Izuku ni mo waga nori naranu nori ya aru to sora fuku kaze ni toedo kotaenu - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いづくにもわが法ならぬ法やあると
空吹く風に問へど答へぬ

Roma-ji: Izuku ni mo waga nori naranu nori ya aru to sora fuku kaze ni toedo kotaenu
English Translation: Is there anywhere
a law that is not our Law—
is there such a law?
I ask the wind that sweeps the sky,
but no answer does it give.
Meaning: Is there anywhere a law other than the Buddha's Law? I ask the wind that blows across the sky, but it gives no answer.
Commentary: Book Twenty Buddhist Poems 1941

Headnote: "When composing poems on the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra, on the meaning of 'There is only the Law of the One Vehicle' in the Expedient Means chapter."
This is the first poem in the sequence of Jien's poems on the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra. Asking the wind that blows through the sky whether anywhere there is a law other than the Buddha's One Vehicle, the poet receives no answer. According to the headnote, it was composed on the meaning of "There is only the Law of the One Vehicle" from the Expedient Means chapter, when poems on the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra were composed.
Since even the wind that travels in all ten directions gives no answer, the truth of the One Vehicle—that the Buddha's teaching is one alone—is shown through a scene.
The author, "Saki no Daisōjō Jien," was a Tendai monk, son of Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi and younger brother of Kujō Kanezane. He served four times as head abbot of the Tendai school and wrote the historical work Gukanshō.
Poems on the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra render the meaning of each chapter in one waka apiece; in this sequence, a phrase from the sutra is set as the topic along with the chapter name. The Expedient Means chapter teaches, "In the buddha-lands of the ten directions there is only the Law of the One Vehicle; there is no second and no third," showing that all the Buddha's teachings return to the single One Vehicle.

The first line, "izuku ni mo," means "anywhere," with a breadth suggesting the worlds of the ten directions.
In the second line, "waga nori naranu," "waga nori" refers to the Buddha's Law of the One Vehicle, and asks after any law other than it.
The third line, "nori ya aru to," is a question with the particle "ya," and has extra syllables. Repeating "nori" in the second and third lines marks the focus of the question.
The fourth line, "sora fuku kaze ni," is the wind that blows through all ten directions, questioned as one who knows every place.
The last line, "toedo kotaenu," means "though I ask, it does not answer"; the very lack of an answer becomes the answer that there is no law but the One Vehicle.
Author: Jien
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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