A monk asked Master Tōzan in all earnestness, “What is Buddha?” Tōzan said, “Masagin! (Three pounds of flax!)”
Old Tōzan realized a bit of clam Zen. Slightly opening the two halves of the shell, he exposed his liver and intestines. This may be so, but tell me, where do you see Tōzan?
Masagin juts forth!
Words are intimate and the mind is even more intimate.
He who speaks about right and wrong
Is a man of right and wrong.
The Tōzan in this case is Tōzan Shusho, who was a Dharma successor of Unmon. We met him in Case 15.
A monk asked, “What is Buddha?”
If we try to answer this question by means of an explanation, we would have to say a great many things indeed. But for the moment, let us take this Buddha to be the Buddha mind, our essential nature or our primal face before our parents were born. It is the Buddha Hakuin Zenji speaks about when he says, “All living beings by nature are Buddha.”
Without true enlightenment, we cannot meet our own inner Buddha. Even though we remain unenlightened, however, if we have no lump of ego, our mind will naturally harmonize with the Buddha mind.
By this I mean that if our consciousness is not dualistic and discriminating, we will be able to do things smoothly and naturally, like a fish swimming in water or a bird flying in the sky. At such times, we are not far from Buddha himself. If even a little dualistic consciousness appears, however, our peace of mind is broken.
Now, the monk in this case, though we can suppose that he has some belief in his inner Buddha, has not yet realized it clearly, so he asks Tōzan, “What is Buddha?” Tōzan says, “Masagin!”
In Japanese masagin means three pounds of flax. Literally, it means three kins of ma. Ma is flax, sa is three, and a kin (or gin) is a measure of weight, so we translate masagin as three pounds of flax. But what does three pounds of flax have to do with Buddha? Where is the connection?
Just cry out, “Masagin!” At that moment, is there anything but “Masagin”? As a matter of fact, just the first syllable “ma” is enough, or “sa” or “gin,” or even more simply just “n.” Whatever you say, it is just that. Nothing else. When you say “ma,” what else is there? When there is nothing else, “ma” is Mu, and it is the perfect manifestation of the whole universe. The whole universe is occupied by “ma,” and nothing remains outside of it.
This is the same as the “Whack!” in Case 67 of the Blue Cliff Record. In that koan, Fudaishi ascended the platform and sat down to explain the Diamond Sutra. Then he hit the stand with a resounding whack—Ka-chin! as we say in Japanese—and came down from the platform. He had finished the lecture on the sutra.
As I said before, another name for masagin is Mu. When you open the enlightened eye, you will realize at once that masagin is nothing other than the one who is standing up, sitting down, eating meals, reciting sutras, sleeping, crying, and so on. Really, masagin is another name for your essential nature right here and now.
Some commentators say that when the monk came to Tōzan, he was weighing out flax, so that when he was asked, “What is Buddha?” he replied, “Three pounds of flax.” It does not matter whether that was the case or not, but if we think that Tōzan is telling us that Buddha is three pounds of flax or that three pounds of flax is Buddha, Buddha is lost entirely. For neither masagin nor ma nor sa nor gin have anything to do with the weight of flax.
How great and wonderful is masagin! But its secret will remain hidden if you try to penetrate it with thoughts or meanings. Only the truly enlightened eye can discern its greatness.
“Old Tōzan realized a bit of clam Zen. Slightly opening the two halves of the shell, he exposed his liver and intestines. This may be so, but tell me, where do you see Tōzan?”
This means that when Tōzan opens his lips and cries “Masagin!”, he exposes his whole being, his essential nature. With “Masagin!” he is presenting all the Dharmas of all Buddhas. Is that not the perfect presentation of the whole?” “Aha!” This, too, can be the perfect exposition of our essential nature. Where do you see Tōzan? Here! Masagin! Whack!
Masagin juts forth!
Words are intimate and the mind is even more intimate.
He who speaks about right and wrong
Is a man of right and wrong.
Masagin! Whack! That’s it! There is no front and back, upper and lower. It just juts forth—Masagin!
“Words are intimate and the mind is even more intimate.” Intimate means, “That’s it.” Masagin! That’s it. Whack! That’s it. The words “even more” are only rhetorical. There is no me outside of masagin, and there is no masagin outside of me. Just One, without subject or object, without awareness of anything.
“He who speaks about right and wrong is a man of right and wrong.” Speaking about the yes or no of masagin has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Masagin is a fact, not a concept. You should never give any meaning to masagin or you will instantly deprive it of its life. And the life of masagin is the true life of Buddha, the true life of our essential nature. There was an old Zen master who said that even the word Buddha is a stain on the clean ground of mind.
What is Buddha? Masagin! Masagin is masagin. You are you. When you realize that, you will meet your true self face-to-face. That is enlightenment. That is what “intimate” means.
Tōzan thrusts forth the real Buddha in front of you as masagin. If you want to realize masagin absolutely, work on masagin just as you work on Mu. If you keep working on masagin as though your very life depended on it, suddenly your true inner life will spring forth. That is masagin! The fact is self-evident. If a person argues and searches for something more than the fact, he is a man of dualistic concepts. He will never grasp the fact.