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My Moon Body: Poems from Master Dogen’s Eiheikoroku

commented by Philippe Coupey, Zen monk

“How does one understand these poems?” asks Coupey in his new book of Zen teaching on the Eiheikoroku. “They’re not really koans, because if they were koans I wouldn’t comment on them. You have to let the images permeate you — receive them by osmosis.”

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Zen master Eihei Dogen (1200-1253) is best known as the author of the Shobogenzo, a brilliant 95-chapter work which contains most of his teaching. His poems are collected in the Sanshodoei, with the exception of the poems found in the Eiheikoroku (The Complete Record of Eihei Dogen), long kept secret and reserved for his closest disciples. The ten volumes of lectures and poems that comprise the Eiheikoroku were compiled after Dogen’s death by his secretary Ejo and other disciples.

Master Taisen Deshimaru commented on 46 of the Eiheikoroku poems during his last summer retreat at the Gendronnière Zen Temple in France in 1981. From winter 2000 to the fall of 2003, Philippe Coupey, a close disciple of Deshimaru’s, transmitted his master’s commentaries in his own kusen (oral teaching during zazen), enriching them with his own experience and understanding. These teachings have been compiled into a book, My Moon Body, which will be released (in French) in January 2008 by Èditions DésIris. The poems and commentaries are illustrated with photographs by Christophe Chat-verre, Juliette Heymann, Fati Ipaktchi and Elaine Konopka.

The Eiheikoroku poems contain the pure teaching of Dogen and of other masters past and present. They are an exact expression of Soto Zen: finding awakening through the practice of zazen.

Poem 17, for example:

Gathered for evening zazen, we see the morning come.
This is the best part, and we have no desire to sleep.
Thus we can understand bendo, the true practice of the Way.

Or poem 41:

The hard, severe winter is not yet over, but spring is already here.
Crossing your legs and practicing a good method
Is neither old nor fresh.
In one year, there are two first days of spring.

 

Nature is a prominent theme in Dogen’s poetry. The Eiheikoroku poems contain many references to the moon and mountains, to snow and wind.

Here is poem 25:

Why always just one color, white?
Who discusses sky and human beings?
Do not transmit the language of the bird who suffers from the cold.
Beyond is a calm and tranquil lake in the snowy Himalayas.

Yet nature’s displays create no duality for he who sees without attachment, without finding things particularly beautiful or ugly. Dogen expresses this in poem 28:

Even if the plum or peach blossom is lovely, I will not admire it.
If the pine and cedar lose their greenness, I will not be upset,
Because the man of the Way forgets himself as the snowflake vanishes in the spring wind.
And so for ten years I have continued to reject myorei, attachment.

Facing nature is like facing the wall in the dojo — in other words, facing ourselves. These poems are not inspired by naturalism or Taoism; the frequent references to nature are images of silence — the external silence of the mountain or the forest, but also the inner silence of the mind.

“Dogen’s poems, as non-rational as they may be, are really an encouragement to practice,” says Coupey. “They’re a finger pointing out the path to be taken, without getting into any categories — not even the category of zazen.”

The wind sweeps away the clear and wonderful teaching of the patriarchs.
Mountains and rivers are piled up ten million times into infinity.

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Excerpt from My Moon Body,
by Philippe Coupey

 

Poem 39: Winter Solstice

Today is short, yesterday long.
I finally realize that the Buddha-dharma cannot be understood or thought about.
Even if all reflections come to an end, how can we progress while knowing?
Everywhere I meet other people, I wish them "Happy New Year."

Master Dogen composed this poem at the time of the winter solstice, when the day is the shortest of the year and the night is the longest. But what is long, and what is short? When the Americans bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for the sum of $700,000, the United States grew bigger and Russia became smaller. And yet the Earth was not bigger or smaller because of it. Don’t look at only one side of things; don’t get stuck on your personal point of view…

How do we choose, really? Do we actually choose the direction our life will take — the right time to have a baby, for example, or whether or not to participate in the next sesshin? Are these things really the result of our decisions, or do they come about by themselves, in the invisible world?

…Once words and thoughts are abandoned, how do we act? What is correct behavior? Here is the answer: go straight to the mind of the Way — that is, to the practice, to zazen. Everything else is secondary. Don’t get stuck on one side of things, don’t be fooled by form, and don’t seek profit: this is the mind of the Way. When you enter into action, whatever that action is, do the impossible. In other words, be in the moment, welcoming all the world’s phenomena. Don’t separate yourself from daily life. Your practice in the dojo should show up in the way you are at home, or during meals: when you eat, you eat. The posture during meals is the same as the posture in the dojo, and this is also true for your posture in bed. There are all kinds of ways to fall asleep. Some people fall in a heap and when they snore, it’s not their fault. Then their snoring wakes them and they wonder who woke them up. But there are other ways to sleep: “sleeping/not-sleeping.” It’s possible. It’s zazen. In other words: attention!

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Mon corps de lune: poèmes de l’Eiheikoroku de Maître Dogen par Philippe Coupey, moine zen (My Moon Body: Poems from Master Dogen’s Eiheikoroku, commented by Philippe Coupey, Zen monk) (Paris: Éditions Désiris, January 2008). Available (in French) from the publisher and all the usual virtual and flesh-and-blood booksellers, as well as through Zen Road.