A quick look at the meaning of the robe verse
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from Hoko
Takkesa ge 搭袈裟偈 Dai sai gedap-puku musō fuku den e hi bu nyorai kyo ko do shoshu jo. Verse of the Robe Great robe of liberation Virtuous field far beyond form and emptiness Wearing the tathagatha’s teaching We vow to save all beings Dogen saw the okesa from three perspectives that correspond with the three kinds of three treasures. The manifesting version is the robe Shakyamuni and Ananda designed and made: the historical robe; the maintaining version is the one we sew and wear as a symbol or manifestation of transmission of precepts and dharma; and the absolute version is the formless robe, with no characteristics, handed down from ancestor to ancestor that fits everyone perfectly. Great robe of liberation We make nyoho-e in such a way as not to create attachment. They're made from everyday materials in a broken color, not something anyone would want to steal. They're also free from the clinging of our own egos, which we have an important opportunity to practice during the sewing process. We take pieces and put them together to make a robe, which is a real experience of impermanence and interdependence. Virtuous field far beyond form and emptiness The virtuous field points toward the need to cultivate our own practice. There’s no awakening without people actually engaging in the practice, not as a means to get something but as a manifestation of awakening that’s already here. Zen isn’t just something we just think about, read about or debate with our friends. There's no reward for time served. It’s a practice, something we do. We have to actually engage with the eightfold path. Simply making a rakusu and going through the ceremony won’t get you anything. You can’t just chuck the rakusu into a drawer afterward and say There, that’s done. You’re committing to a lifetime of practice, and that’s why you need to do discernment first. Is this really the way you want to live? Formlessness in this case means that the robe is something we can’t grasp. Because of impermanence, it has no fixed, permanent form, so we’re doing a concrete practice with this karmic body and mind, and wearing a robe that’s both a physical object and something formless. Wearing the Tathagatha’s teaching The sense of the original words is of something unfolding; we're unfolding and wearing Buddha's teaching. Unfolding is another reference to the need to actually practice. We’re covered by Buddha’s teaching, and we also embody Buddha’s teaching. We vow to save all beings Of course, this is the bodhisattva’s vow: to liberate all beings from suffering. It’s not enough just to practice for ourselves, in order to become people we like better. One important point of practice is to see that we’re not separate from other beings or the functioning of the universe, so it’s not possible to live and function in isolation. Everything we do affects the entire universe, so we have to pay attention to what we’re adding to the world. |
For more on the meaning of the robe verse, see Living by Vow by Shohaku Okumura.
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