All sentient beings exist in the realm of the Way; that is called universal life. This life is open not only to human beings or living beings, but also inanimate beings: pebbles, water, et cetera.”
    - from “Principles of Practice, Talk 1: The Purpose of Practice”

  • Wa (話) is “talk”.

1.1

諸佛如來、ともに妙法を單傅して、阿耨菩提を證するに、最上無爲の妙術あり。

[SZ] The buddhas, the tathāgatas, all have a wondrous skill, supreme and unconditioned, for uniquely transmitting the wondrous dharma and verifying anuttara-bodhi.

[EB] Buddha-tathāgatas all have a wonderful means, which is unexcelled and free from human agency, for transmitting the wondrous Dharma from one to another without alteration and realizing supreme and complete awakening.

[MD] All buddha tathāgatas, who directly transmit inconceivable dharma and actualize supreme, perfect enlightenment, have a wondrous way, unsurpassed and unconditioned.

1.2

これ、ただほとけ、佛にさづけてよこしまなることなきは、すなはち自受用三昧、その標準なり。

[SZ] The reason this [method] is transmitted only from buddha to buddha, without deviation, is that the samādhi of receiving and using the self is its standard.

[EB] That it is only transmitted without deviation from buddha to buddha is due to the jijuyu samadhi, which is its touchstone.

[MD] Only buddhas transmit it to buddhas without veering off; self-fulfilling samadhi is its standard.

1.3

この三昧に遊化するに、端坐参禪を正門とせり。

[SZ] To disport oneself in this samadhi, studying Zen in upright sitting, is considered the main gateway.

[EB] To disport oneself freely in this samadhi, the right entrance is proper sitting in zazen.

[MD] Sitting upright, practicing Zen, is the authentic gate to the unconfined realm of this samadhi.

1.4

この法は、人人の分上にゆたかにそなはれりといへども、いまだ修せざるにはあらはれず、證せざるにはうることなし。

[SZ] Although this dharma is abundantly allotted to each person, when we have not practiced it, it does not appear, and when we do not verify it, it is not attained.

[EB] This Dharma is amply present in every person, but unless one practices, it is not manifested, unless there is realization, it is not attained.

[MD] Although this inconceivable dharma is abundant in each person, it is not actualized without practice, and it is not experienced without realization.

1.5

はなてば、てにみてり、一多のきはならむや。かたれば、くちにみつ、縦横、きはまりなし。

[SZ] Let it go, and it fills the hand — how could it be bounded by one or many? Speak of it, and it fills the mouth — vertically and horizontally without limit.

[EB] It is not a question of one or many; let loose of it and it fills your hands. It is not bounded vertically or horizontally; speak it and it fills your mouth.

[MD] When you release it, it fills your hand – how could it be limited to one or many? When you speak it, it fills your mouth – it is not bounded by length or width.

1.6

諸佛の、つねにこのなかに住持たる、各各の方面に知覺をのこさず。群生の、とこしな～にこのなかに使用する、各各の知覺に方面あらはれず。

[SZ] The buddhas are always within it, dwelling in and maintaining it, without leaving perception of it in any of its quarters; living beings are continuously within it, making use of it, without its quarters appearing in any of their perceptions.

[EB] Herein buddhas are always dwelling as masters, leaving no perceptions in any sphere or direction; herein all living beings are functioning everlastingly, with no sphere or direction appearing in any of their perceptions.

[MD] All buddhas continuously abide in it, but do not leave traces of consciousness in their illumination. Sentient beings continuously move about in it, but illumination is not manifest in their consciousness.

1.7

いまをしふる功夫辦道は、證上に萬法をあらしめ、出路に一如を行ずるなり。

[SZ] The concentrated effort in pursuit of the way that I teach here brings the myriad dharmas into existence based on verification and practices their oneness on the path leading out.

[EB] The negotiation of the Way with concentrated effort I now teach makes myriad dharmas exist in realization, and, by transcending realization, practices a total Reality.

[MD] The concentrated endeavor of the way I am speaking of allows all things to come forth in enlightenment and practice, all-inclusiveness with detachment.

  • The translation in Moon in a Dewdrop makes more sense with the comma shifted two words to the left: “The concentrated endeavor of the way I am speaking of allows all things to come forth in enlightenment, and practices all-inclusiveness with detachment.” If this is a typo, it’s been in the book since 1985.

  • This line is discussed in “Kuge: Flowers in the Sky – Talk 3”.

  • “Makes myriad beings exist in realization” is also mentioned in “Baika: Plum Blossoms – Talk 2” at 30:13.

  • “Concentrated effort” is kufū (功夫). In Chinese the term is pronounced kung fu and today is associated with the martial arts, but orginally it referred to “any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete.” (Source: Wikipedia, “Kung fu (term)”.)

1.8

その超關脱落のとき、この節目にかかはらむや。

[SZ] When we pass beyond those barriers and slough them off, how could we be concerned with these particulars?

[EB] When you go over the barrier, casting off all bondages, you are not affected by such segmented distinctions.

[MD] Passing through the barrier and dropping off limitations, how could you be hindered by nodes in bamboo or knots in wood?

2.1.1

子、發心求法よりこのかた、わが朝の遍方に知識をとぶらひき。ちなみに建仁の全公をみる。あひしたがふ霜華、すみやかに九廻をへたり。いささか臨濟の家風をきく。全公は、祖師西和尚の上足として、ひとり無上の佛法を正傳せり、あへて餘輩のならぶべきにあらず。

[EB] After the desire to seek the Way awakened in me, I went to all parts of the country, calling upon religious teachers, until I chanced to encounter the priest Myozen of Kennin-ji. Swiftly passed the frosts and flowers of the nine years I stayed with him. During that time I learned something of the manner of the Rinzai school. Myozen, the chief disciple of the patriarch Eisai, was the only of Eisai’s disciples who genuinely transmitted the supreme Buddha Dharma. None of the others could compare with him.

2.1.2

子、かさねて大宋國におもむき、知識を兩所にとぶらひ、家風を五門にきく。つひに太白峰の淨禪師に参じて、一生参學の大事、ここにをはりぬ。

[SZ] Thereafter, journeying to the Land of the Great Song, I called on wise friends in the Two Zhes and heard of the house styles at the five gates. Finally, I went to study under Chan Master Jing of Taibai Peak, and here the great matter of my entire life’s study was resolved.

[EB] In addition, I proceeded to great Sung China, where I visited some of the leading priests of Liang-che, and learned of the different characteristics of the Five Gates. Ultimately, I went to Tai-pai peak and engaged in religious practice under the Zen master Ju-ching, until I had resolved the one great matter of Zen practice for my entire life.

  • Regarding the last part of the last sentence: Isshō (一生) is “whole life.” Gaku (學) is “study” or “learn.” Daiji (大事) is “great matter.”
  • Regarding this same isshō, “whole life,” Katagiri Roshi says in “Principles of Practice, Talk 1: The Purpose of Practice”: “This one’s whole life is not your life in this world, but countless lives in an immensely long span of time, life after life. The whole life in this case [is] life after life.”
2.2

[EB] After that, the first year of the She-ting period of the Sung [1228], I returned home. As soon as I arrived, I vowed to spread the Dharma for the salvation of all beings; it was like carrying a heavy burden upon my shoulders. In spite of this, to await the time when the Buddha Dharma might be uplifted, liberating my desire for its spread, I am temporarily attempting to follow the manner of prior masters, drifting from place to place like a cloud or water-plant.

2.3

[EB] Yet what of those who decide not to concern themselves with gain or glory, who try to put their aspiration for enlightenment above all else, and who would authentically practice the Buddha Way? Being led vainly astray by mistaken teachers, they may arbitrarily impede right understanding, fruitlessly become drunk with their own confusions, and immerse themselves for long years in the realm of delusion. How, therefore, will the right seed of prajñā grow up in them? What chance have they to attain the great Way? Since I am now leading a drifting life, what mountain, or what stream should they visit [to find an authentic teacher]? It is out of compassion for this situation that I make the right Dharma of Buddhism known to them. This I do by gathering, writing down, and leaving behind for those who desire to practice and learn the Way, the customs and regulations of the Zen schools in great Sung China which I personally saw and heard and the profound teachings of their masters which I succeeded to and have observed. This is the true essence.

2.4.1

[EB] At the assembly on Vulture Peak the great teacher Sakyamuni Buddha imparted to Mahakasyapa the Dharma which has sinoe been rightly transmitted from patriarch to patriarch, finally reaching Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma went to China and there imparted the Dharma to Hui-k’o. This was the initial transmission of the Buddha Dharma to an eastern land [i.e. China]. In direct, personal transmission, it was thus handed down to the sixth patriarch Ta-chien. At that time, the genuine Buddha Dharma, beyond doubt, actually had spread extensively in China, where it appeared in its essence, unaffected by ramifying doctrinal formulations. The sixth patriarch had two superior disciples, Huai-jang of Nan-yiieh and Hsing-ssu of Ch’ing-yüan. Together they possessed and transmitted the Buddha-seal, masters both for men and for devas. As their two schools spread, they developed into the Five Gates; the Fa-yen, Kuei-yang, Ts‘ao-tung, Yun-men and Lin-chi schools. At present in the empire of the great Sung, only the Lin-chi school is found throughout the country. Though each of their Five Gates has its own peculiarities, they are all reducible to one Buddha-mind seal.

2.4.2

[EB] Beginning in the Latter Han dynasty in China, Buddhist scriptures were transmitted from the west and spread over the entire empire. Yet it was never clearly determined which of the various teachings was best. After the Bodhidharma came from the west, these entangling debates were immediately severed at their roots, and the one Buddha Dharma, free from all impurity, spread. We must aspire for the same thing to occur in our own country as well.

3.1

[EB] Patriarchs and buddhas, who have maintained the Buddha Dharma, all have held that practice based upon proper sitting in zazen in jijuyu samadhi was the right path through which their enlightenment opened. In India and China, those who have gained enlightenment have all followed in this way of practice. It is based upon the right transmission of the wonderful means in private encounter from master to disciple, and their receiving and maintaining of its authentic essence.

[MD] Now, all ancestors and all buddhas whouphold buddha-dharma have made it the true path of enlightenment to sit upright practicing in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. Those who attained enlightenment in India and China followed this way. It was done so because teachers and disciples personally transmitted this excellent method as the essence of the teaching.

3.2

[EB] According to the authentic tradition of Buddhism, this Buddha Dharma, transmitted rightly and directly from one to another, is the supreme of the supreme. From the first time you meet your master and receive his teaching, you have no need for either incense-offerings, homage-paying, nembutsu, penance disciplines, or silent sutra-readings; only cast off body and mind in zazen.

[MD] In the authentic tradition of our teaching, it is said that this directly transmitted, straightforward buddha-dharma is the unsurpassable of the unsurpassable. From the first time you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha’s name, repentance, or reading scriptures, youshould just wholeheartedly sit, and thus drop away bodyand mind.

3.3

[EB] When even for a short period of time you sit properly in samadhi, imprinting the Buddha-seal in your three activities [deeds, words, and thought], each and every thing excluding none is the Buddha-seal, and all space without exception is enlightenment. Accordingly, it makes buddha-tathāgatas all increase the Dharma-joy of their original source, and renew the adornments of the Way of enlightenment. Then, when all classes of all beings in the ten directions of the universe — the hell-dwellers, hungry ghosts, and animals; the fighting demons, men, and devas — all together at one time being bright and pure in body and mind, realize the stage of absolute emancipation and reveal their original aspect, at that time all things together come to realization in themselves of the true enlightenment of the Buddha, utilize the Buddha-body, immediately leap the confines of this personal enlightenment, sit properly beneath the kingly Tree of Enlightenment, turn simultaneously the great and utterly incomparable Dharma wheel, and expound the ultimate and profound prajñā free from all human agency.

3.4

[EB] Since, moreover, these enlightened ones in their turn enter into the way of imperceptible mutual assistance, the man in zazen without fail casts off body and mind, severs the heretofore disordered and defiled thoughts and views emanating from his discriminating consciousness, conforms totally in himself to the genuine Buddha Dharma, and assists universally in performing the work of buddhas at each of the various places the buddha-tathāgatas teach, that are as infinitely numberless as the smallest atom-particles—imparting universally the ki-transcending buddha, vigorously uplifting the Dharma transcending buddha. Then the land, the trees and grasses, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all the various things in the ten directions, perform the work of buddhas. Because of this, all persons who share in the wind and water benefits thus produced receive the unperceived help of the buddhas’ wonderful and incomprehensible teaching and guidance, and all manifest their inherent enlightenment. Since all who receive and employ this fire and water turn round and round the teaching of original enlightenment, all who dwell and talk together with them also join with one another in possessing inexhaustible Buddha-virtue, causing it to spread and spread ever wider, circulating the inexhaustible, unceasing, incomprehensible, and immeasurable Buddha Dharma, inside and outside throughout the universe. Yet such things are not mingled in the perceptions of one sitting in zazen, because [this occurs] in the stillness of samadhi beyond human artifice, and is in itself realization. If practice and realization were two different stages as ordinary people consider them to be, the one sitting in zazen and things should perceive each other. To be associated with perceptions is not the mark of realization, because the mark of realization is to be beyond such illusions.

3.5

[EB] Moreover, although in realization the mind [of the zazen practicer] and its objects both arise and disappear within the stillness of samadhi, since it occurs within the sphere of jijuyii, it does not disturb a single mote of dust, nor infringe upon a single phenomenon. It does great and wide-ranging buddha-work, and performs the exceedingly profound, recondite activities of preaching and enlightening. The trees, grasses, and land involved in this all emit a bright and shining light, and preach the profound and incomprehensible Dharma; and it is endless. Trees and grasses, wall and fence expound and exalt the Dharma for the sake of ordinary people, sages, and all living beings. Ordinary people, sages, and all living beings in turn preach and exalt the Dharma for the sake of trees, grasses, wall and fence. The dimension of self-enlightenment qua enlightening others basically is fully replete with the characteristics of realization, and causes the principle of realization to function unceasingly.

3.6

[EB] Because of this, when even just one person, at one time, sits in zazen, he becomes, imperceptively, one with each and all of the myriad things, and permeates completely all time, so that within the limitless universe, throughout past, future, and present, he is performing the eternal and ceaseless work of guiding beings to enlightenment. It is, for each and every thing, one and the same undifferentiated practice, and undifferentiated realization. Only this is not limited to the practice of sitting alone; the sound that issues from the striking of emptiness is an endless and wondrous voice that resounds before and after the fall of the hammer. And this is not all the practice of zazen does. Each and every thing is, in its original aspect, provided original practice — it cannot be measured or comprehended.

3.7

[EB] You must know that even if all the incalculable buddhas in the ten directions, as countless as are the sands of the Ganges, mustered all their might together, and by means of buddha-wisdom attempted to measure and totally know the merit of the zazen of a single person, yet they could not know the whole of its measure.