Thirty casual poems at my grass hut (22):
Either rising or lying
Staying in this grass hut,
What I aspire for is:
Freeing others before myself.
Sōan-no gū-ei sanjisshu (22):
Hana momiji
Kusa-no iwo
Okite-mo nete-mo
Inoru-koto
Ware-yori saki-ni
Hito-wo watasan
草庵之偶詠三十首 (22):
草庵に
起きてもねても
祈ること
我より先に
人を渡さん
Note: Inoru (祈る, pray) is translated aspire, because what Dogen does is to
aspire and say (申すas in the original text, but collated by two other versions here in
Okubo’s Dogen Zenji Zenshu, Collected Works of Dogen Zenji, on which the above
translation is made) “freeing others before myself ” (the Bodhisattva Vow).
According to the original text, the original poem should be translated as follows, as
he actually said repeatedly every day (he had been freed himself and was
continuously doing so – continuing practice, of sitting in shikan-taza, complete
sitting, stopping karmas. cf. Doei 21 – 23 especially) :
Either rising or lying
Staying in this grass hut,
What I’m saying is:
Freeing others before myself.
