About Keisei sanshoku (Shōbōgenzō)

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 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.