''Keisei sanshoku'' (), rendered in English as ''The Sounds of Valley Streams, the Forms of Mountains'', is the 25th book of the ''
Shōbōgenzō'' by the 13th century
Sōtō Zen monk
Eihei Dōgen. It was written in the spring of 1240 at Dōgen's monastery
Kōshōhōrin-ji in
Kyoto. The book appears in both the 75 and 60 fascicle versions of the ''
Shōbōgenzō'', and it is ordered ninth in the later chronological 95 fascicle editions. The name ''keisei sanshoku'' is a quotation from the
Song Dynasty Chinese poet
Su Shi, wherein he experiences the sound of the valley stream as the preaching of the
dharma
Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...
and the mountain as the
body of the Buddha. Dogen also discusses this verse of Su Shi in the later Shōbōgenzō books of ''
Sansui Kyō'' and ''
Mujō Seppō''. About halfway through the essay, Dōgen switches from focusing on the title theme to a discussion of
Buddhist ethics before ultimately concluding that one must practice ethical behavior in order to see the dharma in the natural world as Su Shi does.
Title
The name ''keisei sanshoku'' is a paraphrase from the
Song Dynasty Chinese poet
Su Shi, wherein he experiences the sound of the valley stream as the preaching of the
dharma
Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...
and the mountain as the
body of the Buddha.
[ The poem of Su Shi's being referenced is as follows: ]The voices of the river valley are the uddha'swide and long tongue,
The form of the mountains is nothing other than his pure body.
Through the night, eighty-four thousand verses.
On another day, how can I tell them to others?
Although the title consists of only four Chinese characters (谿声山色), they have been translated into English in many different ways. While the third character (山) is always unambiguously translated as "mountain", the other three have more diverse interpretations. The second character (声) indicates either "sound" or "voice, while the final character can mean "form" or "color".[ The many English translations of the title are listed below:][
Regardless of the particular translation, the title is ultimately ]metonymy
Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.
Etymology
The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
for the natural world as a whole. As Gudō Nishijima explains: In Buddhism, this world is the truth itself, so nature is a face of the truth. Nature is the material side of the real world, so it is always speaking the truth, and manifesting the law of the universe every day. This is why it has been said since ancient times that sounds of rivers are the preaching of Gautama Buddha and forms of mountains are the body of Gautama Buddha. In this chapter, Master Dōgen preached to us the meaning of nature in Buddhism".
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keisei Sanshoku
Soto Zen
Zen texts