# Mountains and Waters Sutra ## Shōbōgenzō Sansui-kyō — by Eihei Dōgen --- > *The Sansui-kyō, or Mountains and Waters Sutra, is the twenty-ninth fascicle of the Shōbōgenzō, the masterwork of Eihei Dōgen (1200–1253), founder of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism in Japan. Delivered to the assembly at Kannon-dōri Kōshō-hōrin-ji temple on the eighteenth day of the tenth month of the first year of Ninji (1240), when Dōgen was forty-one years old, the text takes as its subject the identity of mountains and waters with the Buddha Way — and, ultimately, with the true self.* > > *Among the ninety-five fascicles of the Shōbōgenzō, the Sansui-kyō is the only one bearing the character 経 (kyō) — "sutra" — in its title, marking it as scripture in its own right. Drawing on the sayings of Fuyō Dōkai ("The blue mountains are constantly walking; the stone woman gives birth by night") and Yunmen Wenyan ("The eastern mountain moves upon the waters"), Dōgen unfolds a vision of reality in which mountains walk, waters preach, and the boundary between sentient and insentient dissolves. The text is at once a philosophical treatise on the nonduality of mind and environment, a polemic against shallow Zen, and a hymn to the living landscape as the body and mind of awakening.* > > *This is a Good Works Translation by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, rendered from the original Classical Japanese and Classical Chinese as preserved in the Iwanami Bunko edition (Mizuno Yaho, 2004) and the Zen commentary tradition. The original text was accessed via the sets.ne.jp digital archive.* --- The mountains and waters of the present are the manifestation of the Way of the ancient buddhas. Together they abide in their dharma-position and have fully realized ultimate virtue. Because they are the tidings of the aeon before emptiness, they are the living activity of the present. Because they are the self before the first sign has stirred, they are the freedom of full manifestation. The many virtues of the mountains are high and broad. The power that rides the clouds must always reach us through the mountains. The wondrous skill that follows the wind has always freed itself through the mountains. --- Master Kai of Mount Taiyō once told the assembly: "The blue mountains are constantly walking. The stone woman gives birth by night." The mountains lack nothing of the virtues they should possess. Therefore they are constantly at rest, and constantly walking. You should study the virtue of this walking in close detail. --- The walking of mountains must be like the walking of people; therefore, do not doubt the walking of the mountains merely because it does not look like the walking of human beings. The teaching of the buddha-ancestors has already pointed to this walking. This is its root meaning. You should thoroughly investigate the teaching that mountains constantly walk. The walking makes them constant. The walking of the blue mountains is swifter than the wind, yet the one within the mountains is unaware and unconscious. Within the mountains means the blossoming of the whole world. The one outside the mountains is also unaware and unconscious. Those without eyes to see mountains are unaware, unconscious, unseeing, and unhearing — this is the logic of the matter. If you doubt the walking of the mountains, you do not yet know your own walking either. --- It is not that your own walking does not exist; you simply do not yet know or understand it. If you would know your own walking, you must also know the walking of the blue mountains. The blue mountains are neither sentient nor insentient. The self is neither sentient nor insentient. You must not doubt the walking of the blue mountains. You do not know from what dharma-realm you should illuminate the blue mountains. The walking of the blue mountains and the walking of the self — examine them clearly. Examine both the step forward and the step back. --- From the very moment before the first sign has stirred, from the time of the Void King and beyond, the step forward and the step back have never ceased — examine this. If the walking had ever paused, the buddha-ancestors would not have appeared. If the walking had ever reached an end, the buddha-dharma would not have come to this day. The step forward does not cease; the step back does not cease. The step forward does not turn against the step back; the step back does not turn against the step forward. This virtue is called "mountains flowing" and "flowing mountains." The blue mountains study walking; the eastern mountain studies moving upon the waters. Therefore this study is the mountains' own study. The mountains do not alter their body and mind; keeping their own face, they have always come investigating and studying. Do not slander the mountains by saying that the blue mountains cannot walk, or that the eastern mountain cannot move upon the waters. --- It is because of the baseness of a low point of view that one doubts the phrase "the blue mountains are walking." It is because of the poverty of narrow learning that one is startled by the words "flowing mountain." Unable even to fully penetrate the phrase "flowing water," one merely drowns in narrow views. And so, the accumulated virtues of the mountains are taken as their form, their name, their lifeblood. There is walking and there is flowing. There comes a time when the mountain gives birth to the mountain child. Because there is this principle of mountains becoming buddha-ancestors, the buddha-ancestors have appeared thus. --- Even when eyes open to see grass, trees, earth, stones, walls, and tiles as manifesting the real — this is neither doubt nor agitation, nor the full manifestation. Even when the moment arrives when everything appears adorned with the seven treasures, this is not the final resting place. Even when the sphere of the practice of all buddhas is seen to manifest, it should not become an object of attachment. --- Even if one attains the pinnacle of seeing the inconceivable virtues of all buddhas manifested, the truth is not only this. Each particular manifestation is simply the result of its own conditions. These should not be taken as the practice of the buddha-ancestors; they are merely the view through a narrow tube. To hold that the external world opposes and controls the mind — this is what the Great Sage rebukes. To theorize about mind and its essential nature — this is what the buddha-ancestors reject. To attempt to see the mind and see the nature — this is the activity of heretics. To cling to words and phrases — this is not the path of liberation. There is something that has passed far beyond all such boundaries. This is what is called "the blue mountains are constantly walking" and "the eastern mountain moves upon the waters." Examine this closely. --- "The stone woman gives birth by night" means that the time when the stone woman gives birth is called "night." In general, there are male stones and female stones, and there are stones that are neither male nor female. They support heaven and patch earth. There are stones of heaven and stones of earth. Though this is commonly said, few truly know it. You should know the meaning of "giving birth." When the child is born, does the parent and child both transform? You should study and penetrate not only that the child becomes a parent as the manifestation of birth, but also that the parent becoming a child is the practice and realization of birth. --- Yunmen, the Great Master Kuangzhen, said: "The eastern mountain moves upon the waters." The essential meaning of these words is this: all mountains are the eastern mountain, and all these eastern mountains move upon the waters. Therefore the nine mountains including Sumeru are manifested and realized. This is called "the eastern mountain." But how could even Yunmen penetrate to the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow of the eastern mountain, to its practice and living activity? --- Now in the Great Song empire there is a certain group of incompetents. By now they form a crowd. Small truth cannot prevail against them. They say that such talk as "the eastern mountain moves upon the waters" and Nanquan's sickle story are "beyond rational understanding." Their meaning is this: any talk involving conceptual thinking is not the Zen talk of the buddha-ancestors. "Beyond rational understanding" — that alone is the talk of the buddha-ancestors. Therefore they say the blows of Huangbo and the shouts of Linji, being beyond rational understanding, are the great awakening prior to the first sign's stirring. The expedient means of the ancient masters, they say, often employed such phrases that cut through entanglement — and this is "beyond rational understanding." Those who speak thus have never met a true teacher and have no eye for study. They are worthless fools. --- In the Song dynasty for the past two or three hundred years, such demon-children and bald pretenders have been many. What a pity — the great Way of the buddha-ancestors is decaying. The understanding of these people does not even reach the level of the Hīnayāna hearers; they are more foolish than the heretics. They are neither lay nor monastic, neither human nor celestial. They are more foolish than the beasts who study the Buddha Way. What these bald pretenders call "beyond rational understanding" — it is only you who cannot understand; the buddha-ancestors are not like this. Just because you cannot understand does not mean you should fail to study the way of understanding that the buddha-ancestors possess. Even if in the end it truly were beyond understanding, then even the understanding you now claim would be invalid. Such people are many throughout the Song empire. I have seen and heard them myself. How pitiful — they do not know that thoughts and deliberations are words and phrases, and that words and phrases liberate thought and deliberation. --- When I was in the Song empire and laughed at them, they had nothing to say and fell silent. Their claim that understanding is impossible is simply a wrong view. Who taught you this? Though you have no true teacher, yours is the natural view of heretics. Know this: "the eastern mountain moves upon the waters" is the very marrow of the buddha-ancestors. Waters are manifested at the foot of the eastern mountain. Therefore the mountains ride the clouds and walk the heavens. The summit of the waters is the mountains. Walking both upward and downward is always upon the waters. The toes of the mountains walk upon all the waters and make the waters leap. Therefore walking is unhindered in all directions, and practice and realization are not absent. --- Water is not strong or weak, not wet or dry, not moving or still, not cold or warm, not existent or nonexistent, not deluded or enlightened. When frozen, it is harder than diamond — who could break it? When melted, it is softer than milk — who could break it? This being so, no one can doubt the virtues that water manifests and possesses. You should study the moment of seeing water in all ten directions as water in all ten directions. This is not only studying how humans and heavenly beings see water. There is studying water seeing water. Because water practices and realizes water. There is water speaking of water. You must actualize the path of the self meeting the self. You must go forward and back on the living road where the other meets the other. Leap free. --- The way different beings see mountains and waters is not the same. Some see water as jeweled ornaments. But they do not see the jeweled ornaments as water. What form do we see that they call water? What we see as water they see as jeweled ornaments. Some see water as wondrous flowers, though they do not use flowers as water. Hungry ghosts see water as raging fire or as pus and blood. Dragons and fish see it as palaces and towers. Some see it as the seven treasures and the mani gem, some as forests and walls, some as the pure nature of liberation, some as the true human body, some as body-form and mind-nature. Humans see it as water — the cause of life and death. Indeed, what is seen differs according to the kind of being. Let us hold this in question. --- Is it that different views are directed at a single object, or that different objects are mistaken for a single thing? At the peak of practice, practice further. Therefore, the practice of the Way is not one track or two, and the ultimate boundary must be a thousand, ten thousand kinds. To think further on this principle: though the waters of various kinds are many, it seems as if there is no original water, and as if the waters of various kinds do not exist. Yet the various waters seen by the various kinds do not depend on mind or body, do not arise from karma, are not dependent on self or other. There is simply the freedom of water being water. --- Therefore, water is not the elements of earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness; water is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black; water is not form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas — yet the water of earth, water, fire, wind, and space manifests of itself. This being so, it is difficult to say what creates and constitutes the lands and palaces of the present. To say they hang upon a sphere of air or a sphere of space is not true for us or for others. It is merely the conjecture of a narrow view. Such a thing is said only because people think that without something to hang upon, things cannot stand. --- The Buddha said: "All dharmas are ultimately liberated; they have no fixed abode." Know this: though they are liberated and without bondage, all dharmas abide in their own position. Even so, when humans look at water, one view is that it flows without ceasing. Its flow has many forms, but this is merely one aspect of the human view. Water flows across the earth and through the sky, upward and downward. It flows through one winding and into nine depths. Rising, it becomes cloud; descending, it becomes a pool. --- The Wenzi says: "The way of water is this — rising to heaven it becomes rain and dew; descending to earth it becomes rivers and streams." Even in secular writings, such things are said. For those who call themselves descendants of the buddhas and ancestors to be more ignorant than the laity would be a deep shame. The way of water is not something water is aware of, yet water is able to act. The way of water is not something water is unaware of, yet water is able to act. "Rising to heaven it becomes rain and dew" — know this: water ascends to the farthest heights and becomes rain and dew. Rain and dew take many forms according to the world. To say there is any place water does not reach is the teaching of the Hīnayāna sutras, or the wrong view of heretics. Water reaches even into fire, into thought and discrimination, into awareness and buddha-nature. "Descending to earth it becomes rivers and streams." Know this: when water descends to earth, it becomes rivers and streams. The essence of rivers and streams concentrates and becomes sages. Now the foolish and ordinary think that water only exists in rivers, streams, and seas. This is not so. Rivers and seas are made within water. Therefore, water exists also where there are no rivers and seas. When water descends to earth, it simply manifests the work of rivers and seas. Moreover, do not think that where water has made rivers and seas there can be no world, no buddha-land. Even within a single drop, numberless buddha-lands are manifest. Therefore it is not that water exists within the buddha-land, nor that the buddha-land exists within water. The existence of water is not bound to past, present, or future, nor bound to the dharma-realm. Yet even so, water is the living manifestation of the Way. --- Where the buddha-ancestors are, water is always there. Where water is, the buddha-ancestors always manifest. Therefore the buddha-ancestors have always taken water as their body and mind, as their thought and deliberation. Thus the assertion that water does not rise upward is found in neither Buddhist nor non-Buddhist texts. The way of water penetrates freely, up and down, vertically and horizontally. However, in the Buddhist sutras it says that fire and wind rise upward, while earth and water descend. This "up and down" is worth studying. Study the up and down of the Buddha Way. Where earth and water go — that is called "down." It is not that "down" is where earth and water go. Where fire and wind go is "up." The dharma-realm need not be bound to the dimensions of above, below, and the four directions. It is simply that according to where the four, five, or six great elements go, a directional world is tentatively established. The Realm of No-Thought is not "above" and the Avīci Hell is not "below." Avīci is the whole dharma-realm; the Realm of No-Thought is also the whole dharma-realm. --- When dragons and fish see water as a palace, it must be just as humans see a palace — they would not perceive it as flowing. If a bystander were to tell them, "What you see as a palace is flowing water," the dragons and fish would be startled and doubtful, just as we are startled when we hear that mountains flow. Yet it may be that they would accept that the railings, stairs, and pillars of their palace are like this. Consider this matter quietly and thoroughly. If you do not learn to pass beyond the relative here, you have not liberated the body and mind of an ordinary being, you have not exhausted the buddha-ancestors' land, you have not exhausted the ordinary person's land, you have not exhausted the ordinary person's palace. --- At present, humans firmly believe they know the nature of the sea and the nature of rivers as water. But they do not yet know what dragons, fish, and other beings perceive and use as water. Do not foolishly assume that all types of beings use as water what you yourself perceive as water. When those who study the Buddha seek to study water, they should not cling only to the human view. Go forward and study the water of the Buddha Way. Study what the buddha-ancestors use as water and how we see it. Study whether there is water within the house of the buddha-ancestors, or not. --- From a time beyond ancient and beyond present, mountains have been the dwelling of the great sages. Sages and saints have all made the mountains their inner chamber, their body and mind. Through sages and saints the mountains are manifested. Though it seems that many great sages and saints must have entered and gathered in the mountains, once you enter, not a single person is to be met. There is only the living activity of the mountains; not a single trace of having entered remains. When you gaze at the mountains from the world, and when you face the mountains within the mountains — the view is vastly different. The idea that mountains do not flow, and the perception that they do not flow, cannot be placed on equal ground with the perception of dragons and fish. Humans and heavenly beings may be secure in their own realm, yet other kinds may doubt this, or may not even reach the point of doubt. Therefore study the phrase "mountains flow" with the buddha-ancestors. Do not abandon yourself to surprise and doubt. Taking up one side, it flows. Taking up one side, it does not flow. One time, flowing. One time, not flowing. Without this kind of investigation, it is not the true dharma-wheel of the Tathāgata. --- An ancient buddha said: "If you wish to avoid the karma that leads to the unceasing hells, do not slander the true dharma-wheel of the Tathāgata." Engrave these words upon skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. Engrave them upon body, mind, and environment. Engrave them upon emptiness and upon form. Upon trees and upon stones they are engraved; upon fields and upon villages they are engraved. Generally speaking, mountains belong to the nation — but they truly belong to those who love them. When the mountains love their master, the sages, saints, and those of high virtue enter the mountains. When sages and saints dwell in the mountains, the mountains belong to them, and therefore the trees and rocks flourish abundantly, and the birds and beasts are wondrously spirited. This is because the virtue of the sages and saints covers them. Know this: mountains have the reality of loving sages, the reality of loving saints. --- Many emperors have gone to the mountains to pay respect to sages and to seek the counsel of the great saints — this is a noble precedent from ancient and present times. When they do so, they show the respect due a teacher, not following the customs of the common world. The reach of imperial power does not extend to the mountain sage. That the mountains stand apart from the human world — know this. In ancient times, when the immortal Guangcheng dwelled in a stone chamber on Mount Kongtong, the Yellow Emperor went there, walked on his knees, and beseeched his teaching. --- Śākyamuni Buddha himself once left the palace of his royal father and entered the mountains. Yet the father-king did not resent the mountains, nor did he regard with suspicion those in the mountains who taught the prince. Twelve years of practice on the Way were largely spent in the mountains. The dharma-king's awakening was in the mountains. Truly, even a wheel-turning sage-king does not compel those who dwell in the mountains. Know this: the mountains are not the domain of the human world, nor the domain of the heavens above. Do not presume to know the mountains through the measure of human thought. --- There have also been sages and saints who, as circumstance had it, dwelt by the waters. Dwelling by the waters, some caught fish, some caught people, some caught the Way. These are all the old ways of life by the waters. Going further, there must be those who catch the self, those who catch the act of catching, those who are caught by the catching, and those who are caught by the Way. Long ago, Master Decheng suddenly left Yaoshan and went to dwell at the heart of the river. There he encountered the sage of the Huating River. Did he not catch fish? Did he not catch people? Did he not catch water? Did he not catch himself? That a person can meet Decheng is Decheng himself. Decheng's receiving a person is his meeting a person. --- It is not merely that there is water in the world — within the world of water there is a world. And not only within water: within clouds there is a world of sentient beings, within wind there is a world of sentient beings, within fire there is a world of sentient beings, within earth there is a world of sentient beings. Within the dharma-realm there is a world of sentient beings, within a single stalk of grass there is a world of sentient beings, within a single staff there is a world of sentient beings. Wherever there is a world of sentient beings, there is necessarily the world of the buddha-ancestors. You should study this principle thoroughly. --- Therefore water is the palace of the true dragon. It is not merely flowing and falling. To perceive it only as flowing is to slander water with the word "flow," as though one would force it to be "not-flowing." Water is simply the true form of water as it is. Water is the virtue of water. It is not "flowing." To investigate the flowing of a single water, and to investigate its not-flowing, is to immediately and completely manifest the investigation of all things. Mountains too — there are mountains hidden in treasure, mountains hidden in marshes, mountains hidden in the sky, mountains hidden in mountains. There is the study of mountains hidden within hiddenness. An ancient buddha said: "Mountains are mountains; waters are waters." These words do not say that mountains are "mountains." They say that mountains are mountains. Therefore, investigate the mountains. When you investigate the mountains, it is the mountains' own practice. Such mountains and waters of themselves produce sages and saints. --- ## Colophon Shōbōgenzō, Fascicle Twenty-Nine: Sansui-kyō (Mountains and Waters Sutra). Composed by Eihei Dōgen Zenji and delivered to the assembly at Kannon-dōri Kōshō-hōrin-ji temple, the eighteenth day of the tenth month of Ninji 1 (1240 CE). Translated from the original Classical Japanese and Classical Chinese by the New Tianmu Anglican Church with AI assistance, 2026. Source text accessed via the sets.ne.jp Zen archive, cross-referenced with the Iwanami Bunko edition (Mizuno Yaho, 2004). This is the first text of the Sōtō Zen tradition in the Good Work Library, and the first Good Works Translation from a Japanese Buddhist source. Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. 🌲