Reading the "Words of Eihei Dogen"

On a somber spring evening around midnight,
snow sludge sprinkled the bamboo garden.
I wanted so desperately to ease my loneliness.
My hand reached behind me for the Words of Eithei
....Dogen
beneath the open window at my desk.
I offered incense, lit a lamp, and quietly read.
Body and mind dropping away is simply the upright
...truth.
In one thousand postures, ten thousand appearances,
...a dragon toys with the pearl.
Beyond ordinary thinking the precious tiger is
...captured.
Thus, Dogen's writings reflect the Buddha's teaching.

I remember the old days when I lived at the Entsu
...Monastery
and my late teacher lectured on the True Dharma Eye.
It was then that I had a breakthrough.
I was granted permission to read it and studied it
...intimately.
Until then I had depended solely on my own limited
...understanding.
Soon after, I left my teacher and became a wandered.

What is my relationship to Dogen?
Everywhere I went, I devotedly practiced the true
...dharma eye.
How many years have passed since then?
Forgetting myself, I returned home and now live in
...leisure.

I take this book and examine it quietly.
Its tone is not in line with the teachings of others.
No one has asked whether it is jade or a pebble.
For five hundred years, it's been covered with dust
simply because no one has an eye for dharma.
For whom was all of his eloquence expounded?
Longing for ancient times and grieving for the
...present, my heart is exhausted.

As I was sitting by the lamp one evening, my tears
...wouldn't stop.
They soaked into the book of the ancient buddha
...Eihei.
In the morning an old man living nearby came to
...my thatch hut.
He asked me why the book was damp.
I wanted to speak but didn't, as I was embarrassed.
Deeply distressed, I could not explain.
I dropped my head for a while before finding my
...words.
"Last night's rain drenched my basket of books."

---Ryokan---