Koun rolled his eyes at his Master's back, as he did so often when Dogen was getting lyrical...but he replied thus: "Yes indeed master. And there's a lot less in the way of rivers of blood here, eh?"
They threaded their way slowly around the site, a shaded rocky valley with a few patches of level ground here and there. "The Buddha hall could go here, kitchen there, and a nice big zendo right here". The Master had a gleam in his eye.
Koun looked about him. "We shall need funds Master..."
"I have faith. If we turn the Dharma wheel, the money will appear."
Koun thought of the begging letters he had penned in secret and left for the messenger in a bundle, at the last post town they had stayed at. "Well if we don't get funds soon Master, we might have to pop the old Dharma wheel on the fire just to keep warm..."
Dogen turned about, his small mouth cracked a slow toothy grin, "Ha! Very good o'disciple, like Ancestor Tanka burning the wooden buddha! Yes!" The Master unshouldered his load, and produced two meditation cushions, zafus, which looked far too big to fit in the bag they had come from.
"You managed to bring spares Master?".
Koun tried to mask his displeasure. He needn't have bothered: the Master literally couldn't hear a word said against zazen, the meditation practice of their school. It was rather like people who adore cats, however vile and malevolent an individual feline might be. He didn't look up, but was busy plumping the zafus into life. Koun's knees whimpered, cowed by years of punishing meditation, "Easy boys" he whispered.
Dogen straightened up and rubbed his hands together gleefully, "fifty minutes ought to do it, just a quick one before breakfast. The rock might be a bit hard on the old knees, but we won't let that bother us will we?".
