Although it was the Great Master Keizan Zenji who revived the stories of the transmission of the Way between Ancestors in 1300 in The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light, we owe our gratitude to the late Abbess Rev. Jiyu Kennett of the Shasta Abbey Zen Buddhist Monastery for making it available not only in English, but to lay men and women interested in the deeper mysteries of Zen. Kennett struggled with this decision to make a text that was previously only known to the monastic community available to the general public, but in the end decided that it would be useful even if not fully understood.
Master Dogen
In modern Zen Buddhist Monasteries today, including the Shasta Abbey Zen Buddhist Monastery which was home to the late Abbess Rev. Jiyu Kennett, the writings of another in the lineage of ancestors also bears great study. The Shobogenzo-zuimonki and Moon in a Dewdrop were written by the Fifty First Ancestor, the Great Reverend Master Eihei Dogen and are considered of equal importance in the studies of a Zen Buddhist monk or priest as the The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light.
Abbess Rev. Jiyu Kennett was a great scholar on the work of Master Dogen and her teachings have been preserved in recorded form for future generations. But it was the Fifty First Ancestor, Koun Ejo, who we owe the recording of Master Dogen’s lengthier teachings and dialogues with Koun Ejo in the Shobogenzo-zuimonki.
Zen Aphorisms and Master Dogen
It is in Moon in a Dewdrop where the shorter teachings of the Master Dogen are recorded as Zen Aphorisms, concise statements which hold within them volumes of truth. This similarity between Moon in a Dewdrop and The Denkoroku: The Record of the Tranmission of Light cannot go unnoticed. Because it is in the short exchange between Master and Disciple, past and future ancestors, that these Zen Aphorisms come to life and bear meaning.
Saint Ubakikuta, The Fourth Ancestor
“Ubakikuta attended Shonwashyu for three years before he shaved his head and became a mendicant monk. One day, Shonawashyu asked him, ‘Did you leave home to become a monk in body or in mind?’ Ubakikuta answered, ‘I truly left home to become a monk in body.’ Shonawashyu said, ‘What does the wondrous LAW of the Buddhas possibly have to do with body or mind?’ whereupon Ubakikuta had a great awakening to TRUE SELF.” The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light.
Ubakikuta’s name means ‘The Concealed One.’ From the kingdom of Dali, he was born into the serving caste. He began his training at the age of fifteen and became a monk at seventeen years of age. Ubakikuta was known for his special gifts in spiritual warfare against the demons, and was said to inspire terror in Mara – the Buddhist Evil One – and all of his dominions and powers. He brought many monks to the monastic life. At the time of his death, he was so well respected that he became referred to as ‘The Excellent Buddha Who Shows Not One of the Major or Minor Marks.’ This is in reference to the ‘signs’ spoken of in Buddhist scripture of the unique signs and marks that one can expec t to show up on the body of a potential Buddha. But Ubakikuta had none of these marks and was considered to be of similar holiness to the great Shakyamuni Buddha.
In one of the many infamous spiritual battles attended by Ubakikuta, Brahma was quoted as saying to him, “If, due to the mundane, you fall, then, by means of the mundane, must you rise.”
“With the house demolished and the self-o’erthrown,
no inside or outside remains
So where, pray, are body and mind
To conceal their forms?”
Keizan Zenji summarizes the teaching of Ubakikuta
Sources: The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light – Keizan Zenji, Shasta Abbey Buddhist Monastery
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