Poems by Eihei Dogen

[zenzero]

Coming or Going

The migrating bird
leaves no trace behind
and does not need a guide.

Impermanence

To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill.

In the stream

In the stream,
Rushing past
To the dusty world,
My fleeting form
Casts no reflection.

 

[zenzero]

contd...

Like tangled hair

Like tangled hair,
The circular delusion
Of beginning and end,
When straightened out,
A dream no longer.

One of fifteen verses on Dogen's mountain retreat:

Joyful in this mountain retreat yet still feeling melancholy,
Studying the Lotus Sutra every day,
Practicing zazen singlemindedly;
What do love and hate matter
When I'm here alone,
Listening to the sound of the rain late in this autumn evening.


One of six verses composed in An'yoin Temple in Fukakusa, 1230:
Drifting pitifully in the whirlwind of birth and death,
As if wandering in a dream,
In the midst of illusion I awaken to the true path;
There is one more matter I must not neglect,
But I need not bother now,
As I listen to the sound of the evening rain
Falling on the roof of my temple retreat
In the deep grass of Fukakusa.

 

[Ablaze]

[永平] 道元希玄 [Eihei] Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253)

傘松道詠 Sanshō dōei
Verses on the Way from Sanshō Peak



Mountain Seclusion

I won't even stop
at the valley's brook
for fear that
my shadow
may flow into the world.



Bowing Formally

A snowy heron
on the snowfield
where winter grass is unseen
hides itself
in its own figure.



Viewing Peach Blossoms and Realizing the Way

In spring wind
peach blossoms
begin to come apart.
Doubts do not grow
branches and leaves.

 

[Ablaze]

On Nondependence of Mind

Water birds
going and coming
their traces disappear
but they never
forget their path.



The Body Born Before the Parents

The village I finally reach
deeper than the deep mountains
indeed
the capital
were I used to live!



On the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Waves recede.
Not even the wind ties up
a small abandoned boat.
The moon is a clear
mark of midnight.