Shobogenzo Shoaku-Makusa 13: Children Babbling Dharma.

Kyo-i asks, “What is the Great Intention of the Buddha-Dharma?”

Dorin says, “Not to commit wrongs. To practice the many kinds of right.”

Kyo-i says, “If it is so, even a child of three can express it!”

Dorin says, “A child of three can speak the truth, but an old man of eighty cannot practice it.”

Thus informed, Kyo-i makes at once a prostration of thanks, and then leaves.

Master Dogen concludes his discussion of this koan and his talk on 'not doing wrongs, doing right'...

A master of the past says, “Just at the time of your birth you had your share of the lion’s roar.” “A share of the lion’s roar” means the virtue of the Tathagata to turn the Dharma-wheel, or the turning of the Dharma-wheel itself. Another master of the past says, “Living-and dying, coming-and-going, are the real human body.” So to clarify the real body and to have the virtue of the lion’s roar may truly be the one great matter, which can never be easy.

We are born and die with a body with which to clarify the nature of our existence, but we have to practice 'dropping off body and mind' to directly realise it even though we ARE it - we already are reality, but our thoughts and feelings, which we mistake for reality, obscure the fact.

For this reason, the clarification of the motives and actions of a three-year-old child are also the great purpose. Now there are differences between the actions and motives of the buddhas of the three times [and those of children]; this is why Kyo-i, in his stupidity, has never been able to hear a three-year-old child speaking the truth, and why, not even suspecting that [a child’s speaking of the truth] might exist, he talks as he does.

Before we go into meanings and right/wrong ideas, a child's actions and speech is reality at the present moment - whatever about the content or meaning, its 'rightness' or 'wrongness', it is a real thing happening. This is the view of zazen, or body and mind being dropped off and real things happening now coming forward just as they are and affirming their/our nature free of thoughts and feelings, or any sense of 'self'.

He does not hear Dorin’s voice, which is more vivid than thunder, and so he says, “Even a child of three could express it!” as if to say that [Master Dorin himself] has not expressed the truth in his words. Thus [Kyo-i] does not hear the lion’s roar of an infant, and he passes vainly by the Zen Master’s turning of the Dharma-wheel.

Kyo-i interpreted Master Dorin's reply “Not to commit wrongs. To practice the many kinds of right” as a simple moralistic idea, not as a matter of a lifetime of direct practice to realise the nature of things, which is the nature of 'right' that is the fundamental basis of our whole existence.

The Zen Master, unable to contain his compassion, went on to say, “A child of three can speak the truth, but an old man of eighty cannot practice it.” What he was saying is this: A child of three has words which express the truth, and you should investigate this thoroughly. Old men of eighty say, “I cannot practice it,” and you should consider this carefully. I leave you to decide whether an infant speaks the truth, but I do not leave the infant to decide. I leave you to decide whether an old man can practice, but I do not leave the old man to decide. It is the fundamental principle to pursue, to preach, and to honor the Buddha-Dharma like this.

We should investigate, in our own practice, the direct truth of words, and the direct truth that, being human, we may not be able to always live up to unrealistic lofty morals and ideals. It is a matter of our own direct practice, so we don't leave it up to others and take their word for it. Buddhism is grounded foremost in our own direct practice and experience - it is not a philosophy or religion based on belief in abstract values or ideas. Nishijima Roshi referred to it as 'a practical sort of humanism'.

Shobogenzo Shoaku-makusa

Preached to the assembly at Kosho-horin-ji temple on the evening of the moon in the [2nd] year of Eno.

That's the end of this series of a lay person's short readings from this chapter of Shobogenzo:

We dedicate the merit of this practice to all beings. May all be happy. May all be well. May all enjoy great awakening to freedom.

May we realise great awakening to freedom together with all beings.