There was a large boulder, which had a small opening in it. I entered it and thought about how I would not be able to get out.

Girin and Enchi were passing over the top of the rock, and I, inside of it, called out to Girin, saying, "How can I get out?" Then he taught me some chants and made me recite them. Those chants were like linked verse: "Izanagi's... "[gap in manuscript]

I received this, and, as I was chanting, the huge rock, like ice being exhausted by the sun, slowly melted in accordance with my chanting. As it melted, my head slowly emerged from the surface. After this emerging, it melted further down to my hips. Although a little of it still remained and had not melted away, I extricated myself out of it.

What was left of the boulder was like cast-off skin; it was thin and light, and I threw it away. Now, I thought, it will completely vanish.

EDITOR'S NOTES

• Myoe Shonin (1173-1232) was a Japanese monk living in a time when Buddhism (and many civil institutions) had decayed. Priests were corrupt (some were robbers); temples had been burned, and lines of oral/experiential teaching (vital in many Buddhist sects) wiped out. Myoe was determined to reconstruct the early purity of Buddha's teaching from scratch if need be; and he used ecstatic dreams and visions like this to do it.
• The date: the dream is undated but between entries for Dec 11 and Dec 20 by the lunar calendar; these dates may not line up well with current calendars.
• The boulder he's almost freed himself from: it's tempting to read the rock as his flesh; and Myoe was nearing the end of his dream-journal, his work and his life.
• Source: George Tanabe's Myoe the Dreamkeeper, p. 188

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