I’ll begin by reading the Grass-Roof Hut, which was written by Sekito Kisen, who is also the author of the Sandokai.
Song of the Grass-Roof Hut
I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it’s been lived in – covered by weeds.
The person in the hut lives here calmly,
Not stuck to inside, outside, or in between.
Places worldly people live, he doesn’t live.
Realms worldly people love, he doesn’t love.
Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten square feet, an old man
Illumines forms and their nature.
A great vehicle bodhisattva trusts without doubt.
The middling or lowly can’t help wondering:
Will this hut perish or not?
Perishable or not, the original master is present,
Not dwelling south or north, east or west.
Firmly based on steadiness, it can’t be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines —
Jade palaces or vermilion towers can’t compare with it.
Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest.
Thus, this mountain monk doesn’t understand at all.
Living here he no longer works to get free.
Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source
Can’t be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers,
Be familiar with their instruction,
Bind grasses to build a hut, and don’t give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
Are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
Don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.
Sekito Kisen (700-790)
I think the poem reflects many of the same themes and lessons of the Sandokai but in a much more down to earth, less abstract way, and I think the tone of the poem is particularly significant, in that what it seems to present is the end of striving. It’s a picture of no gain. At first blush it seems to be a picture of someone who has retreated from the world with an idea of getting away from it all into the wilderness in order to practice. But even though it has lines like “places worldly people live he doesn’t live,” and “realms worldly people love he doesn’t love,” and though he says the hut is small, it includes the whole world. It’s not as though you’re separating yourself from the world, but it’s about not pursuing certain aspects of the world that we usually get caught up in. When we go to the hut, it’s not a retreat. Everything is there.
It’s interesting to me that he talks in the opening about building a grass hut, but almost immediately, weeds appear, and after he’s lived in it a while, the place is covered with weeds. I’m not quite sure botanically what the difference between the grass and the weeds are. In a sense, we can imagine a thatched roof hut, but in a way the grass is something he knows how to put to use, but the weeds are what grows up spontaneously anyway whether you want them there or not.
I was thinking of a garden planted years ago by Nora Safran, one of our western Zen pioneers, a wonderful potter, who made the tea bowl that we have on the altar that we use as an incense bowl, and how by her studio in Amagansett, she planted bamboo as a border in her garden, and it was quite beautiful, but it grew like weeds. Bamboo, if you don’t get careful, will just completely be an invasive species and it takes over. I can imagine this hut being made of long poles of bamboo lashed together, covered with a grass roof, but the bamboo itself is something that is either structurally useful or, if you’re not careful, it will run wild and take over the place.
As we all know, grasses and weeds are a very common metaphor in Chinese poetry and in koans for our thoughts and emotions. Often, you know, there’s language of getting caught in the weeds or getting caught up in the grasses. There’s not usually any distinction there, but it’s all the stuff that fills our head, and with which we can get entangled. Yet, if we know what we’re doing, we can build a hut, we can give them their proper function and use.
The other thing about the tone of this poem that I think is important, is that it feels quietest or taoist, and not at all aesthetic. You could imagine a slightly different poem written to talk about the way the grass hut barely keeps the wind out, how in the winter it’s freezing in there, and in the summer it’s hot, that the grass hut offers almost no protection from the elements, and the monk is in there practicing a kind of austere aestheticism, perhaps reminiscent of Bodhidharma sitting in his cave.
It’s not a quiet, comfortable place to retreat to, but a place almost of dharma combat. Here, he says, I don’t put out cushions for guests, but I also don’t think he’d be so rude as to have them stand out in the snow overnight, the way Bodhidharma treated Huike. I think that the whole atmosphere of it is of coming to rest, not of struggling. Just sitting, all things are at rest, thus this mountain monk doesn't understand at all. Living here, he no longer worries to get free. Not understanding at all, does have an echo of Bodhidharma’s “not knowing.” He no longer works to get free, and you have a sense of Dogen of the identity of practice and realization. Just living here in this way is an embodiment of practice and realization. There’s nothing to achieve by doing it. The simple, present living is the way itself.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from. It’s always present, and whatever you do, whichever way you’re facing, it’s right there. What is that? Life itself? This present moment? Whichever way you turn, there it is? Is that no longer an obstacle to be overcome? But it’s the dharma itself, always revealing itself, whichever way you turn. Let go of hundred of years and relax completely. And in letting go of hundreds of years, is letting go of all those stories you read about enlightenment, letting go of all the Buddhism, letting go of all those images and curative fantasies and stories of ancestors you measure yourself against, and just be present. Turn around the light to shine within, and just return. That source is here and now present within you and without you. You look within and then you return to the outer world, and they each teach you the same thing.
And I think it ends on a very surprising note: If you want to know the undying person in the hut, don’t separate from this skinbag here and now. There’s a sharp contrast between our image of the undying, something transcendent that we’re going to encounter deep in our meditation. If you want to know the undying person, don’t separate from this skin bag. Skin bag is the very embodiment of dying, of impermanence. To call it a skin bag is the most untranscendent language possible. It’s not encountering the source or any capitalized dharma or anything else. It’s this body.
And then the imagery of the poem, I think, turns, and you get a sense of the hut being this body, that to dwell in this hut, is to dwell in this body, to rest in this moment. You don’t have to go and do some special things in some special place. What you’re looking for is always present, not just in yourself but as yourself, in this vulnerable, dependent, mortal skin bag. So we can read this the first time through as a picture of someone who has managed to get away from it all and establish a quiet, tranquil retreat away from the world. I think, as we read through it a number of times, we see that this retreat is also a place where the weeds grow, and this hut is not separable from this very body. So I’ll end just by reading it through one more time, and see if you hear it a little differently this time through.