The Zazen of Mountains

At the Empty Hand workshop on Zazenshin we worked with the third section – Hongzhi’s poem, Dogen’s comments and then his expression of the precept of zazen. This section is important because it clearly distinguishes shikantaza from silent illumination zazen. I’ve written about that in this blog previously, though, so that’s not the point of today’s post.

I had hoped to provide context for our Empty Hand discussion with a different view on thinking/not-thinking/non-thinking but didn’t find a way to work it in. That’s what I want to present today. It goes to the essential art of zazen, as D-z puts it.

Zazenshin, the lancet, acupuncture needle or precept (all of these work for shin) of zazen begins by focussing on the following koan:

Once, when the Great Master Hongdao of Yueshan was sitting zazen, a monk asked him, “What are you thinking of so fixedly?”
The master answered, “I’m thinking of not thinking.”
The monk asked, “How do you think of not thinking?”
The Master answered, “Nonthinking.”

A few points. First, Yueshan’s full name could be rendered as Medicine Mountain Majestic Consideration – an important detail for what follows. It is significant too that Yueshan had a similar exchange with this teacher, Shitou (which I’ll come back to in a future post) where he was sitting zazen and Shitou approached. Yueshan is still sitting zazen and a student approaches.

Second, the word that is translated as fixedly or in other versions as immobile, steadfast sitting, or still, still state, is kotsu kotsu chi. Kotsu is something high and level; lofty, bald, dangerous. The word is used twice for emphasis. Chi is earth, land, ground, space, position or foundation. Nishijima and Cross note that it therefore “…suggests a table mountain, and hence something imposing and balanced.”

Here’s the view from the top of Table Mountian in South Africa:

Yueshan’s zazen is “fixedly” in this way – high and level; lofty, bald, dangerous, arising as and grounded with the great earth. After all, “I together with all beings and the great earth attain the Way,” was the Buddha’s enlightenment utterance.

Third, here’s another way of understanding of the grammar of the above koan (from Kishizaza Ian’s commentary on Zazenshin – if anybody out there in blogland has this translated, I’d be delighted! to see it):

Monk: “Thinking in fixed sitting is ‘what.'”
Yueshan: “Thinking is not thinking.”
Monk: “Not thinking is ‘how’ thinking.”
Yueshan: “It is thinking ‘negation’ (hi).”

Steady, lofty thinking is What! Such thinking is free of itself. Free-of-itself thinking is How’s! thinking, as in the question in Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile, “HOW do you DO it?” Such thinking it is also “negation” or hi or its synonym, mu.