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平常心是道 heijōshin kore dō Ordinary Mind Is the Way

平常心是道 (heijōshin kore dō) says that the ordinary mind is the Way. It is a Tang Zen master's answer to a pupil, and the nineteenth case of the Gateless Barrier of 1228. In Japan it passed from the Zen hall to the tea room, where by the 1930s it hung in the alcove.

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Japanese Scroll of Ordinary Mind Is the Way (heijōshin kore dō) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Ordinary Mind Is the Way平常心是道heijōshin kore dō

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

平常心是道, heijōshin kore dō, the ordinary mind is the Way, is the answer the Tang master Nanquan 南泉 gave his pupil Zhaozhou 趙州 when he asked what the Way was. The oldest record of it read here is the Zutang ji 祖堂集 of 952, which has the five characters in three mouths [1][2][3][4]; in 1228 Wumen Huikai 無門慧開 made the exchange the nineteenth case of his Gateless Barrier 無門関, with a verse of the four seasons [5], and the book came to Japan with Shinchi Kakushin 心地覚心, who received it from Wumen in 1254 [6], though the phrase was in Japan before the book: Dōgen 道元 used it in a talk of 1241 [7][8]. Lanxi Daolong 蘭溪道隆, who came from Song China in 1246, told a pupil, in instructions that carry no date, to hold the one line and never let it go [9]. In Japan the phrase passed from the Zen hall into tea: a tea master's book printed in 1811 speaks of men of 平常心是道 [10], the records of tea gatherings in the 1930s list it as the scroll in the alcove [11], and a catalogue of 1977 lists a one-line scroll of it by the Daitokuji abbot Kokei Sōchin 古渓宗陳 [12]. The ruby that the National Diet Library's search reads beside it gives four readings: heijōshin kore dō, the commonest, 83 of its 96 items falling in 1910 to 1939; heijōshin ze dō; heijōshin kore michi; and byōjōshin kore dō, with the Buddhist reading of 平常, which a book of Daitokuji calligraphy also gives in 2000 [13][14].

Overview

The sense. A reference on the calligraphy hung in tea rooms, of 1999, explains it as 『無門関』第十九則に収める語。何の造作もなく、こだわらない心が、仏心につながる人の道であると, a phrase in case 19 of the Gateless Barrier: that the mind with no contrivance at all, clinging to nothing, is the human way that leads to the Buddha mind [15]. A Zen dictionary of 1915 enters it as 善惡を思はず、是非を論せず、喫茶喫飯、平常坦然の心卽ち是れ大道なりとの義, meaning: not to think of good and evil, not to argue right and wrong; the mind level and at ease in the ordinary round, drinking tea and eating rice, is itself the great Way [16]. Kotobank has no entry for the five characters; under 平常心 the Nihon kokugo daijiten gives the Buddhist word, read byōjōshin, the everyday ordinary mind, the plain way of living, citing the Gateless Barrier's case 19, and the modern heijōshin, the calm mind of every day [17].

The words. 平常, ordinary, as always; 心, mind; 是, the classical Chinese is, read kore or ze in Japanese; 道, the Way. Zhaozhou's question is 如何是道, what is the Way?, and the answer puts the ordinary mind where the question puts the Way. The Gateless Barrier titles the case 平常是道, the ordinary is the Way, without 心 [5].

Four readings. The National Diet Library's full-text search, across all its access levels, finds these readings printed as ruby beside the phrase [13]:

The counts are what the machine reading of the ruby finds, and it drops much ruby, so they are a floor for each form, not a census. One author can use two: the Rinzai abbot Sugawara Jihō 菅原時保's lectures on the Gateless Barrier (1920) give the case in Japanese as 平常心是れ道, with kore [21]; later in the book one page writes 平常心是れ道 with the ruby へいじやうしん こ だう, kore dō, and then 平常心是道, the five characters as a set phrase, with the ruby へいじやうしんぜだう, ze dō [22].

The historical record

952, the Zutang ji. The Zutang ji 祖堂集, a record of the Chan masters compiled in 952 by its own count of years [2], gives the exchange in its entry on Zhaozhou, who was ordained at the 琉璃壇 of Mount Song before he came to Nanquan [1]:

師問：「如何是道？」南泉云：「平常心是道。」師云：「還可趣向否？」南泉云：「擬則乖。」師云：「不擬時如何知是道？」南泉云：「道不屬知不知，知是妄覺，不知是無記。若也真達不擬之道，猶如太虛，廓然蕩豁，豈可是非？」師於是頓領玄機，心如朗月

The master asked: "What is the Way?" Nanquan said: "The ordinary mind is the Way." The master said: "Can one aim at it?" Nanquan said: "To aim at it is to miss it." The master said: "If one does not aim, how does one know it is the Way?" Nanquan said: "The Way belongs neither to knowing nor to not-knowing. Knowing is false perception; not-knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the Way that is not aimed at, it is like vast space, open and boundless: how could it be this or that?" At this the master grasped the hidden point at once, and his mind was like a clear moon. The same book has the five characters twice more. Yanguan Qi'an 鹽官齊安, asked by the Silla monk Beomil 梵日 how one becomes a Buddha, answers 道不用修，但莫汙染。莫作佛見菩薩見，平常心是道, the Way needs no cultivation; only do not defile it. Make no view of Buddha, no view of bodhisattva: the ordinary mind is the Way [3]. And Changsha Jingcen 長沙景岑, a pupil of Nanquan, asked what the ordinary mind is, says 要眠則眠，要坐則坐, when you want to sleep, sleep; when you want to sit, sit [4]. Zhaozhou himself, asked the same question, answers 虎狼野干是, tigers, wolves and jackals [23]. The Zutang ji was lost in China, survived in a Korean print of 1245, and was printed again only in the twentieth century [24], so the Japanese tradition of the phrase rests on the later records.

1004, the lamp history. The Jingde chuandeng lu 景徳伝灯録 of 1004 gives the sermon 道不用修 … 平常心是道 to Mazu Daoyi 馬祖道一 [25], whose heir Yanguan speaks it in 952. Its entry on Zhaozhou tells the exchange in nearly the same words, among them 不疑之道, the Way that is not doubted, where the Zutang ji has 不擬之道, and 擬向即乖 for 擬則乖, and in another order of events: Zhaozhou comes to Nanquan tonsured but not yet ordained, 從師披剃未納戒, and goes to be ordained at the 琉璃壇 only after the awakening [26].

1228, the Gateless Barrier. Wumen Huikai 無門慧開 dated his preface to the Gateless Barrier in 1228 [27], and made the exchange its nineteenth case, 平常是道, in the words 擬向即乖 and 不擬之道 [5]. His comment: 南泉被趙州發問。直得瓦解氷消分疎不下。趙州縱饒悟去。更參三十年始得, asked by Zhaozhou, Nanquan crumbled like a tile and melted like ice, with no explanation to give; and even if Zhaozhou awoke, he would need thirty more years of study to get it. His verse [5]:

春有百花秋有月　夏有涼風冬有雪　若無閑事挂心頭　便是人間好時節

Spring has its hundred flowers, autumn its moon, summer its cool breeze, winter its snow. If no idle matter hangs on the mind, that is the good season of the human world. The second couplet is older than Wumen: a lamp history of 1101 has 若無閑事掛心頭，便是人間好時節 in a verse on a case by the master Weiyue 惟岳 [28]. A Song anthology of verses on the cases carries the whole quatrain, with 在 for 挂, under the name of Netang Fansi 訥堂梵思 [29], an heir of Yuanwu Keqin 圓悟克勤 [30], in a section marked as added after the first compilation, and its own collection of verses on this case ends with Wumen's [31].

1241 to 1278, the first Zen halls in Japan. The Japanese volumes of the Taishō canon, searched at the SAT database, carry the five characters from the first generation of Zen in Japan. Dōgen 道元, in the Busshō 佛性 chapter of his Shōbōgenzō, a talk he gave at Kōshōji in 1241 by its colophon [8], uses the phrase as a reason: 始起有ノ有ニアラス。平常心是道ノユヱニ, it is not the being of something that first arose, because the ordinary mind is the Way [7]. Lanxi Daolong 蘭溪道隆 (1213–78), a Song master who came to Japan in 1246 and was the first abbot of Kenchōji in Kamakura [32], gives it in his instructions to a pupil, which carry no date, as the line to hold in meditation [9]:

提個話頭動靜自看。如何是道。平常心是道一句。反復察量 … 汝但看平常心是道一句。永莫放捨。忽然得歡喜時。莫相辜負

Take up the phrase and look at it yourself, in motion and in stillness: "What is the Way? The ordinary mind is the Way." Weigh this one line over and over … Only look at this one line, "the ordinary mind is the Way", and never let it go; when joy comes to you suddenly, do not fail it. To another pupil, a woman whom he tells to take the nun Moshan 末山 as her model, he says 這個語話雖則尋常。未見道之人直須體取, these words may be ordinary, but one who has not yet seen the Way must take them into the body [33].

1254, the book to Japan. The biography of Shinchi Kakushin 心地覚心 in the Genkō shakusho 元亨釋書 (1322) [34], read at the page image of the 1605 print, says that he went to 佛眼 at the 護國 temple, received his seal, 印可, and in the spring of 1254 took his leave, and that 佛眼 gave him the sayings of Yuelin, the Duiyu lu and the Gateless Barrier, among other books: 寶祐二年春告別佛眼以月林語對御錄無門關等付之 [6]. 佛眼, Buddha-Eye, is Wumen's title, and he founded the 護国仁王寺 [35]; Kotobank's article on Kakushin says he inherited Wumen's Dharma and came home in 1254 [36]. The text of the Gateless Barrier that the Taishō canon prints ends with the colophon of a Japanese print, which says the old blocks had worn out and were cut again, 舊板磨滅故。重命工鋟梓畢, dated 應永乙酉, 1405 [37]. A print of 1666 with headnotes reads 不疑之道 at the case, the lamp history's word, where the Taishō reads 不擬 [38].

1279 to 1368, Kamakura and Kyoto. Wuxue Zuyuan 無學祖元, who came from Song China in 1279 at Hōjō Tokimune's invitation and was abbot of Kenchōji (the Nihon kokugo daijiten alone, of the dictionaries at Kotobank, says 1280) [39], is asked by a monk at the opening of the summer retreat there what the case means, and answers 月似彎弓。少雨多風, the moon like a drawn bow; little rain, much wind [40]. At the monthly memorial held in the first month after the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira 足利義詮 died at the end of 1367 [41], the Rinzai master Shun'oku Myōha 春屋妙葩 (1311–88) [42] said [43]:

若識得平常心是道。則識得淨名直心是道場。若識得直心是道場。則識得人人箇箇著衣喫飯語言問答擧足下足皆是道場

If you know "the ordinary mind is the Way", you know Vimalakīrti's "the straight mind is the place of practice"; and if you know that, you know that every person's putting on clothes and eating rice, speaking and answering, lifting a foot and setting it down, is the place of practice. He went on to praise the dead shogun, who in twenty years of power had never been seen to show joy or anger and had met everything with the straight mind alone, 只以直心應一切而已 [43].

1323, Keizan. Keizan Jōkin 瑩山紹瑾 (1264–1325), the founder of Sōjiji, set down an exchange on the ordinary mind, 平常心, in his own life of his teacher Gikai 義介, written in 1323: Gikai asked him one day how, in his view, he knew the ordinary mind; Keizan answered 道不属知不知, the Way belongs neither to knowing nor to not-knowing; and Gikai, approving without a word, said 汝有越師之気概、宜興永平宗旨, you have the spirit to pass beyond your teacher; raise up the teaching of Eihei, and handed him the abbacy of Daijōji, as Yokoyama Ryūken quotes the text [44][45]. Yokoyama, reading the biographies written in the fourteenth century, finds that they set Keizan's awakening on a line of the Lotus Sūtra, and this exchange as Gikai's last test before he gave him the temple; the awakening on 平常心是道 is in almost all the main biographies of the early modern period, as he puts it, and in none of the medieval sources he reads [44][45]. The story begins, by his reading, in a Sōjiji biography written by 1646, and he calls it a creation [45]. It became the tradition. A short life of Keizan printed with his Denkōroku in 1857, from an old manuscript, says he awakened when Gikai raised 趙州平常心是道話 in the hall, and, asked what he had understood, answered 黒漆崑崙夜裏奔, the pitch-black man runs in the night, and then 逢茶喫茶。逢飯喫飯, meeting tea, I drink tea; meeting rice, I eat rice [46]; the first of these lines Yokoyama traces to Sōtō records of 1451 to 1453, and the phrase books gloss it as leaving no trace [45]. A biography of 1879 dates the awakening to the twentieth day of the tenth month of 1294 [47], and a Sōjiji book of 1911 tells it: 二十七歲の十月二十日、義介禪師上堂なされて、趙州の「平常心是道」と云はれたことに就て, on the twentieth day of the tenth month of his twenty-seventh year, Gikai gave a lecture on Zhaozhou's "the ordinary mind is the Way" [48].

1811, tea. Hayami Sōtatsu 速水宗達 (1740–1809), a tea master of Kyoto who founded the Hayami school [49], wrote the Chashiryaku 茶旨略, printed in Kyoto in 1811 with an afterword dated 1810 by his pupil 片岡伯賢 [10]. Read at the page image, it sets tea beside the Shingon phrase 即事而眞, the thing itself is the truth, and goes on [10]:

禪家ニユルス平常心是道ノ人モ即事而眞ノ竟ニハツルヽ智識モマヽアルナリ

Even among those the Zen house allows to be men of "the ordinary mind is the Way", there are now and then learned men who fall short of the end of "the thing itself is the truth." The printer gives the five characters the ruby ヒヤウジヨウシンゼタウ, the set-phrase reading with ze [10]. The text was printed again in 1933, in a collection of tea writings [50].

The 1890s to 1944, in print. The phrase is in Meiji Buddhist print by the early 1890s: in a collection of Buddhist talks printed in Kyoto between 1891 and 1893, where 神谷大周's piece on everyday care, 平生の用心, opens 禪語に云く平常心是道と, a Zen saying runs: the ordinary mind is the Way [18]. A tea-trade journal of 1911 reports a lecture under that title by the Eiheiji priest 新井石禪 [51]. Sugawara Jihō's Zen talks on tea of 1912 say of a state of mind, 是が平常心是道と云ふ處である, this is what is meant by "the ordinary mind is the Way" [52]. In 1914 the editor of a book on Ii Naosuke's tea, Nakamura Katsumaro 中村勝麻呂, writes in his introduction that every act of daily life is practice and that 南泉和尙が平常心是道と示せしも、此意に外ならず、茶道も亦此道理に漏るゝことなく, Nanquan's "the ordinary mind is the Way" means nothing else, and the way of tea does not escape this principle either [53]; between 是 and 道 the Library's machine reading has one character it could not read, left out here. A tea writer of 1920: 平常心是道で平常も大事の塲合も、客前も稽古も, by "the ordinary mind is the Way", every day and the great occasion, before guests and in practice … [54]. The monthly Sadō geppō 茶道月報 in May 1932: 茶道は平生にあり。佛法にも平常心是道と云ふが、茶道も同じく、平生底是茶道でなくてはならぬ, the way of tea is in the everyday. Buddhism says "the ordinary mind is the Way", and tea is the same: the everyday must be the way of tea [55]; in July 1934 a priest explains a scroll's inscription through Wumen's verse [56]. A book of 1944 on the spirit of tea calls it 茶にも武にも本質的に共通した心的態度, an attitude of mind common in essence to tea and to the martial arts, and coins 平常心是茶, the ordinary mind is tea [57].

1934 to 1937, in the alcove. The same monthly's records of tea gatherings list the five characters as the scroll in the alcove, the 床: in October 1934 [58]; in August 1935 and February 1937, a scroll written by 溪詮 [59][60]; and in January 1936, at a memorial gathering a priest held at his own temple for his teacher, who had loved tea, 床 龍瑞和尙筆 一行 平常心是道, alcove: a one-line scroll by the priest Ryūzui, 平常心是道 [11]. A book of 1936 on Zen phrases for the hanging scrolls of the tea room has the phrase as a headword, with the reading ヘイジヤウシンコレミチ, heijōshin kore michi [61].

The brushed line. A catalogue of 1977 of the calligraphy of Daitokuji's abbots lists 古溪宗陳 一行書 平常心是道, with a covering letter and a box inscribed by 小堀宗慶 [12]; Kokei Sōchin (1532–97), the 117th abbot, was Sen no Rikyū's Zen teacher [62][12]. Haga Kōshirō 芳賀幸四郎's book of 1973 on the one-line scrolls of tea names it, with 無事是れ貴人, among the one-line scrolls that are 季節を超越した, beyond the seasons [63]. A reference of 1999 on the one-line scrolls of tea lists sales of one-line scrolls of it at the art dealers' clubs, one in Kyoto in the Taishō era and one in Tokyo in the Shōwa era, and reads it byōjōshin kore michi [15]. A book of 2000 on the one-line scrolls of Daitokuji reads it びょうじょうしんこれどう, byōjōshin kore dō, and begins its note: あまりにも見なれた禅語であり、多くの禅僧がこれを書している。「諸悪莫作衆善奉行」と同様、最も当り前のことで、なかなか実行のむつかしい語, a Zen phrase all too familiar, which many Zen monks have written; like "do no evil, do all good", the most obvious of things, and a phrase hard to live up to [14].

Into English. D. T. Suzuki's essays of 1933 give the exchange as Your everyday mind, that is the Tao [64]. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps translated the Gateless Barrier as The Gateless Gate, printed in Los Angeles in 1934, with case 19 titled Everyday life is the path; the 1934 printing is quoted with its page by Frederic Spiegelberg in 1947 [65] and listed in Alan Watts's bibliography of 1936 [66], and it reached a wide readership in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (1957): Joshu asked Nansen: "What is the path?" Nansen said: "Everyday life is the path." … If useless things do not hang in your mind, / Any season is a good season for you [67]. A Japanese-English Buddhist dictionary of 1965 enters it as Heijōshin-kore-dō, The everyday mind is the way [68]. Alan Watts took the phrase as the title of a short essay of 1971 in The Eastern Buddhist, on coming back from psychedelic experience to so-called everyday or ordinary consciousness, which he calls the supreme form of awakening [69]. Kōun Yamada's translation of 1979 titles the case Ordinary Mind Is the Way, and his commentary sets apart the two Japanese readings of 道: michi, the relative way, used for the way of everyday life, and dō, used to refer to the absolute Way. It is another name for Dharma [70]. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (1989) enters it as Heijōshin kore dō, lit. "Ordinary mind is the way" [71]; Furuta Shōkin's book on Sengai (2000) indexes it as heijoshin kore do ("Everyday mind is the Way") [72]; and Moon by the Window (2011), a book of the Rinzai teacher Shodo Harada's calligraphy, has it as one of his pieces, Heijo shin kore do / Everyday mind is the Way, which it calls the words of Master Baso Doitsu [73].

After 1945, judo, shogi and baseball. In the post-war witnesses the five characters reach the sports. A judo handbook of 1953 calls Nanquan's answer the great way of human life [74]; a shogi magazine of 1955 says a player took the lifetime ninth dan 「平常心是道」という風格で, in the manner of "the ordinary mind is the Way" [75]. The baseball manager Kawakami Tetsuharu 川上哲治 writes in 1974 that he sometimes writes 「平常心是道」, beside 球禅味, 野球道 and 心技一体 [76], and lists it again in 1991 among the words he brushes [77]. A shogi magazine of April 1990 reports that the hanging scroll behind the Ōshō, 南, read 平常心是道 [78].

A reading

The phrase has lived in three places, and the scroll is the third. In the Chan records it is an answer that refuses the question: Zhaozhou wants a Way he can aim at, and Nanquan tells him that aiming is the one way to miss it; the ordinary mind is not calm as against agitation but the mind before it starts to seek. A Song master already warned against taking it as permission to stop seeking [79], and in the first Zen halls of Japan it was a line a pupil was told to hold until it opened. In Japanese tea the same five characters became a rule of practice: the way of tea is in the everyday, so the everyday must be tea. And from the tea room it went onto the wall, as a one-line scroll a Daitokuji abbot brushed in the sixteenth century and many monks after him; and in post-war judo, shogi and baseball, where a manager brushes it and a title match hangs it behind the board, it names, as I read them, the composure of the match. Each use narrowed the one before it, and none of them lost the words.

On the reading, I sign heijōshin kore dō. It is the commonest reading in the printed Japanese books the Library's search reads, from the early 1890s to the 1930s, roughly twice either of the others; it reads 是 as kore, as the case is read in Japanese, 平常心是れ道, in Sugawara's lectures; and it keeps Yamada's dō, the Way of the koan, against michi, a road. The other readings are not errors. Heijōshin ze dō is the five characters read as one set phrase, as the 1811 tea print and Sugawara both read them. Heijōshin kore michi is a tea book's headword of 1936. Byōjōshin, with the Buddhist reading of 平常, is the reading of the 1999 tea reference and the 2000 book of Daitokuji calligraphy, the two most recent books on its scrolls read here, though the first reads 道 michi and the second dō.

Notes

The verse. Wumen's verse is not his alone. Its second couplet is in a lamp history of 1101 [28], and the whole quatrain is credited to 訥堂梵思 in a part of the Song anthology added after its first compilation [29]; whether 訥堂's quatrain is older or younger than Wumen's cannot be settled from these records.

To aim or to doubt. The Zutang ji and the Gateless Barrier in the Taishō text have 不擬之道, the Way not aimed at; the lamp history of 1004 has 不疑之道, the Way not doubted [1][5][26]. Dōgen's heir Ejō 懷奘 quotes the exchange whole with 不疑之道 in his Kōmyōzō zanmai, dated 1278 [80], and the 1666 print of the Gateless Barrier reads 不疑 [38], so both wordings were read in Japan. Senzaki and Reps's the true path beyond doubt and Yamada's the true Way beyond all doubt follow the second [67][70].

Kakushin's teacher. One Kotobank article, on the Gateless Barrier, says that Kakushin brought the book to Japan after attaining the Dharma under Xutang Zhiyu 虚堂智愚 [81]; the same encyclopedia's articles on Wumen and on Kakushin, the Sekai daihyakka's article on Kakushin, and the biography of 1322 all name Wumen [35][36][82][6].

Keizan's date. The tellings of the awakening disagree on the year: 1294 [47], his twenty-seventh year [48], and, in English, J. W. T. Mason in 1935, as a young priest of twenty-two, when in the year 1290, he heard a sermon preached on the text: "The mind in everyday life is the path itself", with a footnote to an English pamphlet issued by Sōjiji [83]. Keizan's own record, as Yokoyama reads it, puts an awakening at twenty-two, his receiving of the Dharma at thirty-two, and his taking of Daijōji at thirty-five, in 1298 [44].

The warning. A sermon of the Song master Zhenjing 真淨, preserved in the Zongmen wuku 宗門武庫 of Dahui Zonggao's sayings (1186), speaks against those who take the phrase as the last word: 今時有一般漢，執箇平常心是道，以為極則。天是天地是地，山是山水是水，僧是僧俗是俗 … 並是依草附木, there is a kind of fellow nowadays who grasps "the ordinary mind is the Way" as the ultimate: the sky is the sky and the earth is the earth, mountains are mountains and water is water, monks are monks and laymen are laymen … all of them ghosts clinging to grass and leaning on trees [79].

Nyoshinsai. Furuta writes that the Omotesenke master Nyoshinsai 如心斎 adopted the Zen teaching "Everyday mind is the Way" (平常心是道), citing the tenth volume of the 1961 Sadō koten zenshū [72]. That volume's editors give Nyoshinsai's own words, written in his hand at the end of 川上不白's Shichiji no sho, as 「茶ハ常のこと也」, tea is an ordinary thing, and the Library's search inside the volume finds no 平常心是道 [84]. The five characters are Furuta's gloss on those words.

The 1956 plate. A collection of 1956 of Zen calligraphy lists a 平常心是道 among its plates, in a window that does not show whose hand it is [85].

The 1914 sentence. The sentence on Nanquan in the 1914 book on Ii Naosuke's tea is its editor's, in his introduction, not Naosuke's [53].

Heizeishin. The ruby へいぜいしんこれだう, heizeishin kore dō, also occurs in the Library's search, but most of the windows read show it beside 平生心是道, the everyday mind is the Way, written with 平生; it is not counted above.

The word alone. The word 平常心, its sword sense from the seventeenth century and its modern sense of composure, has its own history in this Library.

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Ordinary Mind Is the Way (heijōshin kore dō) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
平常心是道VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Ordinary Mind Is the Way (heijōshin kore dō) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
平常心是道VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Ordinary Mind Is the Way (heijōshin kore dō) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
平常心是道VD5JJiun
Japanese Scroll of Ordinary Mind Is the Way (heijōshin kore dō) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
平常心是道VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

The 1934 printing of Senzaki and Reps's The Gateless Gate; read through Spiegelberg's quotation of it and the 1957 reprint.

Kokei Sōchin's one-line scroll of the phrase: the plate, its date and its present owner; read only in the 1977 catalogue's list.

The Sadō geppō gathering records of 1934 to 1937, the tea books of 1914, 1933 and 1936, the 1961 Sadō koten zenshū, and the books of 1956 to 2000 quoted above are served in Japan only and were read in the Library's snippet view.

The sale catalogues behind the 1999 reference's list of sales; Furuta's page 266 of the 1961 volume; Mason's pamphlet.

Keizan's own record of 1323 and the fourteenth-century biographies, read here only as Yokoyama quotes them; 東隆真's study of 1972 on Keizan and the phrase.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 『祖堂集』 卷十八, 趙州和尚, 952, at CBETA (B25n0144, p. 630a02–a11). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0630a02
  2. 『祖堂集』 卷一, the count of years to 保大十年 (952), at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0311b13
  3. 『祖堂集』 卷十七, 梵日 (溟州𡼿山故通曉大師), at CBETA (p. 618a02–a04). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0618a02
  4. 『祖堂集』 卷十七, 岑和尚 (長沙景岑), at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0623a05
  5. 無門慧開, 『無門関』, 第十九則 平常是道, 1228, at CBETA (T48n2005, p. 295b13–b24). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T48n2005_p0295b13
  6. 虎関師錬, 『元亨釋書』 卷六, 釋覺心, 1322, in the 1605 print, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544561/1/8
  7. 道元, 『正法眼藏』 佛性, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2582, vol. 82, p. 92a18–a19). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2582_.82.0092a18:0092a19.cit
  8. 道元, 『正法眼藏』 佛性, the colophon, 仁治二年辛丑十月十四日 (1241), 興聖寶林寺, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2582, vol. 82, p. 101a18–a20). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2582_.82.0101a18:0101a20.cit
  9. 蘭溪道隆, 『大覺禪師語録』 卷下, 法語, 示慧行大師, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2547, vol. 80, p. 88a08–a19). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2547_.80.0088a08:0088a19.cit
  10. 速水宗達, 『茶旨略』, Kyoto, 文化八年 (1811), with an afterword by 片岡伯賢 dated 文化七年仲冬 (1810), 東北大学附属図書館 狩野文庫 copy, canvases 38–39 and 45, at the National Institute of Japanese Literature. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100441086
  11. 『茶道月報』 301, January 1936, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208197
  12. 『大徳寺歴代墨蹟精粋』, 1977, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12705305
  13. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text item search across all access levels, sorted oldest first, for the ruby strings へいじやうしんこれだう (96 items), へいじやうしんぜだう (44), へいじやうしんこれみち (44) and びやうじやうしんこれだう (9), 15 October 2026. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/
  14. 福富雪底 監修, 『大徳寺一行名品集』, 2000, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14127897
  15. 筒井紘一 ほか, 『茶掛の一行書 人物資料篇』, 1999, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14156523
  16. 山田孝道 著, 『禅宗辞典』, 1915, the headword ヘイジヤウシンゼダウ, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936741
  17. 「平常心」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank; kotobank has no entry for 平常心是道 (the address answers 404, 15 October 2026). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B9%B3%E5%B8%B8%E5%BF%83-624095
  18. 佐々木恵雲 編, 『古徳法語集』 第1編, printed 1891–93 (the item record dates the set 明24-26), 神谷大周 「平生の用心」, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/820679
  19. 宮本愚翁 著, 『愚翁道話』 後編, 1910, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758751
  20. 来馬琢道 編, 『禅宗聖典』, 1911, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1025661
  21. 菅原時保, 『無門関講話』, 1920, scan 107 (pp. 198–199). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/963185/1/107
  22. 菅原時保, 『無門関講話』, 1920, scan 166 (p. 316). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/963185/1/166
  23. 『祖堂集』 卷十八, 趙州和尚, 如何是平常心, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0630b14
  24. 「祖堂集」, 世界大百科事典 (柳田聖山), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%A5%96%E5%A0%82%E9%9B%86-1181279
  25. 『景徳伝灯録』 卷二十八, 馬祖道一, 1004, at CBETA (p. 440a03–a05). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T51n2076_p0440a03
  26. 『景徳伝灯録』 卷十, 趙州從諗, 1004, at CBETA (T51n2076, p. 276c07–c20). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T51n2076_p0276c07
  27. 無門慧開, 『無門関』, the author's preface, 紹定戊子 (1228), at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T48n2005_p0292b16
  28. 『建中靖國續燈錄』 卷二十八, 東京淨因惟岳佛日禪師, 1101, at CBETA (X78n1556). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/X78n1556_p0814a21
  29. 『禪宗頌古聯珠通集』 卷五, 訥堂思, at CBETA (X65n1295). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/X65n1295_p0501b21
  30. 『嘉泰普燈錄』 卷十四, 衢州天寧訥堂梵思禪師, at CBETA (X79n1559). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/X79n1559_p0380c07
  31. 『禪宗頌古聯珠通集』 卷十八, the 平常心是道 case and its verses, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/X65n1295_p0581b19
  32. 「蘭渓道隆」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・日本大百科全書・世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%98%AD%E6%B8%93%E9%81%93%E9%9A%86-17903
  33. 蘭溪道隆, 『大覺禪師語録』 卷下, 法語, 示成道大師, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2547, vol. 80, p. 88a20–c07). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2547_.80.0088b16:0088c07.cit
  34. 「元亨釈書」, デジタル大辞泉・改訂新版 世界大百科事典・日本大百科全書 and others (元亨2年, 1322), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%83%E4%BA%A8%E9%87%88%E6%9B%B8-60432
  35. 「無門慧開」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・日本大百科全書 (柳田聖山), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%84%A1%E9%96%80%E6%85%A7%E9%96%8B-140790
  36. 「心地覚心」, 日本大百科全書 (中尾良信), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%BF%83%E5%9C%B0%E8%A6%9A%E5%BF%83-1083145
  37. 『無門関』, the colophon of the 應永乙酉 (1405) print, at CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T48n2005_p0299c23
  38. 『鼇頭評註無門関』, 寛文六年 (1666) print, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2537644/1/28
  39. 「無学祖元」, デジタル大辞泉・日本大百科全書・改訂新版 世界大百科事典・日本人名大辞典+Plus and others (1279, 弘安2); 精選版日本国語大辞典 (1280, 弘安三年), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%84%A1%E5%AD%A6%E7%A5%96%E5%85%83-16997
  40. 無學祖元, 『佛光國師語録』 卷三, 住日本國相州巨福山建長興國禪寺語錄, 結夏上堂, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2549, vol. 80, p. 154c06–c08). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2549_.80.0154c06:0154c08.cit
  41. 「足利義詮」, 精選版日本国語大辞典 and others, at kotobank (貞治6 (1367).12.7). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E8%A9%AE-14543
  42. 「春屋妙葩」, 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%98%A5%E5%B1%8B%E5%A6%99%E8%91%A9-78525
  43. 春屋妙葩, 『知覺普明國師語録』, for 寶篋院殿 (足利義詮), 月忌初辰 正月七日, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2560, vol. 80, p. 663a06–c12). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2560_.80.0663a06:0663c12.cit
  44. 横山龍顯, 「瑩山紹瑾の嗣法の機縁について――徹通義介の会下における『法華経』経文による開悟――」, 『印度學佛教學研究』 68 (1), 2019, pp. 133–137, quoting 瑩山, 『洞谷山伝灯院五老悟則幷行業略記』 (元亨三年, 1323), 「義介伝」. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ibk/68/1/68_133/_pdf
  45. 横山龍顯, 「近世成立の瑩山紹瑾伝における悟則とその典拠――中世太源派文献からの影響を中心に――」, 『印度學佛教學研究』 70 (1), 2021, pp. 219–224. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ibk/70/1/70_219/_pdf
  46. 『傳光録』, 瑩山瑾禪師傳略考, printed with the 安政四年 (1857) edition from an old manuscript, at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2585, vol. 82, p. 343a25–b10). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2585_.82.0343a25:0343b10.cit
  47. 滝谷琢宗 著, 『総持開山太祖略伝』, 1879, scan 30 (瑩山's awakening, 永仁二年十月二十日). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823275/1/30
  48. 梶川乾堂 編, 『新総持』, 1911, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/818705
  49. 「速水宗達」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%80%9F%E6%B0%B4%E5%AE%97%E9%81%94-1102453
  50. 橋本博 編, 『茶道大鑑』 下巻, 1933, 速水宗達 『茶旨畧』, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1190580
  51. 『茶業界』 6 (2), February 1911, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1589655
  52. 菅原時保, 『婆言爺語 : 禅門茶話』, 1912, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823452
  53. 中村勝麻呂 編, 『井伊大老茶道談』 上巻, 1914, the editor's introduction, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1183157
  54. 奥田正造, 『茶味』, 1920, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937840
  55. 『茶道月報』 257, May 1932, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208153
  56. 『茶道月報』 283, July 1934, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208179
  57. 竹内尉, 『茶道の精神』, 1944, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126011
  58. 『茶道月報』 286, October 1934, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208182
  59. 『茶道月報』 296, August 1935, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208192
  60. 『茶道月報』 314, February 1937, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208210
  61. 川那辺観風, 『茶室の掛物 : 禅語略解』, 1936, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1230681
  62. 「古渓宗陳」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (藤井学) and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8F%A4%E6%B8%93%E5%AE%97%E9%99%B3-1074619
  63. 芳賀幸四郎, 『禅語の茶掛一行物』, 1973, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12439535
  64. D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism: Second Series, Luzac, 1933, quoted in the review in The Aryan Path 5 (3), March 1934, p. 183. https://archive.org/details/aryan-path_1934-03_5_3
  65. Frederic Spiegelberg, The Religion of No Religion, 1947, quoting The Gateless Gate, tr. Nyogen Senzaki and Saladin Reps, John Murray, Los Angeles, 1934, XIX, p. 33 (archive.org in-book search windows). https://archive.org/details/the_religion_of_no_religion
  66. Alan W. Watts, The Spirit of Zen, 1936, the bibliography (archive.org full-text search highlight). https://archive.org/details/spiritofzenwayof0000unse
  67. Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Charles E. Tuttle, 1957, the foreword and The Gateless Gate case 19 (text layer of the shelf copy, a later printing).
  68. Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary, Daitō Shuppansha, 1965, Heijōshin-kore-dō (text layer of the shelf copy).
  69. Alan Watts, "Ordinary Mind is the Way", The Eastern Buddhist, new series, 4 (2), 1971, pp. 134–137, Otani University repository. https://otani.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/9335
  70. Kōun Yamada, The Gateless Gate, Wisdom Publications, 2004 (first edition 1979), case 19, Ordinary Mind Is the Way, with the teishō (text layer of the shelf copy).
  71. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, Shambhala, 1989, under Heijōshin kore dō (archive.org full-text search highlight). https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofea0000unse_i4z5
  72. Furuta Shōkin, Sengai: Master Zen Painter, Kodansha International, 2000, the chapter on tea, notes 31–32, and the index (archive.org in-book search windows). https://archive.org/details/sengaimasterzenp0000shki
  73. Shodo Harada, Moon by the Window, Wisdom Publications, 2011, Heijo shin kore do (archive.org in-book search windows). https://archive.org/details/moonbywindowcall0000hara
  74. 松本芳三, 『学校柔道の指導』, 1953, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2465670
  75. 『近代将棋』 6 (3), March 1955, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6046773
  76. 川上哲治, 『巨人軍の鬼といわれて : わが野球人生50年』, 1974, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12444275
  77. 川上哲治, 『勝機は心眼にあり : 球禅一如の野球道』, 1991, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13429234
  78. 『将棋世界』 54 (4), April 1990, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6074362
  79. 『大慧普覺禪師宗門武庫』, 道謙 編, 1186, 真淨和尚小參, at CBETA (T47n1998B, p. 948b06–b10). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/T47n1998Bp0948b06
  80. 懷奘, 『光明藏三昧』, 弘安元年 (1278), at the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database (T2590, vol. 82, p. 455c18–c22; the date at p. 460a03). https://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/T2590_.82.0455c18:0455c22.cit
  81. 「無門関」, 日本大百科全書 (永井政之), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%84%A1%E9%96%80%E9%96%A2-140791
  82. 「覚心」, 世界大百科事典 and others, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A6%9A%E5%BF%83-43663
  83. J. W. T. Mason, The Meaning of Shinto, 1935, p. 189 by the index, with the footnote "See pamphlet in English, The Sojiji, issued by the Sojiji Monastery, p. 4" (archive.org in-book search windows). https://archive.org/details/meaningofshinto1935unse
  84. 『茶道古典全集』 第10巻, 淡交新社, 1961, the 解題, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2466386
  85. 『定本書道全集』 第11巻 (墨蹟), 1956, the list of plates, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2475291

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 平常心是道 (heijōshin kore dō)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/heijoshin-kore-do.