Master Sekisō said, “How will you step forward from the top of a hundred-foot pole?”
Another eminent master of old said, “Even though one who is sitting on the top of a hundred-foot pole has entered realization, it is not yet real. He must step forward from the top of the pole and manifest his whole body throughout the world in ten directions.”
If you can step forward and turn your body around, there will be no place where you are called dishonorable. Even so, just tell me, how do you step forward from the top of the hundred-foot pole? Ahem!
Making the eye on the forehead blind,
One clings to the mark on the scale;
Throwing away body and life,
One blind person leads many blind people.
Sekisō Soen was an eminent Zen master of the Rinzai sect and a contemporary of Setchō, who composed the verses of the Blue Cliff Record. He was born in 986 and died in 1040 at the age of fifty-four. Though he did not live very long, Sekisō raised the spirit of the Rinzai sect to a high degree and left deep footprints in the history of Zen of that period in China.
What does “the top of a hundred-foot pole” mean? Figuratively, it is the stage of complete emptiness. When you attain self-realization, your eye will open first to the state of consciousness where there is absolutely nothing. That stage is called the “great death.” It is a stage where there is no dualistic opposition such as subject and object, good and bad, saints and ordinary people and so on. There is neither one who sees nor anything seen. Zen usually expresses this stage with the words, “There is not a speck of cloud in the spacious sky.”
Anyone who wants to attain the true Zen experience must pass through this stage once. If you remain there, however, you will be unable to attain true emancipation from deep attachment to this emptiness. This stage is often referred to as the pitfall of emptiness. It becomes a kind of Zen sickness.
When we attain kensho, we come to the top of the high pole where most of us are seized with this malady. It is said that even Shakyamuni succumbed to it for two or three weeks after his great enlightenment. The Zen master in this koan warns us not to linger at this point when he says, “Take a step forward from this stage and you will be able to manifest your whole body throughout the world in ten directions.” That means that you must become completely free from all kinds of attachments.
Look at this stick, this kotsu. See, it is lying horizontally at first. This position represents our ordinary life. With the practice of zazen, working on Mu or counting our breath, one end of the stick will gradually come up, while the other is fixed at the original point. When the stick stands perfectly vertical, that is the state of complete emptiness. There you become completely one with Mu, and there is no concept or thought whatever in your mind. This is the great death. It is also the entrance to perfect enlightenment. This stage is void of mental activity. But you must not stop there. You must press on even harder. Then the top of the stick will move forward, and suddenly a whole new world will manifest itself! This is true enlightenment. Perhaps now you understand what this warning means.
“Another eminent master of old” in the case refers to Master Chōsa, who was Nansen’s Dharma successor. He appears in Case 36 of the Blue Cliff Record and Case 79 of the Book of Equanimity. I would like to tell you about the latter koan because in it you can see the complete mondo between Chōsa and a monk, of which the present case is only a partial quotation. The koan goes as follows:
Chōsa had a monk ask Master E, “What about the time when you had not yet seen Nansen?” E sat still a while. The monk said, “What about after seeing him?” E said, “There wasn’t anything special.” The monk returned and told this to Chōsa. Chōsa said, “Even though one who sits on the top of a hundred-foot pole has entered realization, it is not yet real. He must step forward from the top of the pole. The world in ten directions is his whole body.” The monk said, “How shall I step from the top of a hundred-foot pole? Chōsa said, “The mountains of the province of Rō, the waters of the province of Rei.” The monk said, “I don’t understand.” Chōsa said, “Four seas and five lakes are all under the reign of the king.” This is the mondo in its entirety as it appears in the Book of Equanimity.
In our present koan, the last phrase of the case reads: “. . . to manifest his whole body throughout the world in ten directions.” This means you will realize that you are one and alone in and with the whole universe and that you should be able to do anything in an extremely free and positive way. That is the state of true enlightenment.
“If you can step forward and turn your body around, there will be no place where you are called dishonorable. Even so, just tell me, how do you step forward from the top of the hundred-foot pole? Ahem!”
To “turn your body around” means to move and act freely and positively at will. No matter where you may go, there will be no obstacle in your path. So you are estimable, even to the point of being called honorable.
But it is not easy to step forward from a hundred-foot pole! Just tell me, how would you do it? I think you know there is no way to find out other than to continue your practice of zazen.
The last word, “Ahem (Sa)!” expresses the sound of a hoarse voice. Here it means, “I have talked myself hoarse!” I have spoken too much.
Making the eye on the forehead blind,
One clings to the mark on the scale;
Throwing away body and life,
One blind person leads many blind people.
The eye on the forehead means the enlightened eye. Though you have had kensho and attained the enlightened eye, if you stick to the world of emptiness, your enlightened eye will become blind again. Your whole being will be unable to move, as though your sight is clinging to a mark on the scale, taking it as definite and immovable.
“Throwing away body and life, one blind person leads many blind people” has various interpretations. In their ordinary sense, the words mean that if we are to step from complete emptiness into the broad, spacious world of lively and positive enlightenment, we must be determined to continue our practice for the rest of our lives. Otherwise it is just like the blind leading the blind; no one knows where he is going.
There is another somewhat deeper interpretation. The blind refers to a completely enlightened person. His essential nature does not see when he is seeing. His essential nature does not hear when he is hearing. In his essential nature, there is no one who is seeing and no object that is seen. So he is nothing but a blind person. From this point of view, the last two lines of the verse mean that when you devote yourself to post-kensho practice, your eye will open to the world of perfect enlightenment. Then, for the first time, you will become a true Zen person, adhering to nothing, neither the phenomenal world nor the essential world. For the first time, in the spirit of the Bodhisattva’s Four Vows,1 a benevolent aspiration to save others will well up from the depths of your heart. Such a person is truly qualified to be a Zen master and to lead and guide.
1. One translation of these vows reads as follows: “Living beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusive passions are limitless, I vow to extinguish them. The Dharma gates are countless, I vow to master them. The Buddha’s way is unsurpassed, I vow to attain it.”