Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on Devotion

An Excerpt from  Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse's Guru Drinks Bourbon  How to Generate Devotion Most of us think that because we have studied the Dharma for a while we have understood a few things. We may have understood a little, and we may have even had some fleeting experience. If we are aware that this knowledge and experience can always be improved upon and transcended, if we are not satisfied with the little that we have, if we have the courage to let go of what we have and still hunger for more, this is the dawning of devotion. This is a sign of humility. Humility is the moisture or fertilizer from which devotion will grow. To help that devotion grow, remember the following Your friends, family, identity, or projects, big or small, will not provide you with the fundamental basis necessary for bliss and happiness. Absolutely everything around you is impermanent, even your body, and while you can be sure you will die, you can have no certainty about when, where, or how. The people with whom you associate, who accompany you through this life, will all eventually lead you to pain. All your relationships are temporary. When you check into a hotel you don’t immediately start thinking that you’ll spend eternity with the managers, maids, and waiters. Your home, your friends, your ideals and values are just part of a hotel experience. Sooner or later, you will have to check out and leave them all behind. The triple gems are glorious. Think often on their enlightened qualities, and whenever possible, try to associate with a virtuous friend, a guru who will point out your mistakes honestly. Nothing happens randomly; everything happens according to the mathematical logic of cause, condition, and effect. To this logic we owe our complete trust. Modern people already trust the function of karma on some level: for example, we know that a marigold is not created by a god but that it grows from a seed when all the necessary conditions come together. What we don’t all have is the more profound, undeniable trust in karma. This is what leads to so much disappointment and the feeling that life is “unfair,” especially when we do our best to do the right thing yet suffer unexpected consequences. We trust only the immediate and obvious causes and conditions and never suspect that there are layers and more layers lining up behind them. If you arouse these thoughts in your mind, devotion will also be aroused. Four Types of Devotion According to Jigme Lingpa, there are four different types of devotion: Inspiring devotion: You read and hear the words of the Buddha and they make sense, and therefore you feel attracted to the Dharma. Ideally, this is the kind of devotion you begin with. Desiring devotion: Like a bee desiring pollen, you have a desire to create certain qualities in yourself—the desire to apply the teachings and attain their result. Trusting devotion: You begin to see the unsurpassable and nondeceiving quality of the triple gems, and therefore you have confidence in the master and the teaching from the bottom of your heart. Nonreturning devotion: Once you’re convinced that the thing above you is the sky, nothing will shatter that conviction. Once you have developed a trust in view, meditation, and action through hearing, meditation, and contemplation, you will never see the guru as anything other than the Buddha. You enter onto the path of the Dharma with strong determination and a conviction that you will never turn back. This is what we call “nonreturning devotion.”

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Sakyasribhadra: A Reader's Guide to the 12th Century Kashmiri Pandita

Image from HAR Sakyasribhadra, also known as Sakyasri or Khache Panchen, was an important Kashmiri pandita in the 12th and early 13th centuries who came to Tibet. His full biography is on the Treasury of Lives site. He has a connection with many of the lineages in Tibet extant during his visit. He is well known in the Sakya tradtion for being one of Sakya Pandita's teachers. Together they translated Dharmakirti's Pramanavarttika which Saypan then taught extensively. As described in both Parting from the Four Attachments: A Commentary on Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen's Song of Experience on Mind Training and the View and Treasures of the Sakya Lineage, Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen, Sakya Pandtia's uncle was practicing so Saypan and Sakyasribhadra went to see him: "Jetsun Rinpoche was making the offerings and praises to the Guhyasamaja deity he had created in front of him. Thinking he should show respect to his visitor, he rose to greet the Pandita, intended to place his bell and vajra on the table but leaving them hanging in the air. The great Pandita said, 'That is really a cause for amazement.' Jetsun Rinpoche humbly replied, 'This is nothing amazing at all.' The Pandita then prostrated to Jetsun Rinpoche, but the junior panditas with him complained, saying 'It is not appropriate to offer prostrations to a layperson. Even though you did it already, please do not offer him more.' The great Pandita replied, 'Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen is the true Mahavajradhara. He has seen the mandala of Guhyasamaja.' He then made Jestun Rinpoche his crown ornament." Later, according to Ringu Tulku's The Ri-Me Philosophy of Jamgon Kongtrul, Sakyasribharda gave Vajrikilaya instrucitions to Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen. This work discusses Sakyasribhadra several times, including how he brought a Kalachakra teaching lineage to Tibet, now referred to as Panchen Luk or Chal Luk. When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sutra and Tantra mentions him several times, once in an account from Go Lotsawa's Blue Annals of Sakyasribhadra giving pith instruction on the five works of Maitreya, and a brief discussion of his Mahamudra transmissions. He is known for establishing an ordination lineage of the Vinaya in western Tibet after the dark period following King Langdarma. Sakyasribhadra also introduced a new way of approaching Buddhist chronology, different from what had come into Tibet previously but closer to what we know today from scholarly research.  He is also associated with a teaching lineage on the Treasury of Abhidharma. He is also connected with the Drikung Kagyu tradition and Jigten Sumgon. This is detailed in several sections on Opening the Treasure of the Profound: Teachings on the Songs of Jigten Sumgon and Milarepa. Here is one of them, translated from Pemap Karpo: "An arhat from Ceylon gave three golden flowers to Khache Panchen and asked him to take them to Tibet. He said that one should be given to the incarnation of Arya Nagarjuna, but Khache Panchen didn’t know where to find him. When Khache Panchen was staying at Lemoche, he announced that whoever came to him for bhikshu ordination would receive a Dharma robe. A Khampa monk from Drigung received ordination and asked for a robe, but none were left. He insisted, and tugged at the robe of Khache Panchen. Khache Panchen’s attendants beat him, and blood flowed from his mouth and nose. Ordinarily, White Tara would appear in Khache Panchen’s meditation, but for seven days after that incident she didn’t show herself. Khache Panchen did purification practices and supplicated her. After seven days had passed, Tara appeared with her back turned to him. 'Arya Tara,' he asked, 'what have I done wrong?' She replied, 'You defiled your karma by beating Nagarjuna’s disciple.' 'I don’t remember that,' he said, and Tara answered, 'You beat him until he bled.' Khache Panchen asked how he could purify that misdeed, and Tara replied, 'You should give Dharma robes equal in number to your years to those monks who have none.' He promised to do that, and then searched for the monk who had been beaten. He found him, learned the name of his teacher, and realized that Jigten Sumgön was Nagarjuna. He offered the flower to him." For the Nyingma tradition he was a supporter, reporting the existence of both the Guhyagarbha tantra-which he saw with his own eyes in Sanskrit at Samye- as well as the extant practice of Varjakiliaya in India, both of which had come under some doubt in some quarters as not having confirmed Indian origins. Jamgon Kongtul Lodro Thaye, in his Autobigraphy recounts several appearances of Khache Panchen including this dream: "One night, I dreamed of a temple in the Indian style, with a courtyard surrounded by a low brick wall. Off to one side, I saw an image of the great glorious Vajrakumara, in a style resembling the Nepalese, which I understood to be painted by Khaché Panchen in blood that flowed from his own nose. To either side of the figure, the canvas was filled with depictions of the essential mantra of the deity. This image became more and more radiant, until finally I couldn’t bear to look at it." There is an out-of-print book by David Jackson, Two Biographies of Sakyasribhadra, (there were five but the other three are lost) a review of which is available on Academia.edu. For those with access, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 114, has Leonard van der Kuijp's "On the Lives of Sakyasribhadra". Lotsawa House has several pieces of has work translated including Instructions on Pure View and Conduct, A Brief Practice for Paying Homage and Making Offerings to the Buddha Together with his Retinue of Arhats, and The Seven Branches for Practicing the Sacred Dharma (which includes a common refuge prayer).

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An Excerpt from Coming Home from Tibet

On 14 April 2010, my aunt was wrapping up her prayers and enjoying her morning tea when she felt the windows in her room rattle and the bed beneath her shift. She ran out of her room to join the rest of the family in the yard. “Tsering Wangmo, Kyegu is gone. Everything is gone and I am still here,” she said when I managed to get through to her by phone, hours after an earthquake hit the town of Kyegu. Tashi could not describe what had happened to the houses on her street. She could not see very far; dust hung in myriad shapes in the air. She had lived on this street for two decades and it was now unrecognizable. Every family in Kyegu lost a loved one or knew someone who was killed. The neighbor across the street dug into the debris of his house with his hands, hoping his wife, daughter-in-law, and his young grandchildren would still be alive. The living moved into canvas tents. Many of my relatives lived in tents for as long as three years. I have not been able to visit my family since 2009. An employee at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco reminded me in 2010 that she was not obliged to give me a reason, when I asked why I was denied a visa two years in a row. When I do visit Kyegu, I will have to acquaint myself to its new shape. My aunt’s neighbor’s family will not be there. The streets of “the town of nine lives” will not be the same as I have recorded in the pages of this book. The memory of the town is not erased but has merely been rearranged, I tell myself. The new has traces of the old. New injuries build on the old. When I return to the towns and villages of Amdo, Golog, and Yushu, I will hear the stories and the names of Tibetans—over a hundred in number—who have sacrificed their lives by immolating themselves. Their names are part of the narratives of these villages and towns. And, of Tibet. It is not possible to speak of death, someone else’s death, in the ways I have already attempted in this book. The wide, deceptively empty spaces of the high grasslands can no longer be categorized as just beautiful stretches of land. They are also spaces of continuing protest or contestation. It does not suffice to speak of someone else’s death, to inscribe meaning, to speak of the past and future solely through the custom of the old language and religion. We must find a language that responds to the present reality where it is possible to speak of the present only if we give it up. A language that seeks to understand what it means when an individual takes death to be hope for the future. What does it say about the possibilities of the future? How do we read the silence framing the self-immolations and in what language and register must we learn to respond? Are we listening to the aspirations of Tibetans inside Tibet to guide policies toward a future for all Tibetans?mem

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A Walk with Dogen into Our Time

For a full reader's guide to Dogen's works, visit our Reader Guide. Peter Levitt's introduction to The Essential Dogen In 1954 poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem called "Song" that acknowledges the weight of our human circumstance and suf­fering in a particular and somewhat unusual way. I believe it may also provide a gateway to the following writings by Zen master Eihei Dogen, who addressed the nature of reality as he came to understand the world of people and things through his lifetime practice of Zen. As the poem begins, Ginsberg says: Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, the weight we carry is love Suffering under such a weight is often accompanied by longing, as the poet well knew, and so his poem expresses the longing to return to that human possibility known by many names, including wholeness, oneness, unity, and Self, though Ginsberg simply called it love. Quite young when the poem was written, the poet was inspired by an intuitive certainty that the twin burdens of solitude and dissatisfaction would be relieved if the realization of wholeness or love might find full expression in the world. Of course, Ginsberg also understood that his longing for completion was not his alone, but part of the common spiritual yearning experienced by people in every place and time, and so he acknowledges this in the final lines through the repetition of a single affirmative word, followed by other rhythmic phrasing that functions like the beating of a heart: yes, yes, that’s what I wanted, I always wanted, I always wanted, to return to the body where I was born The body of wholeness. The body of unity. What Zen monk Dogen called “the body after the final body,” and what the poet identifies as the body of love. It is for this body he longed, and whatever words are used to point to the primordial condition of oneness acknowledged by virtually every spiritual tradition, Ginsberg importantly refers to the journey there as a “return.” More than seven hundred years before this poem was written, Dogen crossed the sea from Japan to China, following his sincere aspiration to realize wholeness, which, interestingly, he later referred to as a “return to the source,” “return to reality,” or “self returning to self,” prefiguring Ginsberg’s use of the word return. One of Dogen’s primary motivations for making this dangerous journey was to study with authentic teachers so that he might satisfy his spiritual quest to fully realize “the great matter of birth-and-death.” After two years of significant study with other teachers, Dogen was told, “The only person in Great Song China who has a dharma eye is Old Man Rujing.” Having also heard that Rujing would accept new students if they vowed to maintain the tradition of genuine, rigorous practice under his strict guidance, Dogen made his way to Rujing’s temple. Once at the Tiantong monastery, he wrote to Rujing as “a humble person from a remote country” and requested permission to enter Rujing’s inner chamber and receive the abbot’s personal instruction. Rujing must have found the heartfelt authenticity of this request from a monk who had traveled so far in search of dharma quite compelling, for without ever having laid eyes on Dogen, he replied, “Yes, you can come informally to ask questions any time, day or night, from now on. Do not worry about formality; we can be like father and son.” And he signed it, “Old Man at Mount Taibo.” Rujing must also have perceived fire in the aspiration and practice of monk Dogen, whose own “Rules for Zazen” admonishes students of the way to be mindful of time’s swift passage and “engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.” At their very first meeting, when Dogen was twenty-six years old (in the East Asian way of counting), Rujing acknowledged him and said, “The dharma gate of face-to-face transmission from buddha to buddha, ancestor to ancestor, is actualized now.” Dogen began practice under Rujing’s unwavering eye, and not long after, Rujing confirmed that Dogen had indeed “dropped away body and mind” and come to the great realization of wholeness for which Ginsberg would also long, in a place and time that even Dogen could not imagine. For two more years, Dogen trained below Taibo Peak, whereupon Rujing acknowledged him as his dharma successor and presented him with the traditional document of heritage. Thereafter, Dogen returned to Japan, feeling the heavy burden on his shoulders “to spread the teaching and save sentient beings.” True, his own sincere quest was satisfied, but now he pondered how he might nourish others’ aspirations with the great care that had helped him to “return to the source.” Dogen certainly knew the profundity of one’s aspiration to realize wholeness, and so he felt the pressing need to “leave for students of the way the authentic teaching of the buddha house.” His deepest wish was to articulate both the principle and the path as Rujing had transmitted them to him, so that others might come to full understanding as well. The depth of Dogen’s compassion for others, and his commitment to provide authentic teachings, can be seen in an extraordinary essay written in 1231. As with much of Dogen’s writing, “On the Endeavor of the Way” is alternately considered insightful and compelling or confusing and confounding by various readers, but Kazuaki Tanahashi, coeditor of this book, has noted it is “highly respected in the Soto School as Dogen’s most comprehensive explanation of dharma.” In its entirety, this essay introduces primary themes Dogen would develop over his lifetime, while serving as a masterful clarification of wholehearted seated meditation (zazen), which Dogen refers to as “the authentic gate to free yourself.” It also voices the burden he felt and the weight of love that the Ginsberg poem brings forward. Here is an excerpt from near the beginning: There may be true students who are not concerned with fame and gain, who allow their aspiration for enlightenment to guide them and earnestly desire to practice the buddha way. They may be misguided by incapable teachers and obstructed from the correct understanding; intoxicated in confusion they may sink into the realm of delusion for a long time. How can they nourish the correct seed of prajna and encounter the time of attaining the way? Since I am wandering about, which mountain or river can they call on? Because of my concern for them, I would like to record the standards of Zen monasteries that I personally saw and heard in Great Song, as well as the profound principle that has been transmitted by my master. And so, having come to great realization under Rujing’s guidance, Dogen understood fully in body and mind that from the very beginning, wholeness is the fundamental reality for all beings; that, in fact, every form of life is an all-inclusive manifestation of what might be called “original wholeness,” though people suffer from the ingrained pattern of dualistic thinking that prevents us from knowing our complete and original self. As a result, Dogen initiated a lifetime of teaching and writing in one of the most unique and provocative styles the world has seen, so that others might also clarify the great matter of birth-and-death; self might have a bridge to self; wholeness in human form might be expressed as wholeness; and sentient beings might be saved from the unforgiving rigors of delusion, anguish, and needless suffering—the burden of dissatisfaction—in all of its forms. During his lifetime, Dogen elucidated the principle and path of what I’ve called “original wholeness,” a phrase I hope will join others in these comments to identify in contemporary speech what is usually referred to in more traditional Zen terminology. As the literature of Zen makes clear, it is difficult, if not impossible, for words and phrases to embody the true content and nature of realization. Brilliant and provocative as his words were, even Dogen’s attempt to convey to Rujing the moment of his realization by saying, “I have dropped away body and mind,” may well have fallen short of the challenge to express his realization as it was in itself. Our attempt to authentically communicate the subjective, ineffable experience (or nonexperience, as Dogen might say) of realization is hindered by the limiting ability of the very words we use. It was not Dogen’s, and it is not anyone else’s lack that the vivid power of experience cannot be fully embodied in words. No matter how compelling or beautiful they may be, words appeal in the main to the linear, thinking mind that thinks in words. Elegant, discerning, and seemingly endless in its capacity to comprehend, ultimately the cognitive faculty can only provide a partial understanding, since it is but one of the ways human beings “know” life as it occurs. There is still the intuitive to be considered, the physical, the dream. all of these and more are also authentic ways of knowing. As a master of language, Dogen’s usage was penetrating and poetic in the extreme. Well aware of its limitations, he developed a mode of expression to convey dharma that engages more of the human capacity for understanding than just the thinking mind, though certainly, as when he was at pains to meticulously describe the practice of meditation or provide temple guidelines, his writing was prescriptive and clear. Many of the practices found in Zen communities today are performed almost exactly as Dogen described.   When it came to a nuanced expression of dharma, however, he spun words and turned phrases constantly, often creating new meanings on the spot or using the same words and phrasing to make a point in the first moment and then contradict that very point in the next. His teachings, on occasion delivered past midnight during intensive periods of practice, might even be seen as a kind of linguistic acrobatics—a compelling, clarifying, and often confusing explosion of sentences that rely on subtlety, invention, piercing insight, and realized expression to embody his meaning and help students fulfill their deepest aspirations. Filled with images, metaphor, logic and illogic, in addition to stories taken from the storehouse of the Buddha’s teaching and the literature of Zen, which he would present in a manner that often overturned traditional interpretations, Dogen’s teachings almost make a poetic and holographic impression in the body-mind that leaves a visceral impact while simultaneously appealing to the intellect. In so doing, he turns the body, turns the mind. In one teaching that addresses the inherent qualities of words, Dogen’s statement seems to undo everything I have been saying about the impossibility of using words to express enlightenment. As Kaz Tanahashi observes in his insightful translation of Dogen’s lifework, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, with regard to Zen master Xiangyan’s statement that “a painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger”: This is usually interpreted as “studying words and letters does not help one to realize ultimate truth.” Dogen’s interpretation is that words and letters as an expression of enlightenment cannot be separated from the ultimate truth. Thus, “painted rice cake” means an expression of enlightenment. Kaz Tanahashi I can only laugh. Quite a few times in the ten years of working with Kaz on our various Dogen projects (which has been a personal treasure and a source of great joy in my life), I would turn from the text and ask, “How in the world did he come up with this?” We could only shake our heads with appreciation for the depth of his understanding. “It’s Dogen! Dogen’s use of what he called “intimate language,” like the words and turning phrases of the buddha ancestors who came before him, is rooted in the nondual experience of realization. It is intended to help students yield the grip of linear, discriminative thinking and turn the mind toward an understanding of things as they truly are. Creative and virtuosic in this regard, he may be our only precontemporary postmodern deconstructionist elucidator of the way. Dogen’s teachings were offered to women and men, lay and monastic alike (though of course the primary recipients were his monastic students), with the expectation that they would work in conjunction with the primary activity of those who studied the buddha way: the steadfast practice of zazen. They were intended as companions of this activity, a wake-up stick whose touch and sound might resound deeply in a student’s awakening field of understanding. They were never meant to replace seated meditation or to provide linguistic entertainment for students to spin in their minds while sitting idly on their cushions. Challenging as these teachings were, Dogen’s use of words to undo words and his twirling of concepts to unravel concepts helped students to embrace his instruction to study them intimately—his credo in all things—until the lock of discriminative thinking fell away and their practice deepened to where thinking “beyond thinking” became the activity of zazen itself. Dogen points in this direction in his essay “The Point of Zazen”: Yaoshan, Great master Hongdao, was sitting. A monk asked him, “In steadfast sitting, what do you think?” Yaoshan said, “Think not-thinking.” “How do you think not-thinking?” Yaoshan replied, “Beyond thinking.” And in “On the Endeavor of the Way,” Dogen encouraged his students in the following manner: Sit zazen wholeheartedly, conform to the buddha form, and let go of all things. Then, leaping  beyond the boundary of delusion and enlightenment, free from the paths of ordinary and sacred, unconstrained by ordinary thinking, immediately wander at ease, enriched with great enlightenment. When you practice in this way, how can those who are concerned with the traps and snares of words and letters be compared to you? The ability to leap beyond dualistic thinking during zazen is fundamental to Dogen Zen. It is due to the wholehearted, all-inclusive nature of the activity, but we should look at this carefully to be sure we discern his meaning. As taught by Dogen, meditation does not lead to enlightenment. In fact, there is no distance of any kind between meditation and enlightenment. There is not even a separation between one’s aspiration to realize the self and that very realization. According to Dogen, from the very first moment of establishing the meditation posture, no bridge is necessary; practice is full realization, and full realization is practice. As he says, “between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment’s gap.” Dogen’s understanding is that at all moments we are whole, lacking nothing despite how we may feel at any given time. Therefore, zazen is not a practice that leads to realization. It is neither a means to an end in our usual goal-oriented manner of thinking nor a method for learning to concentrate; nor is it a technique designed to help us improve ourselves, though the practice may help to bring some of that about. Dogen’s teaching is clear: zazen is “the dharma gate of enjoyment and ease,” an intimate expression of the oneness of all life as it manifests in human form. It is realization itself, whether we are aware of it or not. It confirms what has traditionally been called “original self ” or, more provocatively, “your face before your parents were born.” And so we do not sit in order to become enlightened; we sit as an expression of enlightenment. That is what buddhas do. Of course, Dogen knew that students might greet this lofty teaching with doubt, as some Zen practitioners today will verify, and so he addressed the issue directly: Know that fundamentally you do not lack unsurpassed enlightenment; you are replete with it continuously. But you may not realize it and may be in the habit of arousing discriminatory views and regarding them as real. To clarify his teaching on the inseparability of practice and enlightenment, Dogen used the Japanese word shusho, the equivalent of the English term practice-enlightenment, or practice-realization. He relied on teachings such as the following to bring his point across: One time, Huineng, Old buddha of Caoxi, asked a monk, “Do you depend upon practice and enlightenment?” The monk replied, “It’s not that there is no practice and no enlightenment. It’s just that it’s not possible to divide them.” This being so, know that the undividedness of practice and enlightenment is itself the buddha ancestors. But just to sweeten the pot, here is another statement Dogen made on what he called “the thunderstorm of the buddha ancestors’ samadhi.” I imagine it is one his students had to swallow whole during zazen in order for it to blossom in their lives. “Enlightenment,” he wrote, “actualizes buddha nature through practice.” While for Dogen all beings are “fundamentally enlightened,” it is reasonable to ask, as he did during his travels in China: If this is the case and we are whole from the beginningless beginning, why do we practice? To answer, I’d like to offer a response based on Dogen’s teaching: We practice because we do not yet know who or what we are. But as a result of many causes, including the suffering we experience and the longing engendered by that suffering, we aspire to know. That aspiration leads many people to begin the practice of zazen. Dogen expressed this beautifully when he said, “Wisdom is seeking wisdom.” Perhaps we might paraphrase and say that wholeness is seeking wholeness, self is seeking self. Dogen’s understanding of original wholeness is a radical and life-giving affirmation of all being, where the word radical means “root.” At first it may be difficult for us to hear what he is saying. After all, most of us were raised with the idea inherited from our various religious traditions that originally we are not at one with Oneness, that from the moment of conception we live at a distance from the source of life. Except for the more mystical orientation within these traditions that speaks of immanence, divinity is seen as solely transcendent and, thereby, is considered “radically other” from human beings. This belief in distance and otherness is a powerful root of the culturally pervasive view that consciously and unconsciously shapes our lives. As such, it affects how we experience who and what we are. In addition, the fracturing pressures of contemporary life might lead many of us to agree that we live at a distance not only from the source but also from ourselves. In saying this, I am reminded of a comment made by Franz Kafka, who wrote with such accuracy, pathos, and humor about the bizarre and dislocating minefield of modern society. When asked about his connection to others particular to his ethnic and religious community, he replied, “What do I have in common with them? I hardly have anything in common with myself!” I don’t believe that Kafka is alone in feeling at odds with himself. Contemporary people trying to get through the overburdened scatter of a day could easily agree. And Dogen might well have been looking directly at us through time when he wrote, “Your thoughts run around like a wild horse, and your feelings jump about like a monkey in the forest.” Given this disposition and the increasing pace and unpredictability of life as we edge further into the twenty-first century, it’s no wonder that we experience such a pervasive sense of anxiety and dislocation. But there is more. Just as our religious traditions affect our understanding, the defining influence of secular and cultural values has a considerable effect as well. In our culture, this includes the glorification of the rugged individualist, an idea that reifies and seems to concretize the separateness of each person who, according to the mythology, must confront life and nature alone and stand in isolated opposition to all others in order to survive. Is this not part of what creates the burden of solitude to which Ginsberg referred? In addition, there is the societal expectation of endless acquisition whose underlying message that what we are and what we have are not enough epitomizes the burden of dissatisfaction. Though many have found ways to keep the more insatiable appetites at bay, the acquisitive sensibility keeps the mind of comparison, judgment, envy, and greed spinning. Sadly, no realm of life remains immune, including the realm of spiritual aspiration and practice. What a far cry this is from Dogen’s realization of wholeness, or even the occasional experience of feeling at one with ourselves, with life, and with the world. The suffering produced by these powerful influences undermines our sense of wholeness and denies the reality of the interdependent fabric of life that brings all things into existence and makes them what they are. Although what is now called interdependence, which Dogen understood as basic to buddha dharma, is widely accepted as an accurate description of life functioning exactly as it does, the belief in eternal separation continues to have a devastating effect on our personal lives and world. In the most extreme cases, it rationalizes the poison of aggressive actions against those we identify as “other,” promoting racism, sexism, the decimation of the natural world, and war. Caught in the grip of such discriminative thinking, there is no room for us to experience intimacy. And yet intimacy, especially as Dogen understood it, is a primary antidote to many ofthe causes of destruction that, in part, define our age. The Japanese words Dogen used to express “intimate” are shimmitsu or shinsetsu. For Dogen, “intimate means close and inseparable. There is no gap. Intimacy embraces buddha ancestors. It embraces you. It embraces the self. It embraces action. It embraces generations. It embraces merit. It embraces intimacy.” When speaking of an experience, for example when Dogen exhorts students to make an intimate study of the self, the ideograph carries the sense of being both all-inclusive, or all-encompassing, and immediate. Practicing seated meditation in a way that embodies all-inclusive immediacy is what Dogen meant by “engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.” It is worth noting that a principal definition of the ideographs Dogen used to express wholeness, ichinyo in Japanese, is also “inseparable,” with the literal meaning of “one thusness” driving the sense of what inseparable means. According to Kaz Tanahashi, “one thusness” may be understood to mean “not one, not two” or “oneness,” so there is the clear implication of all-inclusiveness here as well. Nothing left out, no gap. “Intimacy,” then, means nondual. It is another word for original wholeness. To clarify the point so that there is no confusion: the fact of oneness does not imply that we do not have personal lives, each with individual attributes. Oneness does not deny individuality in any form; it makes it possible. Without the nondual functioning of oneness, nothing could exist. And without each thing existing and functioning exactly as it does, oneness cannot be manifested. As Dogen wrote on the subject of practice-realization, and as the teaching on form and emptiness found in the Heart Sutra (a central text of Mahayana Buddhism, including Zen) makes clear, “not one, not two” means “it is not possible to divide them.” For Dogen, intimacy is life itself. If we “study this intimately,” as he instructed his students to do, we may gain some insight into what he means when using terms like intimate realization, intimate life. Whether or not we practice daily meditation, we might take Dogen’s exemplification of intimacy in the form of zazen to mean that while intimacy certainly includes being or feeling close to someone, intimacy does not stop there. Dogen’s use of the word means holding nothing back while giving ourselves completely to the only moment in which we are. In this way, the moment (time) and what we are doing in that moment (being) are one intimate expression of life. Dogen calls this “time-being” in his fascicle Uji, one of his most beautiful and intricate teachings. There is the undeniable demand of thoroughness here, a quality of being best described as through-and-through, one hundred percent; a way of using ourselves fully so that we merge with our activity and, in so doing, merge intimately with all things. Dogen’s teaching that “to master one dharma [to be intimate with one thing] is to master all dharmas” points right at all-encompassing thoroughness as one of the hallmarks of intimacy. It is true, of course, that Dogen spoke of intimacy and what I’ve called original wholeness within the strict context of Zen as it was practiced in medieval Japan, but the reach and importance of these teachings are not limited by the circumstances in which they were first given. For Dogen, the centrality of zazen cannot be separated from his great realization, and while it may be anathema to some to suggest that his teachings can be applied outside a contemporary version of that context, at this historical time there is a need for the life-giving potential these teachings provide. Therefore, it may be beneficial to look within our daily lives to find ways to embrace Dogen’s vision, his understanding, and whatever practices we can on behalf of ourselves, our families, society, and the world at large. For those who do practice zazen, or who might like to establish a meditation practice, Dogen offers encouragement and guidance. In addition to the instructions he provides in “Rules for Zazen,” in the fascicle “King of Samadhis,” in Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, he writes, “Like the sun illuminating and refreshing the world, this sitting removes obscurities from the mind and lightens the body so that exhaustion is set aside.” It is a perfect prescription for the exhausting travail of our too-busy lives. Furthermore, he says, when we “gather together all distracted thought and scattered mind within this posture,” zazen “keeps your heart and mind from being stirred.” It is no small thing to have a touchstone practice every day that allows “the monkey and horse to step back and reflect on themselves” so we can experience clarity and the calming of disturbing emotions. This does not mean that we do not feel deeply or are somehow able to avoid the external or internal conditions that usually cause great upset—far from it, since Dogen taught that we should make an all-encompassing effort to meet our life as it comes to us without reservation. But it does mean that in our meditation practice, “when you are fully present, you are free of how broad or narrow it is where you are.” The ability to be fully present yet not controlled by conditions creates a stable mental and emotional foundation even in the midst of turmoil. It is a natural ability each of us has, and the benefit of establishing this greater stability can be quite significant for every aspect of our lives. If we practice it, Dogen tells us, it is realized, or “made real,” from the first moment we sit down until beyond the last, so the motivation to practice with consistency arises from the practice itself. Dogen’s realization of oneness as it appears in all of its diverse expressions reflects the field of life itself. It has been described as an open field, boundless, with a gateless gate through which to enter. It is the field in which compassion grows naturally because the usual barrier between “self ” and “other” is seen through and no longer blocks the way. As Kaz Tanahashi has noted, “Only when we identify ourselves with others can we genuinely act with love toward others.” In order to effectively express the connection and compassion we feel, however, our actions must be practical and in accord with actual, everyday life. If we remain in the realm of  nonduality, or if we are attached to the ephemeral realm of ideas alone, the ability to actualize wholeness will remain beyond our grasp. As Kaz wrote, “an enlightened person is someone who embodies the deep understanding of nonduality while acting in accordance with ordinary boundaries, not being bound to either realm but acting freely and harmoniously.” I find this a perfect description of the phrase “not one, not two,” which reflects the disposition of mind found in Dogen’s teaching. It was with this orientation that we gathered and organized the excerpts for this book to serve as possible gateways for readers, so that Dogen’s wisdom might touch their lives in a way that brings them closer to themselves and all things. As we read through the material from which we chose our selections, we saw that Dogen’s teaching on wholeness offers a positive, life-loving principle and path for people in our time to engage the very same questions humans have always faced: the impermanence of life and the great matter of birth-and-death; the fact of suffering; the undeniable chain of cause and effect; and how in the midst of life’s greatest difficulties, we can meet life with a mind that is “joyful, kind, and great” so we can still “nourish the sacred body” of all things and discover how the miracle of each moment can be experienced with our whole heart and mind. In a brief teaching titled “Undivided Activity,” which Dogen gave to an assembly of laypeople in Kyoto in 1242, he underscored the importance of each person’s living a full and active life, reminding them that “your understanding can be manifested moment after moment.” Given what we know of Dogen’s own understanding, perhaps we can say that his hope was to encourage listeners to “fully actualize life” in every possible way. Toward the end of his life, Dogen prepared a rough draft on an ancient Buddhist treatise called One Hundred Eight Gates of Realizing Dharma. The treatise emphasized the importance of using skillful means in order to realize dharma all the way through. Though Dogen’s notes are scant, here are a few examples from the treatise itself: Pure practice of mind is a gate of realizing dharma; it keeps the mind from the three types of poison [greed, aggression, and ignorance of oneness]. . . . Compassion is a gate of realizing dharma; it encompasses wholesome roots in all realms of birth. . . . mindfulness of giving is a gate of realizing dharma; it makes you free from wanting a reward. . . . Right skillful means is a gate of realizing dharma; it embodies right action. As readers will see, the gateways in the pages of this book reflect these one hundred eight gates in various ways. Some of the gateways may prove more easily entered than others, but that is a common feature of living. After reading Dogen’s writing and contemplating how to enter dharma gates skillfully so that life in its wholeness is actualized right where we are, we might come up with our own list and approach. Some readers may feel inspired to practice Zen or establish a meditation practice and might seek out a teacher or community where this can be done. Others may determine that they would like to increase personal awareness when in the grip of difficult or provocative emotions that reinforce the burden of solitude, and may therefore choose mindfulness practice as a gate. Since one gate opens onto another, mindfulness often leads to the gate of compassion and acceptance without a moment’s gap. Readers who are committed to addressing social or environmental issues with greater awareness and compassion, despite being up against difficult circumstances and aggressive opponents, will find many gates here. I know one man who realized that he relied on anger while working to help protect life in the ocean. From what he said, ever since childhood he intuitively followed Dogen’s teaching to “look after water and grain with compassionate care, as if tending your own children,” and yet his actions as an adult were so tied to rage that he contributed to the very violence he opposed. When he realized that he was actually tearing at the fabric of oneness he believed he was working to sustain, he stepped through the gate of dropping self-righteous thinking and behavior and made a radical shift that affected every aspect of his life. Finally, because there is no end to the need for the dharma gate of skillful means, another gate to consider is Dogen’s reminder that whatever we do has an effect quite particularly attached to its causation, so that before we act we consider its effect broadly for the near term and the far. This teaching on karma provides a gate of compassionate attention that can easily be applied to speech, livelihood, personal relationships, service, and actions of every kind. In closing this introduction, I’d like to step away from speaking about gates and offer a window into some of the text you are about to read. In the context of studying Dogen with others over the years, one thing has become clear: We cannot, of course, know with any precision what Dogen may have had in mind when writing some of the more intricate or perplexing teachings that rely on his great realization. but it is right in those moments, when we do not understand, that it may benefit us to remember that he is always trying to help us realize our own wholeness, our oneness, ourselves. If in those moments of confusion we look again and remember Dogen’s aspiration in teaching as he did, it may prove of some use in the end. Kaz and I have gratefully walked with Dogen as one of life’s great teachers and companions for many years. Our hope is that readers may draw close and discover him to be a true companion as well. —Peter Levitt Salt Spring Island, British Columbia

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Samurai and Japanese Culture Reader’s Guide: The Works of Master Translator and Author William Scott Wilson

One of the greatest joys for me as an editor at Shambhala Publications is when I work on books by people I have long admired. This was most definitely the case when Shambhala had the good fortune to become William Scott Wilson’s publisher several years ago. I first encountered his work when I was a young martial arts student; his translation of Takuan Soho’s The Unfettered Mind was a revelation. When, many years later, I began to correspond with him and then actually met him, I was star struck. Bill Wilson is the foremost translator into English of traditional Japanese texts on samurai culture—most famously the best-selling Hagakure—as well as other classical texts from Zen and Taoism, and the author of three books. His gift as a translator is not only his erudition and his skillful expression; it’s that his love of the subject matter pervades his writing and fills the reader up with that joy and inspiration. The samurai ethos at its very highest level was marked by the quest for self-realization and spiritual attainment, and Bill’s translations make that concept palpable. He also is a great storyteller—in person and in his writings—and that gift shines though in the introductions and notes to his translations, and in his original books. A few of Bill’s translations were also used to create a series of graphic novels that we publish—and I’ve noted this in the descriptions below. They are a great way to enhance your understanding of the classic texts—or to introduce them to a young reader. Bill is a warm and delightful person, and a complete joy to work with, and I am so pleased to be able to show off his works in this blog. Enjoy! —Beth Frankl, editor Translations by William Scott Wilson Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo This classic guide for young samurai on how to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die was once a secret text known only to the warriors of the author’s clan. Now Hagakure is iconic—often referenced in popular culture. Part of its immense appeal has been readers’ morbid fascination with Tsunetomo’s reference to bushido (the Way of the Warrior) as “the Way of death.” Bill’s introduction to Shambhala’s edition reveals how in fact bushido was a nuanced concept that related heavily to the Zen concept of muga, or “death of the ego.” Seen through this lens, the text takes on an added richness and appeal. Also available as a Pocket Edition. The Unfettered Mind, Takuan Soho Written by Takuan Soho, the seventeenth-century Zen master, as a guide for renowned samurai Yagyu Munenori, there are few more inspiring books on cultivating right mind and intention than this slim book. Takuan was a giant of Zen, and a true renaissance man (he was also a gardener, calligrapher, poet, author, painter, and advisor to samurai and shoguns) and The Unfettered Mind is witty, acerbic, and utterly brilliant. Takuan’s directive is deceptively simple: The sword and your mind are one. Understand and refine your mind and you will gain mastery over yourself and resolve any conflict. A crystal-clear message that is as applicable today as it was in the samurai era. The Life-Giving Sword, Yagyu Munenori Despite his immense martial ability, and political power and acumen, Yagyu Munenori spent his life immersed in Zen practice. Zen teachings formed the basis of his deeply spiritual approach to sword fighting: No sword necessary! Spiritual readiness to fight and a mind that is free of everything are what will lead to victory. This book is a masterpiece—essential reading for cultivating the true martial mind. The Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi There is no more famous Japanese sword master than Miyamoto Musashi. The undefeated seventeenth-century samurai has achieved a sort of mythic status, historically, and in art and culture. Late in his life, he retreated to a cave and wrote this manifesto on swordsmanship, strategy, and victory to guide his students and generations of samurai to come. Every martial artist needs to read this book. Also available as a graphic novel. The Pocket Samurai This tiny book contains essential writings of the era by the most esteemed samurai and philosophers of the samurai age including Miyamoto Musashi; Yamamoto Tsunetomo; Takuan Soho; Yamaoka Tesshu, a master swordsman whose colorful life was devoted to martial arts and Zen; along with many others. Put it in your purse or knapsack, and let these martial arts masters accompany you wherever you go. And I think it’s one of our best book covers ever! The Demon Sermon on the Martial Arts, and Other Tales, Isaai Chozanshi A classic of martial arts literature, these seemingly light and fanciful parables feature the Japanese demon known as a tengu, and a variety of other creatures. They contain, however, important lessons about the perception of conflict, self-transformation, and how the path of the sword leads to an understanding of life itself. Also available as a graphic novel. Tao Te Ching: A New Translation, Lao Tzu To create this new translation of Lao Tzu’s spiritual and philosophical classic, Bill used both the ancient text from 200 BCE and the even older Golden Seal script used during Lao Tzu’s time. The result is an authentic, subtle, and poetic read. Cultivating Chi, Kaibara Ekiken Unlike other samurai of his time, Kaibara Ekiken was less concerned with swordsmanship than with nurturing a healthy body and mind. He drew from his medical practice, the principles of Chinese medicine, and his life experience to create this guide for sustaining health and vitality from youth to old age. The Spirit of Noh, Zeami The Japanese dramatic art of Noh has long held a fascination for people both in the East and West. Wilson’s translation of the Fushikaden, the seminal treatise on Noh, illuminates this intriguing art form, and offers valuable teachings on the aesthetics and spiritual culture of Japan. Master of the Three Ways, Hung Ying-ming How do you live a simple but satisfying life, without distraction and material, psychological, and spiritual trappings? This unusual text—a prose-poem written by a seventeenth-century sage—explores how to experience “the true taste of life,” according to the root values of Zen, Confucianism, and Taoism. The 36 Strategies of the Martial Arts, Hiroshi Moriya If you are a fan of The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings, you’ll enjoy this collection of ancient Chinese maxims on strategy, battlefield tactics, and deception—unpacked by a contemporary authority on Chinese culture and philosophy. Books by William Scott Wilson The Lone Samurai Over 350 years since his death, Miyamoto Musahi and his legacy still fascinate us, and continue to inspire artists, authors, and filmmakers. Bill Wilson’s biography of Musashi is both a vivid account of a fascinating period in feudal Japan, and a portrait of the courageous, iconoclastic swordsman. Also available as a graphic novel, titled Musashi. The One Taste of Truth Part history, part philosophy, and part inspirational guide, Bill highlights what is singular and precious about traditional Japanese and Chinese tea culture and explores the fascinating connection between Zen and tea drinking. Walking the Kiso Road Bill’s gift for storytelling is especially compelling in this delightful travel guide to the ancient Kisoji, a legendary route used by samurai and warlords, which remains much the same today as it was hundreds of years ago. The natural beauty of the route is renowned—and famously inspired the landscapes of Hiroshige, as well as the work of many other artists and writers. Bill shares its rich history and lore, literary and artistic significance, cuisine and architecture, as well as his own, often amusing, personal experiences.  

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Jamgön Kongtrul Reader's Guide to the Great Rime Master

A reader’s guide to Jamgön Kongtrul (1813–1900): his biographies, the Treasury of Knowledge, the Treasury of Precious Instructions, and other Ri-me classics.

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Tibetan Language Reader's Guide

Interested in learning Tibetan or deepening your existing Tibetan language skills? Below is a guide to help you choose the right resources for your needs. We offer two tracks: one for those who plan on traveling or spending a longer period of time in India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Tibet; and another for those who are focused on classical written Tibetan for academic or practice purposes. Reading or Translating Classical Tibetan The following materials are geared for those wanting in-depth study of the written language of Tibet, including the classical and literary.  These were all designed to work together and complement each other, though can be used stand-alone as well.  For spoken/colloquial Tibetan, skip to that section below. Translating Buddhism from Tibetan This book is the foundation for the books that follow. It's a complete textbook on classical Tibetan suitable for beginning or intermediate students. Based on the system developed by Jeffrey Hopkins at the University of Virginia, it presents—in lessons with drills and reading exercises—a practical introduction to Tibetan grammar, syntax, and technical vocabulary used in Buddhist works on philosophy and meditation. A well-designed learning system, it serves as an introduction to reading and translating Tibetan as well as to Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Each chapter contains a vocabulary of helpful Buddhist terms. Students with prior experience will find that the seven appendices—which review the rules of pronunciation, grammar, and syntax—are an indispensable reference. How to Read Classical Tibetan, Volume One Craig Preston, the author, recommends that people study Translating Buddhism from Tibetan as a preliminary to using this book. This is a complete language course built around the exposition of a famous Tibetan text, Summary of the General Path to Buddhahood, written at the beginning of the fifteenth century. All the language tools you need to work at your own pace are here in one place. You won't need a dictionary because all the words and particles are translated and explained in each occurrence, and there is a complete glossary at the end of the book. Every sentence is diagrammed and completely explained so that you can easily see how the words and particles are arranged to convey meaning. Because everything is explained in every sentence, you will learn to recognize the recurrent patterns, which makes the transition from learning words to reading sentences easier than it would be otherwise. As you study How to Read Classical Tibetan, you will learn to recognize the syntactic relationships you encounter, understand the meaning signified, and translate that meaning correctly into English. How to Read Classical Tibetan, Volume Two A follow-up to Volume One, this book assumes the reader is familiar with both the previous volume and Translating Buddhism from Tibetan. Learning Classical Tibetan: A Reader for Translating Buddhist Texts Designed for both classroom use and independent study, Learning Classical Tibetan is a modern and accessible reader for studying traditional Buddhist texts. Unlike other readers of Classical Tibetan, this is a comprehensive manual for navigating Tibetan Buddhist literature drawing on a monastic curriculum. Utilizing the most up-to-date teaching methods and tools for Tibetan language training, students learn to navigate the grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and style of Classical Tibetan while also engaging the content of Buddhist philosophical works. Chapters consist of a contextual introduction to each reading, a Tibetan text marked with references to annotations that provide progressive explanations of grammar, cultural notes on vocabulary, translation hints, notes on the Sanskrit origins of Tibetan expressions and grammatical structures, as well as a literal translation of the text. The reader also includes study plans for classroom use, discussion of dictionaries and other helpful resources, a glossary of English grammatical and linguistic terms, and much more. This reader can be used in conjunction with Paul Hackett’s expanded edition of his well-known Tibetan Verb Lexicon. Using a clear and approachable style, Hackett provides a practical and complete manual that will surely benefit all students of Classical Tibetan. A Tibetan Verb Lexicon This is the second and much-expanded edition of this essential resource for those studying or translating Tibetan.  edition . With over 4,500 entries of the most frequently used Tibetan verbs, this new edition of Hackett’s highly acclaimed Tibetan Verb Lexicon is an incomparable lexical resource. This comprehensive verb dictionary includes various verb forms, verbal collocations, auxiliary constructions together with grammatical information, Sanskrit equivalents, and example sentences, making it a vital tool for any translator, writer, or scholar who intends to maximize the quality of their work related to the Tibetan language. Much more than a mere translation of existing works, this lexicon was compiled employing statistical techniques and data and draws on sources spanning the 1,200 years of Tibet's classical literature, covering all major lineages. The 4,500 root verb forms and phrasal verb subentries incorporates a wide range of information not previously available in dictionary form. The individual entries are in Tibetan script and contain English meanings, Sanskrit equivalents, complete sentences drawn from the corpus of Tibetan classical literature, and related sentence structure information. An extensive introduction to contemporary linguistic theory as applied to Tibetan verbs provides the theoretical underpinnings of the lexicon. Paul Hackett, the author, strongly encourages readers to become familiar with Translating Buddhism from Tibetan before approaching this book. Spoken and Written Modern Tibetan Below you will see our resources if you with to speak and read modern, colloquial Tibetan. Learning Practical Tibetan This book, for the casual traveler and aspiring student, offers a great overview, packed with practical examples for the casual student. It gives the basics of grammar and phonetics and offers practical sample dialogues. And it is small enough that you could easily take it with you on your adventure! It starts off with some basic grammar and vocabulary and then moves into dialogues for eating, shopping, visiting monasteries, transportation, and more. Manual of Standard Tibetan In this comprehensive treatment of modern Tibetan, you'll learn about the everyday speech of Lhasa as it is currently used in Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora. It not only places the language in its natural context but also highlights key aspects of Tibetan civilization and Vajrayana Buddhism. The manual, which consists of forty-one lessons, includes many drawings and photographs as well as two political and linguistic maps of Tibet. You'll find the appendices especially helpful as they outline the differences between written literary and spoken Tibetan; detail pronunciation; and explain the use of honorific words, compound terms, and transfers from other languages. Two CDs provide an essential aural complement to the manual, making it a very practical guide for more serious students. Fluent Tibetan This book is a fully comprehensive course in spoken Tibetan which has MP3 files to support a real immersion experience. The most systematic and extensive course system now available for spoken Tibetan, Fluent Tibetan was developed by language experts working in conjunction with indigenous speakers at the University of Virginia. Based on government-approved courses for diplomats needing to learn a language quickly, the method acquaints students with the sounds and patterns of Tibetan speech through repetitive interactive drills, enabling the quick mastery of increasingly complex structures and thereby promoting rapid progress in speaking the language.

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Samurai Wisdom Stories: The Archery Contest

With the introduction of firearms, the art of bow shooting was in danger of disappearing. However, this art was one of the principal disciplines of bushido, the Way of the Samurai. As a means of keeping this tradition alive, the annual Toshiya archery contest was instituted. The site of the contest was a temple in Kyoto known as Sanjusangen-do, famous for its thousand buddha statues. The shooting took place in a covered galley about sixty meters long. The difficulty for the archer lay in keeping the shot tightly arced enough to avoid the thirty-three cross beams that supported the roof joists and still allow for a shot long enough to reach the target at the end of the gallery. The bow had to be a strong one, but not so strong as to exhaust the archer; for the winner was the one who was able to shoot the greatest number of arrows into the distant target. The contest lasted twenty-four hours, from sunrise until the following dawn. It was a true ordeal, an ascetic exercise comparable to the austerities practiced by Buddhist monks, such as ten thousand prostrations. Going beyond one’s normal level of output as was required here was more than a matter of technique and endurance. It was only possible through the force of mind that allowed the archer to enter into an altered state where another level of energy could come into play. The best archers of Japan, and through them the schools of kyu-jutsu they represented, were matched against each other in this contest. In 1679, Hoshino Kanzaemon achieved the feat of hitting the target with eight thousand of the 10,542 arrows he shot. Seventeen years later his feat was still unrivaled and he remained “the First under Heaven.” In 1696, a young archer named Wasa Daihachiro presented himself at the contest. He had trained assiduously for years in order to meet this challenge. He shot without stopping for many hours and then, already having planted five thousand arrows in the target, he allowed himself a short pause. When he tried to resume shooting, he no longer able to bend his bow. His shoulders and back were so swollen that the pain was intolerable. At this point, one of the members of the jury who was seated on the tribunal rose to his feet and approached the unhappy competitor. He reproached him for having stopped shooting and drew his short sword from its sheath. He made cuts in the swollen flesh, the blood flowed, and the archer was once again able to bend his bow. He finally succeeded in shooting more than thirteen thousand arrows, of which 8,133 hit the target. He became the new “First under Heaven” and has not been bested since. Wasa Daihachiro, after having achieved this feat, walked over to the tribunal in order to pay his obeisance to the judge who had helped him. “I am very grateful to you,” he said, “for having made it possible for me to surpass the record of the great Hoshino Kanzaemon. Would you be so kind as to tell me your name?” The master archer on the tribunal replied with a warm smile. “You know it already, since you have just said it.” By enabling his rival’s victory through his noble gesture, Hoshino Kanzaemon became a part of bushido legend. On the Way of the Samurai, there is no greater achievement than conquering oneself. —pages 99–101

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