One Drop

"One day Giboku Zenji’s job was to prepare the bath for Master Gisan; he was nineteen, old enough to believe he understood how to do things well. Giboku Zenji had first gone to Kyoto to train, but he could not find a good teacher there and had come to Okayama when he heard that Master Gisan was an excellent teacher. In those days there was no spending money for a poor monk, and while he had a great huge vow, he came to Okayama impoverished and walking in broken sandals. He did sanzen with the Roshi, but instead of being able to offer a gift of incense to the Roshi for the incense used in sanzen, he made do with a brush holder that someone had bought for him.

Giboku had been at Sogenji for only a short time when it became his turn to make the bath for the Roshi. The bathwater was a little too hot, so he brought buckets of water from the well and cooled the bath down. When it was sufficiently cool he set down the last bucket, in which a few drops of unused water remained. Then, before going to bring more water, he dumped those last few drops out onto the ground. Since he was going to get more water, he probably thought those last few drops weren’t necessary.

Gisan Zenrai Zenji saw that and said to him, “What did you just do?” “I went to draw some water.” “Before you drew the water, what did you do?” “I threw away some old water,” Giboku answered simply. “If you do training with a mind like that, no matter how much training you do or how long you train, you will not awaken. That bit of remaining water, if you dump it out there—how can it be used? If you take it outside and put it on some plants, then the plants will be given life, and the water will also be given life. If you give it to the cucumbers in the garden, the cucumbers will be helped and the water will be satisfied too!”

It is the work of one who is ordained to give life to everything, but that cannot be done with such a lack of mindfulness. Giboku was reprimanded in that way. Since he was nineteen he had thought he understood already. When he was reprimanded he realized how little he actually understood and that something as simple as one drop of water, a single drop of water, had taught him that he had to start over again in his training. This he did, later becoming a great Zen Master...

Just before his death, Tekisui Zenji said,

The one drop of water of Sogen,
For seventy-four years
It was used, never exhausted,
Throughout the heavens and the earth.

Saying these words he died. For seventy-four years Tekisui used the splendid teaching he had received at Sogenji about the preciousness of water. He used it and thoroughly gave it life, but it was impossible to use it up.

If we use money, it gets used up. If we use things for a long time, they get worn out, but when teaching is used it becomes more and more radiant. For his entire life Tekisui gave this teaching the functioning that extended through the heavens and the earth. Thanks to this teaching that functioning was possible. Using water as a metaphor, he taught about Buddha Nature. This truth, this awakening of the true eye, is what he was teaching about.

In fact, from the line of Gisan Zenrai Zenji also came the head abbot of Engakuji in Kamakura, Imakita Kosen. Imakita Kosen’s Dharma line was carried on by Shaku Soen, who, at the World Congress of Religions more than one hundred years ago, gave the first Buddhist teaching in America. Shaku Soen’s disciple was D. T. Suzuki, who is one of today’s foremost translators of Buddhist teachings into English. That one drop of water, one drop of teaching, that Dharma, is being given life all over the world today.

In Kyoto, Myoshinji monastery was opened by Gisan Zenrai’s disciple Ekkei Shuken, and the monastery of Tenryuji was opened under Tekisui Zenji. In Osaka, in Sakae, Nanshuji monastery was opened. Gisan Zenrai also raised Shokokuji’s Daisetsu Joen and Ogino Dokuen. When we look closely at this, we can see that more than one hundred years ago, that main stream of Zen
came forth from the overflowing wisdom of that drop from Sogenji, and from Japan it has flowed into countries all over the world.

The Sixth Patriarch’s teaching, with water as the metaphor for Buddha Nature, was given great respect by Gisan Zenji. He actualized it in his teaching of disciples. From that time and continuing through today as well, that teaching is being given great life."

~ Shodo Harada Roshi is a Rinzai priest, author, and head abbot of Sōgen-ji — a three-hundred-year-old temple in Okayama, Japan. He has become known as a "teacher of teachers", with masters from various lineages coming to sit sesshin with him in Japan or during his trips to the United States and Europe. In September 1989, Harada came to the United States to provide instruction for students and in 1995 founded One Drop Zendo (or, Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery) on Whidbey Island in Island County, Washington, where the practice mirrors the practices found at Sogen-ji. Nearby the Tahoma One Drop Monastery, Harada has opened a hospice known as Enso House in 2001. Among those Western teachers that study with Harada Roshi are Hogen Bays, Jan Chozen Bays, Mitra Bishop, and Paul Haller.