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Studying Hakuin, the real guy keeps showing up \u2013 a practitioner of great ability!<\/p>\n
In this post, I turn back for a moment to\u00a0kensh\u014d, and then focus on the gritty business of post-kensh\u014d cultivation (1). Along the way, we\u2019ll touch on a theme or two seldom discussed in polite Zen conversation.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s begin with a passage I quoted a couple posts back, Hakuin\u2019s Advice For How To Attain Kensh\u014d<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you run into [the One Person] without warning, and only then, you will experience a joy of unprecedented depth and intensity. You will soar like the phoenix when it breaks free of the golden net, like the crane that is liberated from its pen\u201d (Complete Poison Blossoms in a Thicket of Thorn <\/em>[CPB] #8).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Hakuin continued, \u201cWhy is that?\u201d<\/p>\n And he answered himself,<\/p>\n \u201cTwo streams of tears run down a lady\u2019s jeweled pillow, That\u2019s why<\/em> it\u2019s so great to attain\u00a0kensh\u014d? To become like a lady with a fancy pillow crying her eyes out?<\/p>\n Well, yes, but it will take a journey to discover why that is. So let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n With the \u201ctwo streams, etc.\u201d capping phrase,\u00a0Hakuin is quoting a poem by T\u2019ang poet Li Shen, according to the ever-generous Waddell\u2019s notes. The reference has multiple layers of meaning \u2013 a veritable vertiginous thicket of tangled thorns!<\/p>\n Waddell also tells us that Hakuin is indirectly referring to a k\u014dan, \u201cNan-ch\u2019uan Lives in a Hermitage,\u201d (2) and this is where the implications for post-kensh\u014d cultivation clearly get tangled. I first encountered this\u00a0Nan-ch\u2019uan k\u014dan in the early \u201980\u2019s while practicing just-sitting Zen with Katagiri Roshi. This\u00a0k\u014dan stopped me cold, gave me nothing to hold onto, and no toe-hold even to approach its subtle, layered and gut-wrenching truth. And even more disturbing, it was clear that there was something here that I hadn\u2019t chewed on yet at all, something that I\u2019d avoided in just-sitting, something way beyond what I understood the buddhadharma to be about. It challenged my idealism.<\/p>\n I tried to set it aside, and really hoped to forget about it, but the damn thing haunted me. Time-and-again I\u2019d stumble on it while studying something else.<\/p>\n It might be better at this point, dear reader, to go (back?) to Facebook and see if anything interesting is happening there, but if you insist on persisting, here is the\u00a0k\u014dan (3):<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Nan-ch\u2019uan was living in a hermitage he would go up into the hills to gather firewood with the monks. On one of these occasions he said to a monk he encountered, \u2018I am going to gather fuel in the hills. When you cook rice for lunch, finish your own and then bring mine up to me.\u2019 After eating his rice, the monk smashed the pots and dishes and lay down on a sleeping mat. When the monk failed to appear, Nan-ch\u2019uan went down to the hermitage. Seeing the monk lying on the mat, he lay down beside him. The monk thereupon got up and left. Later Nan-ch\u2019uan said, \u2018When I was living in that hermitage, I met a monk of great ability. I haven\u2019t seen him around since.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n What is happening here? Why is\u00a0Nan-ch\u2019uan going up in the mountain to gather fuel for the way but this other guy gets to cook and eat rice? Instead of sharing the wealth, the monk then smashes the domestic routine \u2013 why? Why did the monk then lay down? What did\u00a0Nan-ch\u2019uan see that he lay down with the guy? What happened between them that the guy then left?<\/p>\n Questions like this niggled and persisted, also melting and clearing over time, as these things tend to do.<\/p>\n And for everything happening here, I\u2019d just like to nod to the homoerotic element. Even if Nan-ch\u2019uan and the person of great ability are the One Person, still, it isn\u2019t often that we get two men lying down together in a\u00a0k\u014dan. Indeed, I can\u2019t think of another incidence. Now, you might say, \u201cThey were Vinaya-following celibates so the \u2018homoerotic element\u2019 is just in your own mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, for\u00a0Vinaya-following celibates too, I believe, lying down together would also be an infraction. The dishes are broken. Something has past, it\u2019s time to lie still for a bit, and then it\u2019s time to move on.<\/p>\n Returning to the\u00a0k\u014dan, a couple key questions remain: Who was this person of great ability? And where are they now?<\/p>\n When I trained at Bukkokuji, a Rinzai monk from a nearby temple attended every sesshin, arriving just before the sesshin started and leaving right at the end, so there was no opportunity for small talk.\u00a0I had the incredible pleasure of sitting next to him through sesshin after sesshin. This monk would not only sit the schedule with aplomb, he\u2019d also sit\u00a0through breaks and kinhin and then would be up all night every night sitting through it all. One of my usually reliable gaijin friends reported that he had seen the mysterious Rinzai monk lie down once for about an hour at about 2:30am. Must have been a really tough day.<\/p>\n Even though this Rinzai monk practiced with extraordinary wholeheartedness, his cultivation was the most effortless I\u2019ve ever seen, like the monk in the photo below. Truly beautiful.<\/p>\n Just as my last sesshin at Bukkokuji was nearing it\u2019s end, I went to the toilet. As I was going in, the ever-sitting monk was coming out. He broke the sesshin rule, looked at me and smiled \u2013 somehow he seemed to know that I was leaving \u2013 and we exchanged a heartfelt \u201cgoodbye\u201d gassho.<\/p>\n Truly a practitioner of great ability. I haven\u2019t seen him around since.<\/p>\n Nan-ch\u2019uan, though, died in 835. Haven\u2019t seen him since either. Nevertheless, scroll ahead a couple hundred years or so and we find that practitioners in the Zen groves were still chewing on the \u201cNan-ch\u2019uan Lives in a Hermitage\u201d k\u014dan. Waddell briefs us:<\/p>\n \u201cOnce when Ta-hui Tsung-kao\u2019s Dharma heir Wan-an Tao-yen [1094\u20131164] entered Ta-hui\u2019s chambers, Ta-hui asked him about the koan \u2018Nan-ch\u2019uan Lives in a Hermitage.\u2019 Wan-an replied: \u2018Two streams of tears run down a lady\u2019s jeweled pillow\/Partly because she loves him, partly because she resents him.\u2019 Ta-hui summoned his attendant and told him to remove Wan-an\u2019s name from the duty roster. \u2018With just this single turning word,\u2019 he said, \u2018you have succeeded in repaying in full your debt to the Buddhas.\u2019<\/p>\n What is it about this capping phrase (\u201cTwo streams of tears run down a lady\u2019s jeweled pillow\/Partly because she loves him, partly because she resents him\u201d) that showed that Wan-an had completed his Zen work?<\/p>\n One night last week, our dog got really sick. The poor boy spent most of the night pacing about, asking to go out, and occasionally throwing up. At 5:00am, we \u201cwoke up\u201d as usual. My wife and teaching partner stayed home with our dog and I staggered off to morning zazen. A half-dozen equally haggard Zennists showed up. Again, the k\u014dan reared its ugly head. Sitting through the darkness, dropping off yet another layer of idealization, the room flooded in soft morning light and the k\u014dan opened yet again.<\/p>\n It turned on this: Who is this lady? She looks a bit like Avalokiteshvara, but she could be you, or the one you share a bed with. Clearly, she has deeply cultivated prajna paramita, and from one eye flow tears of love onto the jeweled pillow, \u201ca joy of unprecedented depth and intensity.\u201d How sublime this very life is!<\/p>\n From the other eye flow tears of pain and resentment. Katagiri Roshi once said, \u201cYou won\u2019t know how much pain you are in until you are enlightened.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only you, of course, but all the myriad beings in our off-kilter planet, mistaking a thief for their dear child. So a Miscellaneous K\u014dan asks, \u201cWhy can\u2019t clear-eyed people cut the blood-red thread?\u201d<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Why do tears of resentment flow?<\/p>\n One simple emotional truth is that she didn\u2019t really know what she was getting into. This lady with a jeweled pillow is dealing with an issue of consent, just like a practitioner who has kensh\u014ded. Having tasted the truth of this life, we are called to do whatever we can to help others taste this truth and unfold it fully. Haggard, obstinate, half-hearted living beings, though, are only occasionally interested.<\/p>\n Just so, it has become customary in Zen circles I frequent that when a new teacher receives dharma transmission we offer both congratulations and condolences. Teaching Zen is one-hell-of-a troubling business.<\/p>\n There it is. Idealization is exhausted. Love and resentment, shallow hearts and arrogant minds, a pile of broken dishes. And off we go.<\/p>\n Reminds me of the Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cBroken,\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBroken bottles, broken plates, (1)\u00a0\u4fee, usually translated as \u201cpractice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n (2) Waddell uses the Wades-Giles romanization of the Chinese characters, like\u00a0Nan-ch\u2019uan. The more commonly used now, and almost always on this blog, the Pinyin system has this name as \u201cNanquan.\u201d In Japanese, it\u2019s \u201cNansen.\u201d In any case, it\u2019s the same guy who killed the cat and was Zh\u00e0ozh\u014du\u2019s teacher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n (3) Another translation of this k\u014dan can be found in Records of Transmission of the Lamp, V2: Early Masters,<\/em> translated by Randolph S. Whitfield, p. 219-220: \u201cWhen the master was an incumbent of a hermitage, a monk came to see him. The master said to the monk, \u2018I am going to climb up the mountain. Wait until mealtime, make the food, and after having eaten yourself, bring some up to the mountain.\u2019 After a while that monk, having eaten himself, just broke all the domestic routines and went to lie down. The master waited but didn\u2019t see him coming, so returned to the hermitage. There he saw the monk lying down, so the master also went to lie down on one side of him. The monk then got up and left. Later, when the master had become an abbot, he said, \u2018When I was the incumbent of a hermitage there was once a bright monk, but he was never seen again from that day to this.'\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n D\u014dsh\u014d Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training<\/a>, an internet-based Zen community. D\u014dsh\u014d received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri R\u014dshi and inka sh\u014dmei from James My\u014dun Ford R\u014dshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. D\u014dsh\u014d\u2019s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is now available (Shambhala). He is also the author\u00a0of\u00a0Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri<\/a><\/i>. Click here<\/a> to support the teaching practice of Tetsugan Sensei and\u00a0 D\u014dsh\u014d R\u014dshi.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Studying Hakuin, the real guy keeps showing up \u2013 a practitioner of great ability! In this post, I turn back for a moment to\u00a0kensh\u014d, and then focus on the gritty business of post-kensh\u014d cultivation (1). Along the way, we\u2019ll touch on a theme or two seldom discussed in polite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[129,73,6,18],"class_list":["post-4095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hakuin","tag-kensho","tag-koan","tag-zen"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPartly because she loves him, partly because she resents him.\u201d<\/p>\nNan-ch\u2019uan lives in a hermitage<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nEverything is broken<\/h4>\n
\nBroken switches, broken gates
\nBroken dishes, broken parts,
\nStreets are filled with broken hearts
\nBroken words never meant to be spoken,
\nEverything is broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
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