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本来面目 honrai no menmoku The Original Face

A question put to a monk on a mountain pass, which grew in the retelling, and a poem Kawabata chose to brush.

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Japanese Scroll of The Original Face (honrai no menmoku) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
The Original Face本来面目honrai no menmoku

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

本来面目, honrai no menmoku, the original face, is the face a person has before anything is added to it: in Zen, the mind as it is. It comes from the story of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng 慧能 and the monk Huiming 惠明, who chased him over the Dayu ridge for the robe of the succession: the oldest surviving copy of the Platform Sutra tells that meeting without any question; in the dated texts read here, the four characters first stand together in Huineng's question in 1004; and the words before your father and mother were born, which most English readers know as part of the question, are joined to it, in the dated Chinese texts read here, first in a sermon of Hongzhi's and an instruction of Mi'an's in the twelfth century. In Japan Dōgen 道元 (1200–1253) writes 本來面目現前, the original face appears, in the Fukan zazengi, the first work he wrote on his return from China, in 1227, and a waka handed down under his name and titled with the phrase, 春は花夏ほととぎす秋は月, was the poem Kawabata Yasunari 川端康成 set at the head of his Nobel lecture in 1968; its fourth line differs between the text Okumura translates from the oldest copy and the print of 1747. I read the phrase as the question first asked it: not a face before birth, but the face at this very moment, when nothing is being thought.

Overview

The sense. The デジタル大辞泉 defines ほんらい‐の‐めんもく【本来の面目】 as 仏語。すべての人がもともと持っている自然のままの心性。禅宗でいう。, a Buddhist word: the nature of mind, as it is, that every person has from the beginning; so called in Zen; the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 as 仏語。衆生が本来持っている、人為をまったく加えない心性。禅の極致という。, the nature of mind that beings have from the beginning, with nothing of human contrivance added; said to be the summit of Zen [1]. The 禅宗辞典 of 1915 gives it as 天然のまゝにて、少しも人爲を加へざる姿の爲にて、人々自己本來具有の心性をいふ, the form as it is by nature, without the least human contrivance: the nature of mind each person has in himself from the beginning, and names three other phrases for the same thing: 又「本分の田地」といひ「本地の風光」といひ、「本分の事」といふも皆同じ, also called the ground of one's own part, the scenery of the original ground, one's own affair: all the same [2].

The words. 本来 is from the beginning; 面目 is the face and its features, what a person is known by. The 日本国語大辞典 reads 面目 here めんもく, in the sense おおもとになるもの, the thing at the root, and notes under the other reading, めんぼく, that the 日葡辞書 of 1603–04 distinguishes めんぼく, honor, from めんもく, face; purport, adding 「この区別が確かにあったかどうかは明らかでないが、名誉の意の例は「めんぼく」となっているものが圧倒的に多い。」, whether the distinction was really kept is not clear, but the examples meaning honor are overwhelmingly めんぼく [3]. So the phrase is read with めんもく, the face, not めんぼく, one's honor or face in the social sense. Japanese reads the four characters with の inserted, ホンライノメンモク: the 故事成語大辞典 of 1907 heads it 【本來面目】 with ホンライノメンモク printed beside it, and the 禅宗辞典 of 1915 reads it ホンライ ノ メンモク [4][2]. 来 and 來 are one character, the new form and the old; the Chinese books and every typeset Japanese print before 1945 read here write 本來面目, and Kawabata, in 1969, 本来 [5].

The text in English. In the English read here, print carries the phrase by 1910, untranslated, as the name of a koan, Honrai no Memmoku [6]. Original face, with before you were born, stands in 1924 in a lecture book that quotes D. T. Suzuki in the same sentence, and in Suzuki's own Essays of 1927 [7][8]. R. H. Blyth, translating the Mumonkan in 1966, wrote that Suzuki's rendering, though not literal, gives us a shock, and himself gave the Original Self [9]; Shibayama and Sekida, in the 1970s, also gave self; Yamada, in his book of 1979 as read in the edition of 2004, primal face; Aitken, in 1991, the original face (The original face in English, below).

The historical record

Between 830 and 860. The Dunhuang Platform Sutra 六祖壇経. The oldest surviving copy of the Platform Sutra, the sermon and life of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, is a manuscript from Dunhuang, which Philip Yampolsky dates by its hand to between 830 and 860, a copy of a version some of whose material dates to around 780 [10]. It tells the chase: after the Fifth Patriarch gives Huineng the robe, a monk who had been a general of the third rank overtakes him on the mountain, and Huineng transmits the teaching to him [11]:

能於嶺上，便傳法惠順，惠順得聞，言下心開。

On the ridge, I transmitted the Dharma to Huishun; when Huishun heard it, at the words his mind opened. The monk is named 惠順 here and only here, and there is no question; the four characters do not stand anywhere in the work. Yampolsky notes of this scene that it is on this occasion that Hui-neng is credited in later works with the famous lines [10].

952. The Zutangji 祖堂集 (Collection from the Hall of the Patriarchs). The Zutangji, a Chan history compiled in 952 and preserved in a Korean printing of 1245 [12], tells the scene with Huineng's words to the monk, now 慧明, 明上座, in another form, a command [13]:

靜思靜慮，不思善不思惡，正與摩思不生時，還我本來明上座面目來。

Quiet your thoughts, still your mind; think neither good nor evil; just at the moment when no thought arises, give me back the original face of Senior Monk Ming. 本來 and 面目 stand apart, with the monk's title between them. The same book has the four characters together in other mouths: a monk to the master of Mount Huang, Huangshan Yuelun 黄山月輪, 「如何得見本來面目？」, how can one get to see the original face? [14]; and the Korean monk 亭育, quoting back to Yangshan 仰山 a line of his own writing, 「和尚禪決中云：『還我本來面目。』」, in your Chan decisions, master, you say: "give me back my original face" [15]. And in the entry for the master Nanquan 南泉, a monk asks the question that later joined Huineng's: 「父母未生時，鼻孔在什摩處？」, before your father and mother were born, where was your nose? [16].

967. Huixin's Platform Sutra. The next text of the Platform Sutra, edited by the monk Huixin 惠昕 in 967, survives, Yampolsky writes, only through a Japanese print, the Kōshōji 興聖寺 text, based on a Gozan copy of a Song printing of 1153, which came from a manuscript copy of 1031 [10]. Its main text tells the meeting as the Dunhuang text does: 「惠能卽於嶺頭、便傳正法、惠明聞法、言下心開。」, on the ridge Huineng transmitted the true Dharma; Huiming heard it, and at the words his mind opened. The question stands only in a small-character note at the end of the chapter, 「祖謂明曰、不思善、不思惡、正與麼時、如何是上座本來面目。明大悟。」, and the Daijōji 大乘寺 text, a Song text close to the Kōshōji's, has no note at all. Ui Hakuju 宇井伯寿, who set the copies side by side, suggested 「細注の文は、後に、或は傳心法要から取られたのではないかと思はれる。」, the words of the small note were, I think, perhaps taken later from the Essentials of the Transmission of Mind 傳心法要 (below), whose wording of the scene, he adds, does not agree with the note exactly; and he judged 「少なくとも、細注は後人の附加であるに相違ない」, at the least, the small note must be a later hand's addition [17].

1004. The Jingde chuandeng lu 景徳伝灯録 (Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp). In the dated texts read here, the Jingde chuandeng lu, of 1004 [18], is the first to set the four characters in Huineng's question (Huixin's note has them too, judged a later addition by Ui [17]), in the entry for the monk, here called 道明 of 蒙山 [19]:

祖曰。不思善不思惡正恁麼時。阿那箇是明上坐本來面目。師當下大悟遍體汗流。

The Patriarch said: "Think neither good nor evil. Just at this very time, which is Senior Monk Ming's original face?" At that the master was greatly awakened, and sweat ran from his whole body. Later in the same book a master of the temple 觀音 quotes the scene to his assembly with the four characters together, in a command, 「盧行者當時大庾嶺頭為明上座言。莫思善莫思惡。還我明上座本來面目來。」, Lu the postulant, that time on the Dayu ridge, said to Senior Monk Ming: think neither good nor evil; give me back Senior Monk Ming's original face [20]. The book keeps Nanquan's question, 問父母未生時鼻孔在什麼處, before your father and mother were born, where was your nose?, apart from Huineng [21]; and when Guishan 溈山 tests the monk Xiangyan 香嚴, he asks not about parents but 汝未出胞胎未辨東西時。本分事試道一句來, say a word about your own affair from the time before you left the womb, before you could tell east from west [22].

1036. The Tiansheng guangdeng lu 天聖廣燈錄. The Tiansheng guangdeng lu, compiled by Li Zunxu 李遵勗 and given an imperial preface dated 景祐三年, 1036 [23], keeps Huineng's question without the parents: 「不得思惡，不得思善，正當恁麼時，還我明上座本來面目。」, do not think evil, do not think good; just at this very time, give me back Senior Monk Ming's original face [24].

The twelfth century. Before your father and mother were born. In the dated texts read here, the parents first enter Huineng's question in the twelfth century, in a sermon of Hongzhi's and an instruction of Mi'an's. Hongzhi Zhengjue 宏智正覚 (1091–1157) [25], in a sermon to his monks: 「六祖和尚道。不思善不思惡。正當恁麼時。還我明上座父母未生時本來面目。」, The Sixth Patriarch said: "Think neither good nor evil. Just at this very time, give me back Senior Monk Ming's original face from before his father and mother were born" [26]. Mi'an Xianjie 密庵咸傑 (1118–1186) [27] gives it to a student as the phrase to look into: 「六祖示明上座道：『不思善，不思惡，正恁麼時，如何是明上座父母未生前本來面目？』」 [28]. The joined form, as a command and with 面目 alone, stands in the Essentials of the Transmission of Mind 傳心法要 of the master Huangbo 黄檗, as the Taishō prints it: 「六祖云。不思善不思惡。正當與麼時。還我明上座父母未生時面目來。明於言下忽然默契。」, The Sixth Patriarch said: "Think neither good nor evil. Just at such a time, give me back Senior Monk Ming's face from before his father and mother were born." At the words Ming silently understood [29]. That work's compiler, Pei Xiu 裴休, dated his preface 857 [30]; but the copy of the same work that the Taishō prints at the end of the ninth fascicle of the Jingde chuandeng lu, with a note dated 慶曆戊子, 1048, has no Dayu-ridge scene at all [31]. So the passage is absent from that copy, which carries an editor's note; whether it entered the Essentials later, and when, is not known here, and it may be older than Hongzhi's sermon; 857 is the date of Pei Xiu's preface, not of these words. In the Wudeng huiyuan 五燈會元, a Song compilation of the lamp records, Guishan's question to Xiangyan has become 父母未生時。試道一句看, before your father and mother were born: try saying a word [32]. The Wujia zhengzong zan 五家正宗贊, whose preface is dated 1254, gives Huineng's question with the parents too [33]:

師曰：不思善，不思惡，正恁麼時，如何是明上座父母未生以前本來面目？明大悟。

The master said: "Think neither good nor evil. Just at this very time, what is Senior Monk Ming's original face from before his father and mother were born?" Ming was greatly awakened. This is the form of the question that reached English.

1227. Dōgen, the Fukan zazengi 普勧坐禅儀. The Fukan zazengi, the first work Dōgen wrote on his return from China, in 1227, surviving in what is thought to be his own fair copy of 1233 [34], says of seated meditation, in the two texts the Taishō prints [35]:

須學回光返照之退歩。身心自然脱落。本來面目現前。

You must learn the backward step that turns the light and shines it back. Body and mind of themselves drop away, and the original face appears. The phrase is no longer a question put to someone else: it is what appears in sitting.

1228. The Mumonkan 無門関 (The Gateless Barrier). The Mumonkan of Wumen Huikai 無門慧開, compiled in 1228, little regarded in medieval Japan and much commented on from the Edo period [36], makes the scene its case 23, under the title 不思善惡, think neither good nor evil [37]:

祖云。不思善不思惡。正與麼時那箇是明上座。本來面目。明當下大悟。

The Patriarch said: "Think neither good nor evil. Just at such a time, which is Senior Monk Ming's original face?" Ming was at once greatly awakened. Wumen's verse on the case ends 「本來面目沒處藏　世界壞時渠不朽」, the original face has nowhere to hide; when the world is destroyed, it does not decay [37].

1231. Dōgen, the Bendōwa 弁道話. In the Bendōwa, of 1231 [38], which the Taishō prints within the Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵, Dōgen writes of one who sits even once [39]:

一時ニ身心明淨ニシテ。大解脱地ヲ證シ。本來面目現スルトキ。諸法ミナ正覺ヲ證會シ。

all at once body and mind are bright and pure, they realize the ground of great liberation, and when the original face appears, all things together realize true awakening. The 日本国語大辞典 gives this line as its first example of the phrase, under 正法眼蔵 (1231‐53) 弁道話 [1]; the Bendōwa itself is of 1231 [38], and the Fukan zazengi has the phrase four years earlier [35].

1291. The Platform Sutra, Zongbao's text. The text of the Platform Sutra that became standard, with a postscript by Zongbao 宗寶 dated the summer of 至元辛卯, 1291, gives the question in Huineng's own words without the parents: 「不思善，不思惡，正與麼時，那箇是明上座本來面目？」 [40].

About 1420 to 1472. A waka on the original face. Dōgen's waka come down in the Kenzeiki 建撕記, the life of Dōgen by Kenzei 建撕 (1415–1474), abbot of Eihei-ji, probably written before 1472; its oldest surviving copy was made by the monk Zuichō in 1589 [41]. Shohaku Okumura, translating that collection, writes that the poems reached the Kenzeiki through a monk named Kishun, who copied them around 1420, and that we do not have information regarding Dōgen's waka poems before Kishun's collection, with one exception [41]. In the Kenzeiki as Okumura translates it, under the title ei honrai no menmoku, on the original face (詠本来面目 in the characters of the 1990 edition of his works, below), is the poem 春は花夏ほととぎす秋は月, and the fourth line of Okumura's text reads fuyu yuki kiede, winter snow does not melt [41]. It stands in a run of poems each titled with a Zen phrase, which follows a heading Okumura gives as written at Kamakura in 1247, at the request, as Okumura's romanized heading gives it, of kitaonkata of the house of Lord Saimyōji, Hōjō Tokiyori 北条時頼; his English for the heading is cut off in the copy read [41]. Whether the poems are Dōgen's is disputed: Okumura reports Funatsu Yōko's view that there is no way we can prove that they were really composed by Dōgen himself, Maruyama Kōgai's that the fifty-three Kishun collected were truly composed by Dōgen, and his own, that modern scholars are skeptical about whether these waka were composed by Dōgen, but there is no information available to prove they were not written by him [41].

1715. Chikamatsu. The phrase reached the stage. In Chikamatsu Monzaemon 近松門左衛門's Kokusen'ya kassen 国性爺合戦, first staged in 1715, a line runs 「雪折竹に本来の―を悟り」, in a bamboo broken under snow, he grasped its original face, as the デジタル大辞泉 quotes it [3][42].

1747. Menzan's Sanshō dōei 傘松道詠. In 1747 the scholar-monk Menzan Zuihō 面山瑞方 (1683–1769) took the waka out of the Kenzeiki and printed them as the Sanshō dōei, and in doing so, Okumura writes, changed the titles and order of the poems, added some poems he found elsewhere, and even changed the wording of some waka [41]. A copy of his print of 1747, which the National Institute of Japanese Literature catalogues as 『傘松祖師道詠』 (Kyoto, 柳枝軒), sets the poem under the heading 本来面目, without the Kenzeiki's 詠, and its fourth line begins 冬雪さえて [43]. A collection of Sōtō sermons of 1902 sets, under the heading 高祖様が北條時頼に示された十首, ten verses our founder showed Hōjō Tokiyori, each verse beneath a Zen phrase, and among them [44]:

本來面目 春は花夏ほとゝぎす秋は月冬雪さえて凉しかりけり

The original face. / In spring, blossoms; in summer, the cuckoo; in autumn, the moon; in winter, the snow, clear and cold. Here the fourth line is 冬雪さえて, the winter snow, cold and clear.

1907 to 1915. The dictionaries. The 故事成語大辞典 of 1907 heads 【本來面目】, read ホンライノメンモク, and defines it 天然のままにして一毫の人意を雜へざる所をいふ, what is as it is by nature, without a hair of human intention mixed in [4]. The 禅宗辞典 of 1915 quotes, under ホンライ ノ メンモク, both the Platform Sutra, 「不思善不思惡正與麼の時、那箇か是れ明上座本來の面目」, and the Fukan zazengi, 「身心自然に脫落して、本來の面目現前せん」, reading の into each [2]. A Buddhist dictionary of 1912 calls the phrase 「禪家、六祖大師の創語」, a word of the Zen school, coined by the great teacher the Sixth Patriarch [45]: the tradition's account, which the texts above show was built in stages.

1907 and 1910. Sōseki. Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石, in his preface to Takahama Kyoshi 高浜虚子's stories 『鷄頭』, dated November 1907 and printed with the book in 1908, writes of Zen [46][47]:

余は禪といふものを知らない。昔鎌倉の宗演和尙に參して父母未生以前本來の面目はなんだと聞かれてぐわんと參つたぎりまだ本來の面目に御目に懸かつた事のない門外漢である。

I do not know what Zen is. I am an outsider who once sat with the priest Sōen at Kamakura, was asked what my original face before my father and mother were born was, and was floored; I have not yet had the honor of meeting the original face. In his novel Mon 門, serialized in 1910 [48], the old master of a Zen temple near Kamakura sets the hero, Sōsuke, the same question, 「父母未生以前本來の面目は何だか、それを一つ考へて見たら善からう」, what is your original face before your father and mother were born? It would be good to think on that; Sōsuke does not well understand 父母未生以前, and takes it to mean that he should catch hold of what he himself is [49]. The koan given in Meiji Japan was the joined form, read with の, 本來の面目.

1968. Kawabata. Kawabata Yasunari opened his Nobel lecture of 1968 with a poem he gave as Dōgen's. In his own Japanese, printed in 1969 [5]:

春は花夏ほととぎす秋は月 冬雪さえて冷しかりけり

with すず set beside 冷; then, after a second poem, by the priest Myōe 明恵: 「道元禅師（一二〇〇年―五三年）の「本来ノ面目」と題するこの歌と、」 … 「明恵上人（一一七三年―一二三二年）のこの歌とを、私は揮毫をもとめられた折りに書くことがあります。」, this poem of the Zen master Dōgen, titled "the original face", and this poem of the priest Myōe, I sometimes write when I am asked for calligraphy [5]. In the English given out with the lecture, in Edward G. Seidensticker's translation, the title is "Innate Spirit" at the opening and "Innate Reality" at the close [50].

1982 and 1984. The fourth line. The Dōgen scholar Sugio 杉尾玄有 argued in two articles, in the snippets the National Diet Library's search displays, that the Kenzeiki copies he cites do not write 冬雪さえて: in 1982, citing Kawamura Kōdō 河村孝道's side-by-side edition of the manuscripts, 「「冬雪キヱテ」「冬雪消テ」というふうに書かれており、ただ瑞長本によると「冬雪キヱデ」となるらしい」, it is written 冬雪キヱテ and 冬雪消テ, though in the Zuichō copy it seems to be 冬雪キヱデ, "the winter snow, not melting", and 「冬雪消えで」が正しいかと思われる, 冬雪消えで seems to be right [51]; in 1984, that the fourth line 「冬雪消えで」と確定されるほかなく, can only be fixed as 冬雪消えで [52]. He set beside it a poem of Minamoto no Michichika 源通親 (1149–1202), whom the dictionaries name as Dōgen's father (one, the 日本大百科全書, adds that some make him the son of Michichika's son Michitomo), in Michichika's account of the death of the retired emperor Takakura 高倉 in 1181 [53][54][55]; at the page it reads [56]:

春ハはななつはうつせみ秋ハ露あはれはかなき冬の雪かな

In spring, blossoms; in summer, the cicada's shell; in autumn, dew; and, alas, how fleeting, the winter snow. Sugio reads Dōgen's first three lines as keeping its shape, season by season: 「道元の歌の第三句までにおいては、ほぼ、通親の歌句のかたちがそのまま生かされながら」, up to the third line of Dōgen's poem, the shape of Michichika's lines is kept almost as it stands [52]. The edition of Dōgen's works published in 1990, as the same search displays it, prints 「詠本来面目 … 冬雪きえですずしかりけり」 [57].

What is not a source. Okumura sets beside the poem a verse of Hongzhi Zhengjue from the Book of Serenity, on the seasons woven like brocade, as an expression of the same idea [41]; Blyth sets beside Suzuki's before you were born Christ's Ye must be born again [9]. Each is a comparison, not an origin. Michichika's poem is a model on Sugio's argument, which the dates allow and no witness read here confirms [52].

The original face in English

1910. The Literary Digest, 2 July 1910, p. 30. Under Mind Cure in Japan, the magazine reprints, from The Japan Magazine's condensation, an account Mrs. Kawakita gave in the Fujinsekai (Ladies' World) of her sanzen under a priest of the famous Kenkōji temple: 「gave me a subject for meditation. The subject was Honrai no Memmoku, and I was told to think about it until I had discovered its meaning, or thought I had done so.」 [6]. She writes that she cannot tell the koan's meaning, because I am not allowed to divulge the secret, and that it was hard to sit with family cares and household duties around her [6]. This printing carries the phrase untranslated, as the name of a koan; the same item stands in the Napanee Express of 24 June 1910, seen only in the Internet Archive's full text.

1913. Nukariya Kaiten, The Religion of the Samurai, p. 17. 「Think neither of good nor of evil (make your mind pure from all idle thoughts), then see how is, Hwui Ming, your original (mental) physiognomy !」 [58]. The first English rendering read here keeps 面目 as the features of a face, physiognomy, and has no before birth.

1924. Kenneth J. Saunders, Epochs in Buddhist History, p. 144. In the Haskell Lectures of 1921, published in 1924: 「Another such elementary Ko-an is the question, "What is your original face, even before you were born?" and like all such questions it aims at "laying the axe to the root of our everyday experience in order to build up a new order of things on the basis of Zen," as D. T. Suzuki expresses it.」 [7]. The first English read here with original face and before you were born, three years before Suzuki's book, quotes Suzuki in the same sentence. Suzuki's book of 1927 says its essays were 「originally published in The Eastern Buddhist」 [8], so Saunders may have had them from the journal; whether the journal essays carry original face is not read here.

1927. D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, pp. 210 and 225–226. In the telling of the chase: 「Think not of good, think not of evil, but see what at this moment thy own original face doth look like, which thou hadst even prior to thy own birth.」; and later, 「Show me your original face before you were born.」 [8]. Blyth names the rendering as Suzuki's [9]. His before you were born, put in Huineng's mouth, shortens the joined form first found, in the dated texts read here, in the twelfth century; it is not in the Platform Sutra, Dunhuang or Zongbao, and Suzuki names no source for it.

1928. Karl Ludvig Reichelt, Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism, p. 281. In Kathrina Van Wagenen Bugge's English translation, in the chapter on monastic life, among the directions for meditation: 「Think of where you have come from; what you were before you were born into the world as a man. Think until you see your original face (pen-lai-ti mien-mu, 本來的面目).」 [59]. The phrase reached English from Chinese practice as well as Japanese, written here with the 的 of modern Chinese between its halves.

1930. Masaharu Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion, p. 209. 「This reality is called the mind or soul, or the fundamental nature, or the primeval feature (of the world and the soul).」, with the note 「The prime nature of the soul is called honrai no memmoku, to which a reference is made by Luis Frois in connection with a Zen monk converted by him to Christianity.— Delplace, i. 149: Fourai nome mogui.」 [60]. The Jesuit passage Anesaki cites is not read here (Sources not seen).

1966. R. H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics, vol. 4, Mumonkan, pp. 170–171. He translates the case 「what is the Original Self of Monk Myō?」 and then writes: 「Honrai no memmoku is translated by Suzuki as, "Your original face before you were born." This, though not literal, gives us a shock.」 [9]. Blyth names the addition as Suzuki's and does not follow it.

1974 and 1977. Shibayama Zenkei and Sekida Katsuki. Shibayama, Zen Comments on the Mumonkan, p. 172: 「At such a moment, what is the True Self of Monk Myo?」 [61]. Sekida, Two Zen Classics, p. 81: 「At this very moment, what is the original self of the monk Myō?」 [62]. Both keep this moment and give self for 面目.

1979. Yamada Kōun, The Gateless Gate, case 23. 「without thinking good or evil, what was the primal face of Monk Myō?」, and in the verse, 「There is nowhere to hide the primal face」 [63]. Read in the edition of 2004, whose preface says the book was first printed in 1979 [63].

1985. Kazuaki Tanahashi, Moon in a Dewdrop, p. 20. On Kawabata and the poem: 「As the title of the poems, Honrai no Memmoku ("Innate Reality" or "Original Face"), suggests」 [64].

1991. Robert Aitken, The Gateless Barrier, case 23. 「Don't think good; don't think evil. At this very moment, what is the original face of Ming the head monk?」; and Wumen's verse, 「The Original Face has nowhere to hide.」 [65]. In his introduction Aitken writes that Kuei-shan asked Hsiang-yen about his original face before his parents were born; the texts read here have Guishan ask about the time before you left the womb in 1004 and before your father and mother were born in the Wudeng huiyuan, and neither has 本來面目 in that question [65][22][32].

2000. John R. McRae, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, p. 25. Translating Zongbao's text: 「At just such a time, what is Elder Huiming's original face?」 [66].

2022. Shohaku Okumura. The poem's title as 「Poem Expressing the Original Face」, and its lines 「Spring flowers / summer cuckoos / autumn moon / winter snow doesn't melt / all seasons pure and upright」 [41]: the first English rendering read here that follows the oldest copy's fourth line.

Today. JMdict gives 本来の面目, ほんらいのめんもく, as one's true nature, marked Buddhist [67]. The English Wikipedia's article Original face, citing Red Pine's translation of the Platform Sutra of 2008, says that the phrase originates in Huangbo's Chuanhsin fayao (857) and the Hui-sin edition (967) of the Platform Sutra [68]. In the copies read here, neither date carries the words: 857 is the date of the Essentials' preface, and the copy appended to the Taishō Jingde chuandeng lu, with a note dated 1048, has no Dayu-ridge scene [30][31]; Huixin's text, as the Kōshōji print keeps it, has the question only in a note that Ui judged a later addition [17]. A rendering of 本来面目 keeps face, the 面目 of the texts, where self and nature explain it; and it keeps the question's this very moment apart from before your parents were born, which is a later addition and a koan of its own.

A reading

The phrase began as a question, and the oldest form of the question is about now. In the Zutangji and the Jingde chuandeng lu, Huineng asks Huiming to stop thinking good and evil and to say, 正與摩思不生時 (952), 正恁麼時 (1004), just at this very moment, which is his original face [13][19]; before your father and mother were born, the question put to Nanquan, was then a separate question, about where one's nose was [16][21]. In the dated texts read here, a sermon of Hongzhi's and an instruction of Mi'an's first join them [26][28], though the Essentials' joined form, added at a date not known here, may be older [31], the Zen halls of Meiji Japan set the joined form as a koan [47][49], and the English of the 1920s, Saunders's and Suzuki's, carried the joined form to the world, so that the original face became a face from before birth [7][8]. That is a powerful koan, and Blyth was right that it gives us a shock [9]; but it moves the face into the past, and the texts that first asked the question put it in the present, in the moment when nothing is being added. Dōgen's use reads the same way. In the Fukan zazengi and the Bendōwa the original face is not sought: it appears, 現前, 現スル, when body and mind drop away in sitting [35][39]. The waka under his name, whoever made it, says it with the seasons: blossoms, the cuckoo, the moon and the snow, each as it is [41]. Whether the snow is cold and clear or not melting, the poem does not point behind the seasons to a hidden self; the seasons are the face. I read 本来面目, then, as the original face, meaning the face one has this moment, before one adds anything to it: not a self beneath the present, but the present itself, unadorned. Signed, 典.

Notes

The four characters, by witness. The Dunhuang Platform Sutra lacks them; the Zutangji has 本來 and 面目 apart in Huineng's command and 本來面目 together in two other places; Huixin's text, in the Kōshōji print, has them only in a small-character note; the Jingde chuandeng lu, the Tiansheng guangdeng lu, the Mumonkan, Zongbao's text and the Wujia zhengzong zan have them together in Huineng's question, and Hongzhi and Mi'an in theirs [11][13][14][15][17][19][24][37][40][33][26][28]. The Essentials as the Taishō prints it has 父母未生時面目, without 本來 [29].

The monk's name. 惠順 in the Dunhuang text; 慧明 and 明上座 in the Zutangji; 惠明 in Huixin's text; 道明 in the Jingde chuandeng lu, which gives his entry under that name; 明上座 in the Mumonkan and Zongbao's text [11][13][17][19][37][40]. Yampolsky notes that the Dunhuang text alone names him so [10].

The punctuation of the Mumonkan. The modern edition quoted punctuates 那箇是明上座。本來面目, dividing the question after the monk's title [37].

The 弁道話's spelling. The Taishō text writes the line in katakana, 本來面目現スルトキ [39].

The 1910 temple. The Literary Digest prints the temple's name as Kenkōji; which temple Mrs. Kawakita's Fujinsekai account names is not read here [6].

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of The Original Face (honrai no menmoku) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
本来面目VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of The Original Face (honrai no menmoku) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
本来面目VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of The Original Face (honrai no menmoku) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
本来面目VD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of The Original Face (honrai no menmoku) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
本来面目VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

河村孝道 (Kawamura Kōdō), 『諸本対校 永平開山道元禅師行状建撕記』, 大修館書店, 1975: the side-by-side edition of the Kenzeiki manuscripts, named by Okumura and by Sugio [41][51]. It would show the fourth line of the poem and its title in each copy, which this history gives only through Okumura's romanization and Sugio's report.

Sugio's two articles in full, 「新古今歌壇と道元禅師―「春は花」一首考」, 『宗学研究』 24, 1982, pp. 14–20, and 「「傘松道詠」一首考―道元の新古今歌壇批判」, in 『和歌文学とその周辺』, 1984, held by the National Diet Library and readable only in Japan [51][52]. They would show his whole argument for 冬雪きえで and for Michichika's poem as model, which this history knows from snippets.

L. Delplace, Le catholicisme au Japon, tome I (Brussels, 1909), p. 149, which Anesaki cites for Luis Frois's Fourai nome mogui [60]. It would show whether a Jesuit recorded the phrase from a Zen monk, and in what words; the volume could not be reached from here.

Red Pine, The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng, Counterpoint, 2008, p. 120, which the English Wikipedia cites for its dates [68]. It would show on what copy of the Essentials and of Huixin's text that claim rests.

The Eastern Buddhist, the journal in which Suzuki's essays first appeared [8].

Yamada Kōun, The Gateless Gate, Center Publications, 1979, the first printing [63]. This history reads Yamada in the Wisdom edition of 2004; the 1979 text would show whether primal face stood there in those words. It would show whether Suzuki gave original face in English before Saunders.

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

References

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  63. Kōun Yamada, The Gateless Gate, Center Publications, 1979; read in The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans, Wisdom Publications, 2004, preface and case 23, on the house's shelf in an edition without page numbers.
  64. Kazuaki Tanahashi, ed., Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen, North Point Press, 1985, p. 20, read on the house's shelf.
  65. Robert Aitken, The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-men Kuan (Mumonkan), North Point Press, 1991, introduction and case 23, read on the house's shelf in an edition without page numbers.
  66. John R. McRae, tr., The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000, p. 25, read on the house's shelf.
  67. 「本来の面目」, JMdict entry 2186730, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, at new.gokanji.com. https://new.gokanji.com/word/2186730
  68. "Original face", English Wikipedia, read in October 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_face

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.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-27, citations — the 56 references with a web address opened and the quoted words looked for at each, with eight controls that must fail and did; nine rows failed at first, six on the address and two on the instrument, each corrected or read at the page; on the re-run every address answered with the words sought · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-27, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 failed on two wrong facts, a second secular sense the cited dictionaries do not give and English before Suzuki stated wider than the English read; round 2 failed on one, no author said to be named when a dictionary of 1912 names the Sixth Patriarch; round 3 failed on one narrowing, Huixin's note dated by his edition, applied, with wordings corrected in the pass, among them the first work Dōgen wrote on his return from China rather than his first book, the 952 words as a command and the 1004 words as a question, the joined form absent from the 1048 copy of the Essentials rather than added after 1048, and every first and every absence named by its search

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 本来面目 (honrai no menmoku)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/honrai-no-menmoku.