Abandon all relations and put all concerns to rest

Hello,

Hashimoto Roshi's discussion of this phrase begins on p. 74 (thumbnail 75) of his commentary. I've included a short reflection based on it below.

--Erin

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Abandon all relations and put all concerns to rest

In his Fukanzazengi, a recommendation of zazen for everyone, Dogen tells us how to arrange our environment, our body, and our mind to do zazen. These things are interconnected, of course. A quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink in moderation. And then,

Abandon all relations and put all concerns to rest.

Eko Hashimoto Roshi (1890-1965), whose commentary I’ve been reading and summarizing here, was an abbot, a scholar, and a lifelong practitioner of zazen. When he retired at the age of 54 from being abbot of Ungoji, a post he held for thirty years, it was his hope to focus on the text of the Fukanzazengi in a quiet hermitage in the countryside. Instead, he was called out of retirement to train monks at Eiheiji, Zuioji, and again at Eiheiji. This was during World War II and the post-war period, when life in Japan was marked by unimaginable devastation and hardship. After he passed away in 1965, his writings on the Fukanzazengi were compiled and published.

In commenting on this passage, Hashimoto Roshi refers to two stories, one involving the interaction between Bodhidharma and the second ancestor Eka Daishi, and one relating to the twenty-seventh ancestor, the Venerable Hannyatara. The first case relates to the term sho-en, “relations,” or external factors, and the second case relates to banji, “concerns,” or internal factors, matters of liking and disliking that hinder absorption into the one matter of zazen.

Hashimoto Roshi then turns to a kind of unexpected logic. He says that, in fact, relations and concerns (matters) shouldn’t be detested and discarded but, “Actually, relations and matters are not outside of zazen. Making zazen itself relations and matters, and penetrating thoroughly into it, as in the Zazenshin (Zazen Lancet) of Wanshi Zenji, relations become ‘relations not objectified, becoming illumination’ and matters become ‘matters not touched, becoming knowledge.’”

In complete absorption, the samadhi of zazen, there is no external object. And all this is possible, he concludes, for everyone, universally.