Somewhere, in a poem or essay, the poet Gary Snyder said that the
principle task of the spiritual life is to keep the temple clean. 
That is not an exact quote, but it's close.  I need the citation for
that comment.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 02 May 2005 10:45 PDT

Though it certainly sounds like something Snyder might say, I didn't
see it in the works of his I was able to review.

However, the sentiment is certainly there with other authors, such as this excerpt:


"You must keep the temple clean if you wish to install there the living Presence."


Are you certain Snyder was the source?


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by ryoyu-ga on 02 May 2005 11:39 PDT

I feel pretty confident that it was Snyder.  The rest of the quote
says that choice comes in when we determine the boundaries (or
borders) of the temple.  It's possible that I just heard him say it
and it's certainly possible that I don't know what I'm talking about.

The quote you included sounds like it's from a Christian source?

Thanks...

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Clarification of Question by ryoyu-ga on 02 May 2005 13:02 PDT

It is entirely possible that this transcript answers my question, at
least in part.  I attended that conference at Emory and well remember
this particular talk.  Still don't have the source, but maybe Gary
just said it to Taigen at some point.

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Clarification of Question by ryoyu-ga on 19 May 2005 09:29 PDT

I am totally satisfied with the answer and consider this question to be closed.

This reference to Snyder might be a clue:

"Gary Snyder says that Zen comes down to meditation and sweeping the
temple, and it is up to you to decide where the boundaries of the
temple are. There are particular practice places, and then there is
the whole universe in the ten directions, and we each work within the
limits of the field of space that we are in."

Mountain Source Sangha: Dogen?s Cosmology Of Space And The Practive Of
Self-Fulfillment (abouy 9/10 down the page)
http://www.mtsource.org/articles/dogen_emptyspace.html

rypyu --

Following up on my previous comment and your subsequent posting, here
is the relevant portion of the Web page that led me to the link I
provided.  Note that one posting on the site includes this excerpt
(punctuated as posted):

"only place i have come across reference to:
the two jobs for a monk
ie sitting zazen / sweeping temple
is in gary snyder
have never come across it in my reading of the chinese masters of chan"

Cuke.com: On Sitting zazen and sweeping the temple.
http://www.cuke.com/comments/twojobs.html

This implies that there may be such a statement in something Snyder
has pubhlished, but I haven't found it online.

markj-ga

From page 111 of "The Gary Snyder Reader":

"Right action, then, means sweeping the garden. To quote my teacher,
Oda Sesso: 'In Zen there are only two things: you sit, and you sweep
the garden. It doesn't matter how big the garden is'."

From page 253 of the same book:

"My teacher once said to me.
 - become one with the knot itself.
 till it dissolves away.
 - sweep the garden.
 - any size."