At the time Dōgen Zenji was writing the Tenzo Kyōkun, he had already left Kennin-ji in Kyoto, and had set up his own monastery at Kōshō-ji in Fukakusa, just south of the city. At Kōshō-ji, Dōgen gained a reputation for being a strict teacher, and the number of disciples and followers increased rapidly. Hence, it was only natural that some sort of regulations be established to insure that everyone could practice with as few difficulties as possible. These regulations were born out of the situation as it developed.

I was also told that the Eihei Daishingi (Regulations for Eiheiji Monastery), of which the Tenzo Kyōkun is the first chapter, was one of the easier works of Dōgen, since it deals with practical matters.

"Once upon a time an academic scientist went to visit a Zen Master, famous for being very wise. After greeting the scholar, the master offered him tea. As they sat together, the monk began to pour the tea into the scholar's cup. He poured until the tea overflowed onto the saucer, then the table and finally onto the floor.

When the scholar could not stand it any more, he blurted out: "Stop, stop, can't you see the cup is full?" To which the Zen Master replied: "Yes, I can, and until your mind is empty, you will not hear what I have to say.

disciple came to Zen Master Chao-chou and asked, “I have just come to this monastery. Would you mind giving me some instruction, please?” The master replied, “Have you eaten your breakfast yet, or not?” “Yes, I have, sir.” “Then wash your dishes.

"Among those who give thoughts to things, is there one who does not think of suicide?" With me was the knowledge that that fellow Ikkyu twice contemplated suicide. I have "that fellow", because the priest Ikkyu is known even to children as a most amusing person, and because anecdotes about his limitlessly eccentric behavior have come down to us in ample numbers. It is said of him that children climbed his knee to stroke his beard, that wild birds took feed from his hand. It would seem from all this that he was the ultimate in mindlessness, that he was an approachable and gentle sort of priest. As a matter of fact he was the most severe and profound of Zen priests. Said to have been the son of an emperor, he entered a temple at the age of six, and early showed his genius as a poetic prodigy. At the same time he was troubled with the deepest of doubts about religion and life. "If there is a god, let him help me. If there is none, let me throw myself to the bottom of the lake and become food for fishes." Leaving behind these words he sought to throw himself into a lake, but was held back. … He gave his collected poetry the title "Collection of the Roiling Clouds", and himself used the expression "Roiling Clouds" as a pen name. In his collection and its successor are poems quite without parallel in the Chinese and especially the Zen poetry of the Japanese middle ages, erotic poems and poems about the secrets of the bedchamber that leave one in utter astonishment. He sought, by eating fish and drinking spirits and having commerce with women, to go beyond the rules and proscriptions of the Zen of his day, and to seek liberation from them, and thus, turning against established religious forms, he sought in the pursuit of Zen the revival and affirmation of the essence of life, of human existence, in a day civil war and moral collapse.

Toyo Eicho ... drew his material from sutras, recorded sayings of Chinese Zen masters, Taoist texts, Confucian texts, and Chinese poetry.

Koho Kenichi (1241-1316) was one of the most renowned Zen prelates of his era, his era, not least because of his Japanese origin. As son of , he began his religious career in the esoteric Buddhist school. In 1256 he was admitted into the Tofukuji by Enni Ben'en. Four years later he met Gottan Funei, who had just moved there from China. As instructed by his teacher Enni Ben'en, Koho followed Gottan Funei to Kamakura. On Ichio Ingo's recommendation he came under the care of Koho Kennichi. He was calm and self-willed and preferred to live in seclusion. For this reason he spent many years in a remote area until his appointment as leading priest of the Jomyoji in 1300 and later of the Manjuji in Kamakura. In 1314 Mugaku Sogen entrusted him with the leadership of the great Kenchoji.

Zen Buddhist monk (Toyo Eicho, 1428-1504) of the Rinzai sect... was appointed juji of the in 1481 and founded the Shorin-ji temple at Mino, where , where he died.

Zen does not attempt to be intelligible – that is, capable of being understood by the intellect. The method of Zen is to baffle, excite, puzzle and exhaust the intellect until it is realized that intellection is only thinking about; it will provoke, irritate and again exhaust the emotions until it is realised that emotion is only feeling about, and then it contrives, when the disciple has been brought to an intellectual and emotional impasse, to bridge the gap between second-hand conceptual contact with reality, and first-hand experience. To effect this it calls into play a higher faculty of the mind, known as intuition or Buddhi, which is sometimes called the ‘Eye of the Spirit’. In short, the aim of Zen is to focus the attention on reality itself, instead of on our intellectual and emotional reactions to reality — reality being that ever-changing, ever-growing,
indefinable something known as “life,” which will never stop for a moment for us to fit it satisfactorily into any rigid system of pigeon-holes and ideas.

Zen does not attempt to be intelligible – that is, capable of being understood by the intellect. The method of Zen is to baffle, excite, puzzle and exhaust the intellect until it is realized that intellection is only thinking about; it will provoke, irritate and again exhaust the emotions until it is realised that emotion is only feeling about, and then it contrives, when the disciple has been brought to an intellectual and emotional impasse, to bridge the gap between second-hand conceptual contact with reality, and first-hand experience. To effect this it calls into play a higher faculty of the mind, known as intuition or Buddhi, which is sometimes called the ‘Eye of the Spirit’. In short, the aim of Zen is to focus the attention on reality itself, instead of on our intellectual and emotional reactions to reality — reality being that ever-changing, ever-growing, indefinable something known as “life,” which will never stop for a moment for us to fit it satisfactorily into any rigid system of pigeon-holes and ideas.

A Mahayana teaching with a strong Taoist infusion, Ch'an or Zen cast off the dead weight of priestly ritual and mindless chanting of the sutras or scriptures — the records of the Buddha's teachings — and returned to the simple zazen way of Shakyamuni. In a statement attributed to the First Chinese Patriarch, Bodhidharma, an old monk from India who is loosely associated with the birth of Zen, the new teaching was described as "a special transmission outside the scriptures, not founded upon words or letters. By pointing directly to man's own mind, it lets him see into his own true nature and thus attain Buddhahood."

Whether you are the head of a temple, a senior monk or other officer, or simply an ordinary monk, do not forget the attitude behind living out your life with joy, having the deep concern of a parent, and carrying out all your activities with magnanimity. Written by Dōgen in the spring of 1237 at Kōshō-ji for followers of the Way in succeeding generations.

The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing.

The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing. This is the way of practice moment after moment.