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放下著 hōgejaku Put It Down

放下著 (hōgejaku), put it down: what the Chan books have Zhaozhou tell a monk who brings nothing, followed from 952 to the tea alcove.

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Japanese Scroll of Put It Down (hōgejaku) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Put It Down放下著hōgejaku

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Abstract

放下著, hōgejaku, put it down, is the answer the Chan books give to the Tang master Zhaozhou 趙州 when a monk says he has come bringing not one thing: 一物不將來時如何, how is it when one brings not one thing?; the monk asks what there is to put down, and is told to carry it off. The oldest text read that has both halves, the Zutang ji 祖堂集 of 952, quotes the pair as a known saying with no one named [1][2]; Zhaozhou's own record has the first question and the first answer only [3], and the oldest telling read that names the monk Yanyang 嚴陽 and gives the second turn is in the record of Huanglong Huinan 黃龍慧南, who died in 1069 [4][5]. From the twelfth century the masters read it as an instruction to let go of the nothing itself, and before Yuanwu's death in 1135 it was a case he set for a layman to work on [6][7][8][9]; a second story, the Buddha telling a Brahmin to put down his flowers, came into the Chan books from a sutra whose word is 放捨 [10][11]; in Japan Dōgen set it among his three hundred cases by 1235, it is a line of the Zen phrase book from 1688 and a case of the Rinzai kōan collection printed from 1689, and, in the tea books from 1936, a phrase of the tea alcove [12][13][14][15][16].

Overview

The sense. The three characters have no entry of their own in the Japanese dictionaries at kotobank, and JMdict gives none [17][18]. Their sense is the sense of 放下 read ほうげ, hōge, in Zen, made a command. デジタル大辞泉: 仏語。禅宗で、一切の執着を捨て去ること, a Buddhist word: in the Zen school, to throw away every attachment; the 日本国語大辞典: 仏語。禅で、精神的・肉体的な一切の執着を捨てて解脱すること。また、執着を起こさせる種々の条件を放棄すること, in Zen, to throw away every attachment of mind and body and be freed; also, to give up the conditions that give rise to attachment [17]. A collection on the way of tea of 1936 glosses the phrase 放下著とは(妄想分別を)棄てろといふ事で著は助辭, 放下著 means throw (deluded discrimination) away, and 著 is a particle, in the NDL's snippet view, where the 1936 copy's window breaks off at 著は助 and the copy the NDL dates 1937 reads on [15], and a tea magazine of 1993 says 著は命令をあらわす助詞, 著 is a particle that expresses a command [19]. In its story the command has more than one reading, and the masters held them side by side: that what must be put down is the nothing the monk claims to carry; that one should bring nothing, and toss out what one has brought; that what must go is the I who asks (The historical record).

The words. 放, to let go; 下, down; 放下, to put down, to throw away: read ほうげ, hōge, it is mostly the Zen word, and read ほうか, hōka, mostly the plain sense of throwing a thing down, and the name of the street performers called 放下; the 日本国語大辞典 notes that the Portuguese-Japanese dictionary of 1603–04 writes hōge for throwing a man down, so that the two readings and their senses were not yet fixed to each other [17]. 著 (also written 着) follows the verb as a particle of command, as the tea books say [15][19], so that 放下著 is put it down! The modern form 放下着 writes the character of 執着, attachment, but no witness read here takes the third character for attachment; the tea books take it as the particle. The reading はうげぢやく, hōgejaku, stands as ruby beside the phrase in a Zen book printed in 1893 [20], and ほうげじゃく in the modern spelling in the tea books [16][19]. The monk's question turns on 一物, one thing, and 不將來, not brought along; the master's second answer, 擔取去, is 擔, to carry on the shoulder, with 取去, take it and go: carry it off, or, read with the 則 some tellings add, 恁麼則擔取去, if so, then carry it off [4][21][22].

The text in English. D. T. Suzuki gave the exchange in 1927 as 'How is it when a man brings nothing with him?' 'Throw it away!' … 'What shall he throw down when he is not burdened at all?' 'If so, carry it along!' [23], and in his Introduction to Zen Buddhism, whose preface is dated 1934, as "Fling it down to the ground" and "If so, carry it away," with the gloss even the idea of "having nothing" ought to be done away with [24]. Alan Watts's The Spirit of Zen (1936) has the same wording as far as the archive.org search shows it [25]. Fosco Maraini's Meeting with Japan, in its English edition of 1959, tells of Hoge jaku on a hanging in the alcove of a restaurant pavilion and renders it 'Free yourself from attachment to useless things' [26]. Thomas Cleary's Book of Serenity (1988) gives Put it down and Then carry it out [27]; the translations of Dōgen's cases (2005) and of the Rinzai kōan collection (2013) give Cast it off and Drop it! [12][14].

The historical record

The third century, the sutra of the Brahmin. The Sutra of the Brahmin Hei 佛說黑氏梵志經, translated by Zhi Qian 支謙 in the years CBETA gives as 223 to 253, tells of a Brahmin who comes to the Buddha holding a flowering tree in each hand. The Buddha says 放捨！放捨！, let it go, let it go!, three times; the Brahmin sets down the tree in his right hand, planting it at the Buddha's right, then the tree in his left, and asks 適有兩樹，捨佛左右，空手而立，當復何捨？, I had two trees, I have set them at your right and your left and I stand with empty hands: what more is there to let go? The Buddha answers 佛不謂卿捨手中物。佛曰所捨，令捨其前，亦當捨後，復捨中間，使無處所，乃度生死眾患之難, the Buddha did not tell you to let go of what was in your hands. What the Buddha bids you let go of is what is before, and also what is after, and again what is in between, until there is no place left: so you cross over the trouble of birth and death [10]. The sutra's word is 放捨; the 日本国語大辞典 enters it as to let go and throw away, to keep away from, with Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵 as its first example [28].

914 and 952, a saying with no name on it. The Zutang ji, a record of the Chan masters compiled in 952 [2], has a monk put the question to Touzi Datong 投子大同, who died at ninety-six in a year 甲戌 the entry gives, 914 by his age [29]: 問：「一物不將來，為什摩卻言放下著？」師云：「辛苦與摩來。」, "When one brings not one thing, why is it said: put it down?" The master: "You went to such trouble to come like that" [1]. The question quotes the pair as a known saying, and names no one for it. The Zutang ji's entry on Zhaozhou does not have the exchange.

1004, the lamp history. The Jingde chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄 of 1004 [30] has an entry on Yanyang, the venerable Yanyang of Xinxing in Wuning county, Hongzhou, among the heirs of Zhaozhou: asked what the Buddha is, he answers a clod of earth, and a snake and a tiger follow him and eat from his hand, 師常有一蛇一虎。隨從左右手中與食 [31]. The entry has no question about bringing nothing, and the phrase 一物不將來 does not stand anywhere in the book as CBETA prints it.

The record of Zhaozhou. Zhaozhou's own record, as the Gu zunsu yulu 古尊宿語錄 prints it, has the exchange in one turn, with no questioner named: 問：一物不將來時如何？師云：放下著。, Q: How is it when one brings not one thing? The master said: Put it down, and the next line is another question [3]. The Jiaxing canon's print of the record has the same one turn [32].

After 1004, a stock question. The Tiansheng guangdeng lu 天聖廣燈錄, which carried the book of 1004 on with the Linji line at its center [33], has the question put to other masters. The layman An Hongjian 安鴻漸 asks it of Shoushan Shengnian 首山省念, and is told 何得對眾謾語？, how dare you tell a lie before everyone? [34]: the claim to bring nothing is itself false (the Gu zunsu yulu has 妄語 for 謾語 [35]). A monk asks it of Shimen Huiche 石門慧徹 in the two-step form, and the third answer is not carry it off: 問：一物不將來時如何？師云：放下著。學云：一物不將來，放下箇什麼？師云：猶自擔板在。, Q: How is it when one brings not one thing? The master: Put it down. The student: When I bring not one thing, what is there to put down? The master: You are still carrying a board on your shoulder [36]. The 擔板, the porter's plank that lets him see only one side, is the narrowness of a man who sees only the nothing. Yexian Guixing 葉縣歸省 gives the first answer and then 且擔著, then keep carrying it [37]; a monk quotes the line to the master of Fahua as the master's own words, 承師有言：一物不將來，放下箇什麼？ [38]; and a sermon in Weibai 惟白's continuation of the lamp histories asks 儞等諸人還肯放下麼？若不放下，且擔取去。, will all of you put it down? If you will not put it down, then carry it off [39].

Huanglong Huinan (1002–1069), the telling with names. The oldest telling read that names the two men and has the second turn is a sermon of Huanglong Huinan [5]: 嚴陽尊者問趙州：『一物不將來時如何？』州云：『放下著。』尊者云：『既是一物不將來，放下箇什麼？』州云：『擔取去。』尊者言下有省。, The venerable Yanyang asked Zhaozhou: "How is it when one brings not one thing?" Zhaozhou said: "Put it down." The venerable said: "Since I bring not one thing, what is there to put down?" Zhaozhou said: "Carry it off." At these words the venerable had an insight. His verse begins 一物不將來，肩頭擔不起, bringing not one thing, too heavy for the shoulders to lift [4].

The twelfth century, the nothing as the sickness. Yuanwu Keqin 圜悟克勤 (1063–1135) [6] tells it in a letter with Zhaozhou's second answer as 看汝放不下, look, you cannot put it down, quotes Huanglong's verse with his own notes, and reads it [7]: 若以常情論之，他道：一物不將來。云何却向道放下著？將知法眼照於細微，為他拈出大病，令他知羞慚去。他尚不覺，更復進問，再與點過，直得瓦解冰消，方始倒底一時脫去, by ordinary reckoning: he said he brought not one thing, so why tell him to put it down? Know that the dharma eye sees into the finest things: it picked out his great sickness for him and made him ashamed. He still did not see it and asked again, and was shown it once more, until it broke like tile and melted like ice, and only then did he shed it all, to the bottom, at once. The not one thing is the sickness. Hongzhi Zhengjue 宏智正覺 (1091–1157) [40] reads the first turn another way, quoting an old saying before he tells the story: 第一莫將來。將來不相似。若或將來。是須颺却。, first of all, do not bring it; if you bring it, it is not like it; and if you have brought it, toss it out [41]. Dahui Zonggao 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163) [42] carries Yuanwu's reading into a sentence: 要得不隨時節，但一時放下著，放到無可放處，此語亦不受, if you would not be moved by the seasons, just put it all down at once; put it down to where there is nothing left to put down, and do not accept even these words [9]. Among Dahui's letters, the vice-minister Zeng, 曾侍郎天游 in the heading, who calls himself 開, writes in his own letter, printed with Dahui's answer, that Yuanwu had set him two cases to work on, 雲門趙州放下著、須彌山兩則因緣, the two cases of Zhaozhou's put it down and Yunmen's Mount Sumeru [8]: by then the phrase was a case a layman held in mind, not only a story.

1103 to 1183, the Brahmin retold. The Chan books retold the sutra in their own word. A guide to the canon compiled by Weibai, which CBETA's record dates 1103–1104, summarizes it with 放下著 for 放捨 and keeps the sutra's in between: 佛云。令汝放下中間底, the Buddha said: I bid you put down what is in between [11]. The Liandeng huiyao 聯燈會要, whose compiler's preface is dated 1183 [43], has the Buddha say 放下著 three times to a Brahmin it calls 黑齒, and end: 吾非教汝放捨其花，汝當放捨外六塵、內六識、中六根，一時放捨至無可捨處，是汝免生死處, I did not bid you let go of the flowers. Let go of the six objects outside, the six consciousnesses inside, the six faculties in between; let go of them all at once until there is no place left to let go: that is where you escape birth and death [44]. The Wudeng huiyuan 五燈會元, which joins five of the lamp histories [33], tells it the same way, with the left hand first where the sutra has the right [45].

1224, the Book of Serenity. The Congrong lu 從容錄, Wansong Xingxiu 萬松行秀 (1166–1246)'s commentary on Hongzhi's verses on a hundred cases, with a preface of 1224 [46][47], makes the story its fifty-seventh case, Yanyang's One Thing 嚴陽一物, and sets a note against each turn [22]. Against the question, how is it when one brings not one thing?: 猶是分外, that is still something extra. Against put it down: 貼体衣衫會須脫却, even the shirt that sticks to the skin has to come off. Against the monk's what is there to put down?: 人不知己過牛不知力大, a man does not know his own fault; an ox does not know its own strength. Against the last answer, then carry it off: 喚不回頭爭奈何, call him and he will not turn his head: what can you do? His commentary says 趙州放下著。擔取去兩轉語。抽筋拔髓。換骨洗膓, Zhaozhou's two turning words, put it down and carry it off, pull out the sinews and draw the marrow, change the bones and wash the bowels, and ends 雖然莫將無事為無事。往往事從無事生, still, do not take having nothing for nothing: things often grow out of nothing [22]. Cleary renders the first two notes This is still beyond him and The robe and shirt sticking to the body—understand that you should shed them [27].

1254, the hymnal of the five houses. The Wujia zhengzong zan 五家正宗贊 of Xisou Shaotan 紹曇, whose preface is dated 1254 [48], tells it in its chapter on Zhaozhou in the form the Japanese phrase book and the tea books would name: 嚴陽問：一物不將來時如何？師曰：放下著。曰：既是一物不將來，放下箇什麼？曰：放不下，擔取去。嚴有省。, Yanyang asked: "How is it when one brings not one thing?" The master said: "Put it down." He said: "Since I bring not one thing, what is there to put down?" The master said: "If you cannot put it down, carry it off." Yan had an insight [49]. Xutang Zhiyu 虛堂智愚 (1185–1269) [50] says of Zhaozhou's answer 趙州向者僧痛處下一針，不妨奇特，只是病入膏肓，難以發藥, Zhaozhou put a needle into the monk's sore spot, and that is remarkable; only the sickness had gone too deep for medicine [51], and joins the two stories: after the Brahmin's 我今兩手盡空，未審放下箇什麼？, both my hands are now empty: what is there to put down?, he says the Buddha drew legs on a snake, and should only have answered 爾放不下，擔將去, if you cannot put it down, carry it off [52].

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Zen halls of Japan. Lanxi Daolong 蘭溪道隆 (1213–1278), who came to Japan in 1246 [53], ends a parting verse 一物不將來。兩肩擔夯去, bringing not one thing, carry it off on both shoulders [54]. Wuxue Zuyuan 無學祖元 (1226–1286), who came in 1279 [55], was asked the question at a winter-solstice talk and answered with another image, 羅公照鏡, Lord Luo looks in the mirror [56]. Dōgen 道元 (1200–1253) [57] uses the phrase in his own Japanese in the Udonge 優曇華 chapter of the Shōbōgenzō: 世尊拈華來。ナホ放下著, the World-Honored One has held up the flower: still, put it down [58]. He also set the story among the three hundred cases he collected in Chinese, the Shōbōgenzō in Chinese characters 真字正法眼藏 [59], whose preface he dated the winter solstice of the first year of Katei, 1235 [12]: 嚴陽尊者問趙州。一物不將來時如何。州云。放下著。嚴云。一物既不將來。放下箇什麼。州云。恁麼則擔取去。, The venerable Yanyang asked Zhaozhou: "How is it when one brings not one thing?" Zhaozhou said: "Put it down." Yan said: "Since I bring not one thing, what is there to put down?" Zhaozhou said: "If so, then carry it off", read here in the print of 1881 with Shigetsu Ein 指月慧印's commentary [60]; it is the two hundred and seventy-seventh case [12]. Shūhō Myōchō 宗峰妙超 (1283–1338 in the 大辞泉; 1282–1337 in the ニッポニカ and the 世界大百科, which date him by the era years), the National Teacher Daitō [61], answers a monk's flourish with the single word 放下著 [62]. Musō Soseki 夢窓疎石 (1275–1351) [63], in an exchange his record tells after the account of his last illness, was asked the question and turned it on the questioner: 師云。將此問來者誰。云。我也。師曰。不論有物無物。纔有我者便是輪迴業。, The master said: "Who is it that brings this question?" He said: "I." The master said: "Thing or no thing, the moment there is an I, that is the karma of rebirth" [64].

The seventeenth century, a gloss and a letter. The Shūmon kattōshū 宗門葛藤集, also called the Kuzō kattōshō 句雙葛藤鈔, a book of Zen phrases with Japanese glosses printed in Kyoto in the spring of 1657 by its colophon, 明暦丁酉仲春 [65], and compiled by Futetsu 不鉄 in the 国書総目録 [66], enters 放下著 and glosses it in Japanese: 夫レヲステヨト云コヽロナリ, it means: throw that away [67]. Under another phrase, 寸絲不掛猶存赤肉, not a thread on him, and still the red flesh, it glosses 言ハ一物不生來ノ処ヲモ放下著, that is: put down even the place where not one thing arises, and four small kana follow that read ト ケ タ ゾ as far as the scan shows them [68]. Isshi Monju 一糸文守 (1608–1646) [69] writes to a lay student that Yanyang came carrying a heavy load on both shoulders without knowing its weight, 看他雙肩擔荷這般重擔而不知重, and that Zhaozhou heard the root of the sickness in his words, 趙州和尚言中辨見病根 [70]; in a letter he quotes Yuanwu's reading of the great sickness and names him for it, 以上圓悟之語也, the above are Yuanwu's words [71]. Tetsugen Dōkō 鉄眼道光 (1630–1682) [72], in a sermon in kana printed in 1893, sets Zhaozhou's answer beside Yunmen's Mount Sumeru, the pair Yuanwu had given Zeng: また僧あり趙州に問一物不將來の時如何。趙州いはく放下著, and there was a monk who asked Zhaozhou, how is it when one brings not one thing? Zhaozhou said: put it down, with the ruby はうげぢやく [20]. A horizontal piece of the three characters in large cursive, in the Eisei Bunko 永青文庫, the collection of the Hosokawa family [73], is printed in John Stevens's Sacred Calligraphy of the East (1988) among the works of Takuan Sōhō 沢庵宗彭 (1573–1645 in the 山川 dictionary; 1646 in the 大辞泉) [74], with no signature in the reproduction, so that the hand is his by Stevens's placing [75].

1688 to 1894, the phrase book. The Zenrin kushū 禅林句集, the phrase book of Zen lines that Japanese calligraphers and tea men draw on, in its print of 1688 enters 放下著 among its three-character lines, with its source, 正宗贊趙州章, the chapter on Zhaozhou in the Zhengzong zan [13]; the prints of 1889 and 1894 enter it in the same place, with no note on its sense [76][77]. The 1894 print also enters the third turn's 放不下 as a line of its own from the same chapter, with the note 放與拋略義同, 放 and 拋 are roughly the same in sense [77].

1689, the kōan collection. A second book called Shūmon kattōshū 宗門葛藤集, a collection of kōans used in Japanese Rinzai training whose compiler is unknown, is known from an edition of 1689 [78][14]; Thomas Kirchner, its translator, writes that every Rinzai Zen practitioner who advances in koan work must, sooner or later, examine this text [14]. It has the story as a case: 嚴陽尊者問趙州。一物不將來時如何。州云。放下著。者云。已是一物不將來。放下這什麼。州云。恁麼則擔取去。者於言下大悟。, … Zhaozhou said: "If so, then carry it off." At these words the venerable was greatly awakened, read here in the print of 1890, whose head-note names the fourth fascicle of the Wudeng huiyuan as its source [79]. Kirchner numbers it the sixth case and renders the command Drop it! [14]. It is not the book of phrases of 1657 that shares its title [66].

1915, nine talks. The Sōtō scholar Nukariya Kaiten 忽滑谷快天 (1867–1934) [80], in a book of talks on Zen practice, gives nine chapters the title 放下著, numbered one to nine [81].

1936 to 1997, the tea alcove. The tea books read here, in the NDL's snippet view, gloss 放下著 or list it among the phrases written for the alcove. The 1936 collection on the way of tea glosses it with 著 as a particle [15]. A book on tea and Zen of 1966 says これは『五家正宗賛』に出ている禅語で、すべてを放下せよ、すべての執着を捨ててしまえ, this is a Zen phrase found in the Wujia zhengzong zan: put everything down, throw away every attachment, and gives the reading ほうげ·じゃく [16]. The 1993 tea magazine enters it with the reading ほうげじゃく [19], and it is a heading in a book of the Zen phrases of the tea room of 1994 and in a book on reading tea-room scrolls of 1997 [82][83]. A 茶掛, in the dictionary's words, is 茶室の床に掛ける軸, a scroll hung in the alcove of a tea room [84]. A university journal of 1967 gives the Song reading in modern Japanese: 趙州は「放下著」-捨ててしまえ、と云った。空をも空じてしまえ、と云ったのである, Zhaozhou said put it down: throw it away. He was saying, empty even the emptiness [85].

What is not a source. Huineng's line 本来無一物, from the beginning, not one thing, is the state Yanyang claims to have reached, and the Takase Studios history of that line follows it separately [86]; it is a neighbor, not the source. Huangbo 黃檗's mockery of the sort he calls 閑神野鬼, idle spirits and wild ghosts, who tell a sick man 爾只放下著, just put it down, and cannot do it when they fall ill themselves, in a record CBETA dates 857, is the phrase as an everyday retort, not this story [87]. The street performers called 放下 are the word in its other reading, ほうか, and the dictionaries trace their name to the Zen word [17].

The phrase in English

1927, D. T. Suzuki. D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966) [88] tells the exchange in the first series of his Essays in Zen Buddhism, with no questioner named: A monk came and asked the master, 'How is it when a man brings nothing with him?' 'Throw it away!' was Jōshū's immediate response. 'What shall he throw down when he is not burdened at all?' 'If so, carry it along!', and, a hundred pages on, 'When a man comes to you with nothing, what would you say to him?' his immediate response was, 'Cast it away!' [23]. He adds no reading of the nothing.

1934, Suzuki's Introduction. In An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, whose preface is dated Kamakura, August 1934, in the chapter Is Zen Nihilistic?, the exchange is "What would you say when I come to you with nothing?" Joshu said, "Fling it down to the ground." Protested the monk, "I said that I had nothing; what shall I let go?" "If so, carry it away," was the retort of Joshu, and Suzuki reads it: To reach the goal of Zen, even the idea of "having nothing" ought to be done away with [24]. This is Yuanwu's and Wansong's reading in English, without their names.

1936, Alan Watts. The Spirit of Zen prints when I come to you with nothing?" "Fling it down to the ground." "I said that I had nothing, what shall …, the wording of Suzuki's Introduction as far as the search's window runs; Watts's page was not opened [25].

1959, Fosco Maraini. In Meeting with Japan, at an evening meal in a garden pavilion, a friend helped him read the characters on a hanging in the alcove, where there was nothing else but a thistle flower: There were four characters … They read Hoge jaku; perhaps the best translation is: 'Free yourself from attachment to useless things.' A supremely Buddhist maxim [26]. 放下著 is three characters, not four, and useless things narrows a command that, in its story, asks the monk to let go of what he values most, his nothing.

1988, Thomas Cleary. The Book of Serenity translates the case Zhaozhou said, "Put it down." Yanyang said, "If I don't bring a single thing, what should I put down?" Zhaozhou said, "Then carry it out," and Wansong's notes against each turn [27]. In the same year John Stevens captions the brushed piece in the Eisei Bunko Hōgejaku, "Throw down completely!" That is, cast off all discrimination [75].

2005 and 2013, the two collections in English. Kazuaki Tanahashi and John Daido Loori translate Dōgen's case: Zhaozhou said, "Cast it off." Yanyang said, "When nothing comes up, how can you cast it off?" Zhaozhou said, "Then carry it with you" [12]. Thomas Kirchner translates the Rinzai collection's: "Drop it!" replied Zhaozhou. "But I've come with nothing," answered Yanyang. "How can I drop it?" "Then go on carrying it!" said Zhaozhou. At this Yanyang was deeply enlightened [14].

Today. JMdict has no entry for the phrase; for 放下 read ほうげ it gives casting off one's attachments (in Zen) [18]. The English books have given the command as throw it away, cast it away, fling it down, put it down, throw down completely, cast it off and drop it; word for word it is put it down!, and in its story what must be put down includes the nothing the questioner claims.

A reading

The monk comes to say that he has let go of everything, and Zhaozhou tells him to put it down. As I read the witnesses, the answer does not mean put down your things; it means put down that: the claim to have nothing is the one thing he has brought. The oldest books already hear it so. Touzi's monk asks why one should be told to put down what one has not brought, and Touzi says only you went to such trouble to come like that; Shoushan calls the claim a lie; Shimen calls the man who makes it a porter who sees one side of his plank. Yuanwu says it outright, the not one thing is the great sickness, and Dahui and Wansong carry it to its end: put it down to where there is nothing left to put down, and do not keep even that sentence; the innermost shirt comes off too. Hongzhi's do not bring it, and if you have, toss it out is a different and gentler reading, and Musō's who brings this question? moves the weight from the thing to the I; I hold them beside the others and sign Yuanwu's, which is the oldest of the explicit readings and the one the Japanese masters quote by name. The second answer, if you cannot put it down, carry it off, is the same command turned round: the burden is real, and pretending it away is the thing that cannot be done. The Brahmin's sutra, older than any of this, has the same shape in its own word: not the flowers, but before, after and in between.

On the reading, I sign hōgejaku, the reading the 1893 ruby gives and the tea books give today.

Notes

The third answer has five forms in the witnesses read: 猶自擔板在 in the Tiansheng guangdeng lu [36]; 擔取去 in Huanglong's sermon [4]; 看汝放不下 or 看你放不下 in Yuanwu's letters [7][89]; 恁麼則擔取去 in Hongzhi's record and the Book of Serenity [21][22]; and 放不下，擔取去 in the Wujia zhengzong zan, which the phrase book cites [49]. Wansong's commentary also has it as 放不下則擔取去 [22].

The Liandeng huiyao as CBETA prints it has the Brahmin put down the flower in his left hand twice, 志放下左手花 at both the first and the second command [44]; the sutra has the right hand and then the left [10], and the Wudeng huiyuan the left and then the right [45]. The Brahmin's name is 黑氏 in the sutra and the Wudeng huiyuan, and 黑齒 in the Liandeng huiyao [10][44][45].

The translators credit Dōgen with the selection of the cases; the commentary in the print of 1767 is Shigetsu Ein's, and the verses and commentaries of their translation are Loori's. They describe two witnesses, that print and a manuscript dated 1287 of seventy-nine cases, kept in the Kanazawa archive in Yokohama and published in 1934, and base their translation on the annotated text of the 道元禅師全集 edited by Sakai Tokugen and others (1988–1993) [12]. The 1881 print's wording differs from the kōan collection's: 嚴云 for 者云, 一物既不將來 for 已是一物不將來, 箇 for 這, and no closing line of awakening [60][79].

The dictionaries of 1892 and 1898 enter a word ハウゲジヤク: it is a name of the mineral calcite, 方解石, and not this phrase [90][91].

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Put It Down (hōgejaku) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
放下著VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Put It Down (hōgejaku) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
放下著VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Put It Down (hōgejaku) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
放下著VD5JJiun
Japanese Scroll of Put It Down (hōgejaku) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
放下著VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

D. T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, the first edition, published in Kyoto by the Eastern Buddhist Society in 1934, whose copies are held in research libraries; it would settle whether the sentence even the idea of "having nothing" ought to be done away with stands in the text of 1934 or entered a later printing.

『禅学大辞典』, 駒沢大学内禅学大辞典編纂所 編, 大修館書店, 1978, held by the National Diet Library and served only in Japan; its entry on 放下著, if it has one, would settle which source the modern Zen dictionary gives first and how it dates the story.

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

References

  1. 『祖堂集』 卷六, 投子和尚 (大同), at CBETA (B25n0144, p. 409b10). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/B25n0144_p0409b10
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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 放下著 (hōgejaku)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/hogejaku.