This paper investigates how a customary rule of the Eisai tradition was followed by Dōgen, and also how this was maintained thereafter in the Sōtō School. It is specified in Dōgen’s ‘Method of Washing the Bowl” (洗鉢之法) in his essay Fushuku hanpō (赴粥飯法,Regulations for Meals, 1264) that after hearing the strike of the hammer (槌) after the meal the Inō 維那 (disciplinarian) recites the ‘Verse of Purity While Abiding in the World’ (Sho sekai bon no ge 処世界梵之偈), “Abiding in the world as [boundless] as the sky / As water does not cling to the lotus / the mind is pure and transcends that [world] / Thus I pay homage to the supreme lord,” 処世界如虚空,如蓮華不著水,心清浄超於彼,稽首礼無上,and this derives from the rule of the Eisai tradition known as the “The old rule of Yūshō Sōjō [= Eisai]” 是用祥僧正之古儀也.This differs from the rule of contemporary Chan Temples of the Southern Song dynasty, recorded in the Chanyuan qinggui 禅苑清規,which states that the Fashitou 法事頭 or the Weina 維那 recites the verse after the chime 磬 is struck. Dōgen purposely named this rule “The old rule of Yūshō Sōjō”, and practiced it in his temples. Considering the fact that there are no extant historical materials regarding training inside the Kenninji 建仁寺 or in any other temple built by Eisai, this rule of the Eisai tradition which Dōgen recorded can be said to be one of the oldest examples of rules in Zen temples. This particular rule which apparently was not followed at the Kenninji was in fact followed by the Sōtō school throughout the middle ages. It is most interesting to know that it is continually practiced in the Sōtō school to the present day, without the knowledge that it derives from the Eisai tradition. The fact that this rule was introduced by Eisai but was not followed by the Rinzai school is important in the study of the inheritance of the customary rules in the Sōtō school. By studying the history of Eisai tradition rules inherited by the Sōtō school, we have identified a part of the inheritance of rules in the everyday life of the Zen temple from the Middle Ages up to the Edo period.
