Fire Boy Comments: What is the Self?

This post continues working with the fire boy koan that’s been hot these past several days around Transforming Through Play.  This koan is long and rich so that it collapses the whole spiritual journey into a moment – setting out on the road, an unrequited opportunity, years spent wandering that turn out to have been the straightest path, and finally, resolution. 

Dogen uses this koan to make three points: 1. Getting stuck in an idea of the buddhadharma (like “mind itself is Buddha” or the contemporary offshoot, “zazen is itself enlightenment”) is at best half-baked; 2. The buddhadharma is studied by giving up the view that discriminates between self and other (so we can’t do it alone, as the master and disciple in the following interaction demonstrate); and 3. The vitality of wholeheartedly engaging the Way (as is demonstrated by both the master and disciple).

In what follows, the koan is in italics and my explanatory comments are in normal font.

Zen Master Xuanze had affinity with Fayan. 

He was a lucky boy to find a teacher with whom he had affinity. This is mysterious and wondrous. And requires work. “Love isn’t something we have, it’s something we do,” says a country tune I love.

I remember when Jakusho Kwong-roshi, a disciple of Suzuki-roshi, visited Minnesota Zen Center in about 1983, over ten years after his master had died. He looked around the group and then quietly encouraged us to really appreciate studying with our teacher while he was alive. “I didn’t do it … (long pause and a long look at us) … and maybe you won’t either. Sometimes a teacher has to die to really be appreciated,” he said. His words penetrated my heart and are one cause for my writing Keep Me In Your Heart A While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri.

Once Xuanze was appointed as director in the assembly of Fayan.  One day Fayan said, “How many years have you been here?” Xuanze replied, “I have already been in the teacher’s assembly for three years.”  Fayan said, “You are a student, so why don’t you ever ask me about Dharma?”

Despite Xuanze’s not coming forward and revealing his heart, Fayan gives him the highest praise, “You are a student.” Fayan knew Xuanze better than Xuanze. This is real intimacy – seeing past the transgression of the moment and instead appreciating the flow of conditions, the ripening of affinity.

Xuanze said, “I dare not deceive the teacher.  When I was at Qingfeng’s place, I realized peace and joy.”

“There is no such state as enlightened retirement,” say Feldman and Kornfield in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart that appeared as Tricycle’s Daily Dharma a couple days ago (thanks, G).

Maybe Xuanze had some dry insight, some understanding of buddhadharma that did ease his weary mind … but he had not yet felt fire.

Fayan asked, “Through which words were you able to enter?”

Entry through words? Much is said in contemporary Zen that disparages words and ideas so it might be a surprise to find an ancient master assuming that his disciple’s entry into the inconceivable was through words. Words and ideas are not the enemy. 

In dokusan I might ask, “What is it that is entered into through words?” If someone remarked, “Beyond words,” I’d respond, “You are an escapist transcendentalist!” And if the student ended the interview and fled, I’d call after them, “Words are not dirty. Words are not a means to an end.” 

Xuanze responded, “I once asked Qingfeng, ‘What is the self of the student?’  Qingfeng said, ‘The fire boy comes seeking fire.’”

The “fire boy” was the person in the monastery that went around lighting the lamps, carrying fire, seeking fire. Maybe the fire boy happened to pass by just as the interaction unfolded. 

Xuanze has the moxi to raise the most intimate matter. “What is the self?” Are you such a person?

Fayan said, “Good words, only I am afraid that you did not understand them.”

How did Fayan know that Xuanze did not understand? A Zen priest recently said to me, “If he had understood, he couldn’t have gone three years without raising a question.”

Xuanze said, “The fire boy belongs to fire.  Already fire but still seeking fire is just like being self and still seeking self.” 

There is no mojo in this understanding, only dead words that don’t open the way.

Fayan exclaimed, “Now I really know that you do not understand.  If Buddha Dharma was like that it would not have lasted till today.” Xuanze was overwrought and jumped up. Out on the path he thought, “He is the guiding teacher of five hundred people.  His pointing out my error must have some good reason.” 

Xuanze takes the matter so much to heart that he really gets pissed and he is able to turn on a dime and come back home.

He returned to Fayan’s place and did prostrations in repentance.  

Radical responsibility:

“All the karma ever created by me since of old

Fayan said, “You should ask the question.”

Fayan is in teacher stalker mode. He only seems to have been passive for these three years. Actually, he’s been setting up the situation with loving attention. Now the conditions are ripe and the surprise party can begin.

Xuanze asked, “What is the self of the student?”

The “self” he’s asking about is the sense of subjectivity itself. Studying this is to study the Buddha way.

Fayan said, “The fire boy comes seeking fire.”  Xuanze was greatly enlightened.

Previously Xuanze had some dry insight. Now only great enlightenment gushes. Do you care enough about this one wild and precious life that you must know this deeply  yourself? What did he see that was his great enlightenment?