How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment

174 Pages·2005·0.87 MB·English

by  Dogen

“This is a book that should grace the shelves of any
practitioner, not only because of Dogen’s classic text but
also for the unequivocal way in which the commentary
amplifies the text and makes the very important point that
a Buddhist practice, if it is to mean anything, must touch
every area of life and not just the confines of the meditation
cushion.”
—The Middle Way
“I am glad to see Uchiyama Roshi’s classic commentary to
Instructions for the Zen Cook back in print. Dogen’s
original text (here in Thomas Wright’s lucid translation) is
particularly applicable to everyday spirituality in the world,
and Roshi’s commentary, full of gritty, funny stories about
his early days as a monk in pre-and post-war Japan, and
charming tales from Buddhist and Japanese folklore,
evidence a plain-speaking, shoot-from-the hip approach to
Zen that is as refreshing now (possibly more so!) as it was
when the book first came out. Zen masters of this full-
bodied tasty vintage are hard to find these days!”
—Zoketsu Norman Fischer, author of Taking Our Places:
The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the thirteenth century, Zen master Dōgen—perhaps the
most significant of all Japanese philosophers, and the
founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect—wrote a practical
manual of Instructions for the Zen Cook. In drawing
parallels between preparing meals for the Zen monastery
and spiritual training, he reveals far more than simply the
rules and manners of the Zen kitchen; he teaches us how to
“cook,” or refine our lives, In this volume Kōshō Uchiyama
Rōshi undertakes the task of elucidating Dōgen’s text for
the benefit of modern-day readers of Zen. Taken together,
his translation and commentary truly constitute a cookbook
for life, one that shows us how to live with an unbiased
mind in the midst of our workaday world.
DŌGEN (1200–1253) is known as the founder of the
Japanese Soto Zen sect.
Sign up to learn more about our books and receive special
offers from Shambhala Publications.

Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala.
H C Y L
OW TO OOK OUR IFE
From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment
ZEN MASTER DŌGEN AND KŌSHŌ UCHIYAMA RŌSHI
Translated by Thomas Wright
SHAMBHALA
Bostan & London
2013
This volume contains translations of Zen Master Dōgen’s Tenzo Kyōkun (Instructions
for the Zen Cook), as it appears in the Eitheigen Zenji Shingi, an official compilation
of Dōgen’s works by Reiyō Endō, and of Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi’s Jinsei Ryōri no Hon
(How to Cook Your Life), published by the Sōtō-shū in 1956 and 1970 respectively.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
Protected by copyright under the terms of the International Copyright Union.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data How to cook your life: from the
Zen kitchen to enlightenment/by Dōgen and Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi; translated by
Thomas Wright.
p. cm
Originally published: New York: Weatherhill, 1983.
Contents: Instructions for the Zen cook Tenzo kyōkun/Dōgen―How to cook your life
Jinsei ryōri no hon/Kōshō Uchiyama.
eISBN 978-0-8348-2432-4
ISBN 978-1-59030-291-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Dōgen, 1200–1253. Tenzo kyōkun. 2.
Spiritual life―Zen Buddhism. 3. Cookery―Religious aspects―Zen Buddhism. 4.
Monastic and religious life (Zen Buddhism) I. Wright, Thomas. II. Dōgen, 1200–
1253. Tenzo kyōkun. English. 2005. III. Uchiyama, Kōshō, 1912– Jinsei ryōri no
hon. English. 2005. IV. Title: Tenzo kyōkun. V. Title: ryōri no hon.
BQ9449.D654.T4685 2005
294.3′444―dc22
2005048964
Contents
Translator’s Introduction
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ZEN COOK (Tenzo Kyōkun)
by Zen Master Dōgen
HOW TO COOK YOUR LIFE (Jinsei Ryōri no Hon)
by Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi
1 The Tenzo Kyōkun and Shikan-taza
2 Concerning the Religious Life
3 The True Form of the Self
4 Everything You Encounter is Your Life
5 Seeing the World Without Holding Worldly Values
6 On Parental Mind
7 Having a Passion for Life
8 Direction and Goal
9 Making Life Calculations
10 Working with Clear Vision
11 Living Through the Life of the Self
12 On Life Force and Life Activity
13 The Function of a Settled Life
14 Throwing Your Life into the Abode of the Buddha
Notes
Glossary
E-mail Sign-Up
Publisher’s Note
This book contains diacritics and special characters. If you
encounter difficulty displaying these characters, please set
your e-reader device to publisher defaults (if available) or to an
alternate font.
Translator’s Introduction
T
he following text of the Tenzo Kyōkun, or as I have entitled it
in English, Instructions for the Zen Cook, was written over a
period of years by Eihei Dōgen Zenji (1200–1253), who was
intimately familiar with both the Rinzai and Sōtō schools of
Zen, and finally completed in 1237. More specifically, it was
written for Dōgen’s immediate disciples living with him in a
monastery in medieval Japan. Now what possible connection
could a text written for a group of monks some 750 years ago
have for present-day Europeans and Americans neither living
in a monastery nor particularly familiar with a society or way of
looking at life which differs totally from our modern Western
societies? That is the question to which Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi
addressed himself when he began writing the commentary that
accompanies Dōgen’s text.
The answer to that question, of course, depends upon the
universal nature of the subject that is being addressed. In other
words, such a text will have no relevancy at all if the problems
that Dōgen deals with concern only a small group of male
Buddhist practitioners of Kamakura-period Japan (1185–1336).
I have personally found that not to be the case, especially
thanks to my teacher Uchiyama Rōshi who, I believe,
succeeded in pulling out those portions of the text that upon
first glance seem very esoteric―perhaps bewildering is a
better word―and discussed the significance such passages had
for him as a twentieth-century disciple of Dōgen.
As a translator, the original text and Uchiyama Rōshi’s
commentary presented entirely different problems. At times
Dōgen Zenji’s writings, just as classical literature, border on
the impenetrable even for the present-day Japanese reader;
much more so will they appear that way for a long time to a
person not born in Japan nor educated from childhood to read
Chinese characters. More that that, however, Dōgen’s logic is a
big problem for Western readers, not to mention translators. If
readers familiar with previous translations of Dōgen were to
compare versions of the same writing, they would be startled to
find a copious variety of interpretations for the same passage.
One reason for this is that different translators will naturally
express themselves differently. Yet another, deeper reason is
that a translator, though familiar with the language, may be
unaware of the reality behind the words.
Here is where years of practice come in. For me, to translate
any work of Dōgen’s without basing my daily life upon his most
fundamental teaching, that is jijuyū-zammai, or zazen, would be
meaningless. Unless the posture of one’s life addresses the
same questions Dōgen Zenji addressed, there is little hope that
the translation will be much more than a technically correct
but totally incomprehensible work.
The difficulty for me over the years in regard to Dōgen’s logic
has been how to understand the route Dōgen took from his
proposition to his conclusion. Though I might have been able to
follow the development of his thought. it always seemed that
somewhere along the line he made a twist or bend that did not
fit into the expected route of the logic of my mind. For a long
time I thought that this was mostly due to the fact that Dōgen
was Japanese and I am American, and that that was the way
Japanese people in those days thought. More and more,
however, I have come to seen the arrogance of such thinking,
and that the problem lay not with Dōgen’s logic, but rather
with the expectations I brought to the text. Besides that, it was
not logic per se that Dōgen took up as his life work, but rather
the very nature and complexities of the reality of our life and
death.
I would never say, nor even imply, that after fourteen or
fifteen years I now have a fairly good view of Dōgen Zenji’s
Zen. What points this out to me more than anything else is my
own day-to-day life where I am constantly discovering