Today's passage makes reference to a famous Koan and story ...
When the World-honored One [The Buddha] was
walking with the assembly of his followers, he pointed to the ground with his
hand and said, "This place is suitable to build a shrine." The deva
Indra then took a single blade of grass, stuck it in the ground, and said, "I
have built the shrine." The World-honored One smiled
The tathâgatas of the ten
directions, embracing the spirit of this dharani, turn the great wheel of the
dharma in lands innumerable as motes of dust.
Each brings to mind the poem by William Blake, Auguries of Innocense ...
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
The cook keeps careful
watch over the area where the rice and soup are prepared, giving commands to
the postulants, the servants, and the fire stokers, and instructing them in the
handling of the various utensils. Nowadays, large monasteries have rice cooks
and soup cooks, but those are nevertheless under the command of the cook. In
the past there were no such rice or soup cooks, only the single officer, the
cook himself.
When ordinarily
preparing ingredients, do not regard them with ordinary [deluded] eyes, or
think of them with ordinary emotions. "Lifting a single blade of grass
builds a shrine; entering a single mote of dust turns the great wheel of the
dharma." Even when, for example, one makes a soup of the crudest greens,
one should not give rise to a mind that loathes it or takes its lightly; and
even when one makes a soup of the finest cream, one should not give rise to a
mind that feels glad and rejoices in it. If one is at the outset free from
preferences, how could one have any aversions? Even when confronted with poor
ingredients, there is no negligence whatsoever; even when faced with scanty
ingredients, one exerts oneself. Do not change your mind in accordance with
things. Whoever changes his mind in accordance with things, or revises his words
to suit the person [he is speaking to], is not a man of the way.
From: Tenzo Kyokun - Instructions for the Cook by Eihei Dogen - Translated by Griffith Foulk
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