Selected Works by Eihei Dogen

Ching-ch'ing's Raindrop Sound
Because the mind is free -
Listening to the rain
Dripping from the eaves,
The drops become
One with me.

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

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.

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

Worship
A white heron
Hiding itself
In the snowy field,
Where even the winter grass
Cannot be seen.

Zazen
The moon reflected
In a mind clear
As still water:
Even the waves, breaking,
Are reflecting its light.

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

 

Kenneth Rexroth: Your Birthday in the California Mountains

A broken moon on the cold water,
And wild geese crying high overhead,
The smoke of the campfire rises
Toward the geometry of heaven -
Points of light in the infinite blackness.
I watch across the narrow inlet
Your dark figure comes and goes before the fire.
A loon cries out on the night bound lake.
Then all the world is silent with the
Silence of autumn waiting for
The coming of winter. I enter
The ring of firelight, bringing to you
A string of trout for our dinner.
As we eat by the whispering lake,
I say, “Many years from now we will
Remember this night and talk of it.”
Many years have gone by since then, and
Many years again. I remember
That night as though it was last night,
But you have been dead for thirty years.

Thanks, Lumpy Pudding!