Katagiri Roshi discussed Fukanzazengi – Zen Master Dogen’s “Universal Recommendation for Zazen” – in many of his talks. On this page, I go through Fukanzazengi line-by-line and add notes and links to talks where Katagiri Roshi discussed the line or lines in question.

The primary text annotated here is the Sotoshu translation, which is used by many Zen centers. Alternative translations by Katagiri Roshi, where they are known, are provided as second-level blockquotes.

No single English translation of Fukanzazengi – including the Sotoshu translation – should be taken as authoritative. For a comparison of six English translations of Fukanzazengi, see “Fukanzazengi: 6 translations” (external link).

This is very much a work in progress; I will update this page as I transcribe talks and find additional references.

Fukanzazengi

The way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization?

  • “Practice and realization” is a translation of shushō (修證). This important term appears several times in Fukanzazengi; here it is also translated as “practice-realization” and “practicing and realizing.” Elsewhere it is sometimes translated as “practice-enlightenment.”
  • The meaning of shō – often translated as “realization” – should not be taken for granted. For an entire talk on the meaning of shō – and its distinction from kaku and satori, which are also sometimes translated as “enlightenment” – see Shobogenzo Bendowa: Dogen’s Questions & Answers – Talk 5.
  • On the statement “to think practice and realization are not one is a heretical view” from Bendowa, see Shobogenzo Bendowa: Dogen’s Questions & Answers – Talk 4.

The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort?

The dharma vehicle is free and unrestricted, why should we expend sustained effort?

Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean?

It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice?

And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.

  • “Hairsbreadth deviation” also appears in the Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness. Katagiri Roshi’s commentary on this is not publicly available at this time.

Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the Way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entranceway, but you are still short of the vital path of emancipation.

Suppose one gains pride of understanding and influences one’s own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, raising an aspiration to escalade the very sky. One is making the initial partial excursions about the frontiers, but is still somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation.

Consider the Buddha: although he was wise at birth, the traces of his six years of upright sitting can yet be seen. As for Bodhidharma, although he had received the mind-seal, his nine years of facing a wall is celebrated still. If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice?

Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest.

If you want to realize such, get to work on such right now.

  • A better translation might be, “If you want to realize suchness, practice suchness immediately.”

For practicing Zen, a quiet room is suitable.

Eat and drink moderately.

Put aside all involvements and suspend all affairs.

Do not think “good” or “bad.” Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a buddha. How could that be limited to sitting or lying down?

  • This is discussed as the “arrangement of the brain and nervous system” in Fukanzazengi: Dogen’s Universal Recommendation for Zazen – Talk 1 (44:56) and in the rest of the series.
  • Here Katagiri Roshi uses the Norman Waddell and Masao Abe translation: “Do not think good or bad; do not administer pros and cons.” “Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no design on becoming a Buddha.”

At your sitting place, spread out a thick mat and put a cushion on it. Sit either in the full-lotus or half-lotus position. In the full-lotus position, first place your right foot on your left thigh, then your left foot on your right thigh. In the half-lotus, simply place your left foot on your right thigh. Tie your robes loosely and arrange them neatly. Then place your right hand on your left leg and your left hand on your right palm, thumb-tips lightly touching. Straighten your body and sit upright, leaning neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward. Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel. Rest the tip of your tongue against the front of the roof of your mouth, with teeth together and lips shut.

Always keep your eyes open, and breathe softly through your nose.

  • “Breathe gently through your nose” is discussed as “arrangement of the internal organ system”; see “eat and drink moderately,” above.

Once you have adjusted your posture, take a breath and exhale fully, rock your body right and left, and settle into steady, immovable sitting. Think of not thinking, “Not thinking –what kind of thinking is that?” Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment.

It is the koan realized; traps and snares can never reach it. If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains.

For you must know that the true dharma appears of itself, so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside.

For you must know that just there, in zazen, the right dharma is manifesting itself, and that from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.

When you arise from sitting, move slowly and quietly, calmly and deliberately. Do not rise suddenly or abruptly.

In surveying the past, we find that transcendence of both mundane and sacred, and dying while either sitting or standing, have all depended entirely on the power of zazen.

In surveying the past, we find that transcendence of both un-enlightenment and enlightenment, and dying while either sitting or standing, have all depended entirely on the strength of zazen.

In addition, triggering awakening with a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and effecting realization with a whisk, a fist, a staff, or a shout –these cannot be understood by discriminative thinking; …

In addition, the bringing about of enlightenment by the opportunity provided by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and the effecting of realization with the aid of a hosu (that is, a whisk), a fist, a staff, or a shout cannot be fully understood by one’s discriminative thinking.

… much less can they be known through the practice of supernatural power. They must represent conduct beyond seeing and hearing. Are they not a standard prior to knowledge and views?

… it cannot be fully known by the practicing or realizing of supernatural power either. It must be deportment beyond one’s hearing and seeing. Is it not the principle that is prior to one’s knowledge and perceptions?

This being the case, intelligence or lack of it is not an issue; make no distinction between the dull and the sharp-witted. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is wholeheartedly engaging the way. Practice-realization is naturally undefiled. Going forward is, after all, an everyday affair.

In general, in our world and others, in both India and China, all equally hold the buddha-seal. While each lineage expresses its own style, they are all simply devoted to sitting, totally blocked in resolute stability. Although they say that there are ten thousand distinctions and a thousand variations, they just wholeheartedly engage the way in zazen. Why leave behind the seat in your own home to wander in vain through the dusty realms of other lands? If you make one misstep, you stumble past what is directly in front of you.

You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not pass your days and nights in vain. You are taking care of the essential activity of the buddha-way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from a flintstone? Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass, the fortunes of life like a dart of lightning –emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash.

Please, honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon. Devote your energies to the way of direct pointing at the real. Revere the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort. Accord with the enlightenment of all the buddhas; succeed to the samadhi of all the ancestors. Continue to live in such a way, and you will be such a person. The treasure store will open of itself, and you may enjoy it freely.