Tenzo Kyōkun 7 – Putting the Mind of the Way to Work

This talk continues Shohaku Okumura Roshi’s commentary on Dogen Zenji’s Tenzo Kyokun – Instructions for the Zen Cook. (Covering the third paragraph on page 37). In the previous paragraph of Tenzo Kyōkun, Dōgen said we should see things not with our common eyes, but we should see things with the dharma eye or Buddha’s eye; and here he’s saying: anyway, we do have a competitive mind. How can we use this competitive mind for our practice? First he said: “If you’re resolute in your intention and are most sincere, you will vow to be more pure-hearted than the ancients and surpass even the elders in attentiveness.” So he said that instead of competing with the contemporaries, the people around you, you should compete with the ancient masters, or elders. This is kind of a tricky thing, an interesting thing. Dōgen said when we really, sincerely want to work as a tenzo, in order to develop or improve our ability to make better dishes, somehow we need to compete; compete with ourselves and compete with others. How can we use this competitive mind to become better? Listen to the podcast for more. This talk was originally given at Sanshinji in Bloomington, IN on September 26, 2007. Please consider supporting Okumura Roshi's teachings and the activities of Sanshin Zen Community by making a contribution on this podcast's page ( at Sanshin's home page ( or at the Dōgen Institute website (

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Tenzo Kyōkun 7 – Putting the Mind of the Way to Work is an episode from Sanshin Zen Community's Podcast.

This episode is 48:31 long.

This episode was published on Jan 26, 2018.

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