The Trace of the Moonbird

 This is my final piece on the Sandokai. It is the summary of 16 separate blog entries of verse-by-verse and character-by-character discussions of the poem published between 16 June and 5 October 2020. It also reflects the discussions and joy we had in the “Old Street” study group at our Wednesday evening sessions after zazen. Without the support and enthusiasm of regulars of the study group, this series would not have been possible. Although pretty much everything that I can say has been said in the sixteen previous entries, I still feel the need for a summary. I want to gather the various strings picked up when discussing individual verses in one place and present them in an overview of the poem as a whole. As I progressed through the text and the strange characters, my growing understanding of earlier verses naturally informed my approach towards the ones at the end of the poem. And in the same way the later verses sometime opened up a new perspective on the earlier ones. Without wa