Monday Night Zazen

During an evening talk, Ejo asked, “Shall we carry on the obligation of fulfilling our gratitude to our fathers and mothers?

Dogen replied, “Filial piety is most important. Yet there is a difference between lay people and monks in how to fulfill it. Lay people follow the teachings in the Kokyo, etc. and serve their parents in life and in death. All people in the world know that. Monks abandon their debt of gratitude and enter the realm of non-doing." (Non-doing does not mean not-active. It means to act freely, like fish swimming in the water, or birds flying in the sky without a trace.) "Our manner of paying off the debt of gratitude should not be limited to one particular person. Considering that we have debts of gratitude to all living beings equal to our own fathers and mothers, we must transmit all the merits of our good deeds to the whole dharma-world. If we limit it specifically to our own parents in this lifetime, we go against the Way of non-doing."

"In our day-to-day practice and time-to-time study, following the Buddha-Way continuously is the only true way of fulfilling our filial piety."

"Lay people hold memorial services and make offerings during the forty-nine days after a person’s death."

"As Zen monks, we should know the depth of the real debt of gratitude to our parents. We should see that debt as being the same as our gratitude to (the rest of) all living beings. Choosing one particular day to practice something good and transmitting the merit to one special person doesn’t seem to accord with the Buddha’s compassion. The passage about the anniversary days of the death of one’s parents and siblings in the Precept-Sutra refers to lay people."

"In the monasteries in China monks hold ceremonies on the anniversary of their master’s death but not on the anniversaries of their parents’ deaths." (Shobogenzo Zuimonki, 2-19)