Dogen's Private Notes from the Hokyo Era: What Was Dogen Doing?

Dogen's training under his great master, Rujing, lasted about 800 days—during which Dogen is reputed to have sat zazen not only for 8 hours every day as required in the Song Dynasty monastic schedule, but all night every night for those 800 nights. What was he doing?

In this post, we'll offer our in-house translation of a key section of Hokyo-ki, Dogen's private notes of his time with Rujing. Through carefully examining the details of what Rujing said to Dogen in this passage, we'll tease out the meaning and reveal Dogen's inner process. Our aim here is not to make Dogen's practice accessible, which is usually done by dumbing it down. Instead, we aim to be as precise as possible, because we find the actual truth regarding the profound possibilities for dharma practice so inspiring.

In case you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it here:

Dogen’s Private Notes from the Hokyo Era: Introduction

Recently, I pulled the tattered translation of the Hokyo-ki translation that I studied with Katagiri Roshi (1928-1990) from the shelf, and was moved by the tender feeling tone in the interactions between Dogen and his old master.

Vine of Obstacles ZenDosho Port