5

THE TRUE AND UNTRANSMITTABLE DHARMA

Huang-lung Hui-nan, a Dharma heir of Tz’u-ming Ch’u-yüan, received his initial certification from Master Le-t’an Huai-ch’eng.¹ He then set out, full of enthusiasm and supremely self-confident, at the head of a group of monks going around on pilgrimage to visit other teachers. In the course of his travels, he chanced to encounter the monk Yün-feng Wen-yüeh, and together they went to visit Mount Hsi. One night as they were talking, Yün-feng asked Hui-nan about the teaching he had received from Master Le-t’an. After Hui-nan had explained the essentials of Le-t’an’s Zen, Yün-feng said, “Le-t’an may belong to the lineage of Master Yün-men, but the way the two men express the Dharma is completely different.”

Asked to explain the difference, Yün-feng continued, “Yün-men is like a pill of immortality, refined nine times over into perfect transparency: it can transform iron into gold. Le-t’an is like quicksilver, all right to amuse yourself with, but it dissipates the moment it enters the furnace.”

Hui-nan, bristling at this reference to his teacher, picked up a wooden pillow and threw it angrily at Yün-feng.

The next morning, Yün-feng apologized to Hui-nan, but he went on to state, “Yün-men has a greatness of spirit like that of a king. Do you think such a man would allow dead words to pass from his lips? I’m sure that Le-t’an has attained some realization, but his utterances have no life in them. If the words he speaks are dead, how can he hope to instill life in his students?”

He turned and began to leave, but Hui-nan stopped him and demanded, “Who do you consider a good teacher?”

“Tz’u-ming Ch’u-yüan,” he replied. “His methods of dealing with students far surpass all other teachers of today. If you’re going to visit him, you shouldn’t waste any more time.”

Hui-nan silently pondered Yün-feng’s words: This is the very reason why I left my teacher and came on this pilgrimage. Yün-feng did his training under master Ts’ui-yen, yet still he’s urging me to see Tz’u-ming. He assures me I will benefit from it. What would he have to gain if I did go and study with Tz’u-ming?

He readied his traveling pack that very day and set out for Tz’u-ming’s temple on Mount Shih-shuang.

You monks pay close attention to this. The ancients never engaged in deception, neither of themselves nor of others. But today’s priests? They cling mulishly to old views and opinions, using the teachings their master transmits to them as a crutch. In order to save face, they go to great lengths to put their own lack of attainment in the best possible light. If they persist like this in deceiving themselves, when will the students who come to study with them ever achieve their goal?

Later, when Hui-nan listened to Tz’u-ming teach and heard him disparage almost every Zen teacher around the country, pointing out their errors and showing where each one of them went wrong, he realized that the matters Tz’u-ming was holding up to censure were the very ones that Le-t’an had privately transmitted to him.

He left Tz’u-ming’s temple in fallen spirits, but when he recalled what Yün-feng had told him about Tz’u-ming’s teaching ability, he had a change of heart. He asked himself, “Should someone who is determined to resolve the Great Matter of life and death allow doubts to remain in his mind?” and hurried back to Tz’u-ming’s chambers.

“I’m ignorant and inexperienced,” he told Tz’u-ming. “Although I hope to attain the Way, I haven’t made much progress. Hearing your teaching last night, I felt like a man who had obtained a compass to guide him after having lost his way. Please have pity on me. Teach me and help me to dispel the doubts in my mind.”

Tz’u-ming laughed. “We know about you in the training halls, Librarian Hui-nan. You’ve been going around visiting Zen teachers with a group of monks. If you have doubts, why carry them with you until you grow old and allow them to sap your energy? Why don’t you stay here with me and train for a while so we can thrash out those doubts of yours?”

Tz’u-ming summoned an attendant and had a chair brought out for Hui-nan to sit on. But Hui-nan refused it, and implored Tz’u-ming even more urgently for his help.

“Being a student of Yün-men’s Zen,” said Tz’u-ming, “you must be familiar with its basic principles. You remember when Yün-men spared Shou-ch’u three beatings with his staff? Do you think Shou-ch’u should have received those blows? Or do you think it was all right that he didn’t receive them?”²

“He should have received them, of course,” Hui-nan replied. Tz’u-ming’s countenance turned grave. “You hear the word staff,” he said, “and immediately you conclude that he should be receiving blows from it. In that case, Shou-ch’u would have to receive blows from sunup to sundown, every time a crow cawed, a magpie screeched, the temple bell rang, or the wooden block was struck. Yün-men would have to be swatting him nonstop, wouldn’t he.”

Hui-nan just stared uncomprehendingly, so Tz’u-ming said, “When I first saw you, I wasn’t at all sure that I could teach you. Now I know that I can.” He let Hui-nan perform the formal bows that made him a disciple. As Hui-nan rose from the bows, Tz’u-ming continued, “If you really understand the meaning of Yün-men’s Zen, you should be able to tell me this. When Chao-chou met the old woman at Mount T’ai, he said that he saw right through her. What was it he saw through?”³

Hui-nan’s face reddened. He broke into a profuse sweat. He didn’t have the slightest clue how to respond. Deeply humiliated, he jumped up and bolted from the room.

The following day, when Hui-nan went to Tz’u-ming, he was greeted with a fresh round of abuse. Sheepishly avoiding Tz’u-ming’s gaze, Hui-nan said, “It’s precisely because I don’t know that I’ve come here to find an answer. Do you call it compassion, to treat students like this? How can the Dharma be conferred in such a manner?”

Tz’u-ming just laughed. As he did, Hui-nan suddenly grasped his meaning. “You were right!” he shouted, “Those are dead words Le-t’an speaks!” He composed a verse and presented it to Tz’u-ming,

Chao-chou stood at the pinnacle of the Zen world,

No wonder he saw the old woman’s true colors,

Today the whole world has a mirrorlike clarity;

Pilgrims, don’t regard the Way as your enemy.

Hui-nan was thirty-five years old. Do you see how bitter the hardships were the ancients endured when they committed themselves to the study of Zen? Hui-nan emerged like a magnificent phoenix from a stinking owl’s egg and soared up into the sky. The two lines of Lin-chi Zen that he and Yang-ch’i Fang-hui established branched out from master Tz’u-ming like the forked tail on a swallow.

At the start of Hsin-ching K’o-wen’s career, when he went to Hsiang-ch’eng to visit Priest Shang-lan, Shang-lan asked him where he had come from. “I came from Hui-nan,” he replied. “What’s Hui-nan telling his monks these days?” asked Shang-lan.

Do you see that? If it had been a training hall in one of today’s temples, the question would have been, “How many sticks of incense does Hui-nan sit through these days?” “How many sutras does he recite?” “What Buddhist image does he venerate?” “What precepts does he observe?” What was Shang-lan up to, do you suppose, asking right off, “What’s Hui-nan telling his monks these days?”

Hsin-ching said, “Recently, Priest Hui-nan received a request from the prefectural authorities asking him to select someone from his assembly for the abbotship of the Huang-po-ssu Temple. He composed a verse,

Reciting sutras up in the bell tower;

Planting greens below the zazen seat.

Then he told his monks, ‘Anyone who can come up with a comment that matches the meaning in that verse will leave here today to be abbot at Huang-po-ssu.’

In another case long ago, an ascetic monk named Ssu-ma traveled all the way from Hunan to visit the great teacher Po-chang.⁴ When he met the master, he said, “The scenery at Mount Kuei [Kuei-shan] is exceptionally fine. I bet you could get fifteen hundred monks to train there.”

Po-chang said, “If any monk in my assembly can produce a genuine turning verse, I’ll send him to Mount Kuei to be head priest.” Pointing to a water jar, he said, “You can’t call that a water jar. What do you call it?”

His head monk at the time, named Hua-lin, came forward and said, “It can’t be called a gate latch.” But Po-chang would not accept that answer.

Po-chang posed the question to Ling-yu [later called Zen master Kuei-shan], who was serving as the temple cook. Ling-yu went to the water jar and kicked it over.

“The head monk has lost out to the cook,” said Po-chang with a laugh. Thus Ling-yu was made abbot of the temple on Mount Kuei.

Today, when Zen people go about choosing a head priest, they ask him where he comes from. They want to know about his family and career. They want to know how much financial help he can provide. How much money his relatives have. Can he compose good verse? Does he have a good prose style? This candidate has the right looks, but he’s too short. That one is tall enough, but he doesn’t have the right looks. This fellow’s a good calligrapher, but that one’s a better speaker. And so they deliberate on and on, leading themselves into ever-deepening ignorance. How welcome it is, then, to find a person who doesn’t go slinging feculence around like that, but simply asks his monks for a verse.

[Hsin-ching continued his story to Shang-lan’s assembly:] Head monk Wei-sheng offered a comment on Hui-nan’s verse: “A ferocious tiger sits blocking the way.” Hui-nan accepted it and Wei-sheng became the head priest at Huang-po-ssu.

A monk in the assembly, named Shun, hearing this story, suddenly blurted out, “Head monk Wei-sheng may have received the abbot-ship for that phrase, but he didn’t know the first thing about the Buddha’s Dharma!”

Upon hearing those words, Hsin-ching attained great enlightenment and saw with perfect clarity the Zen activity at work in Hui-nan’s verse.

When Zen students in former times committed themselves to penetrating the depths, they didn’t choose a temple because it was popular with other monks; they didn’t care if the training hall was full or not. Their minds were fixed on only one thing: resolving the Great Matter.

Zen people today, being unable to tell slave from master, common stones from jades, can only prattle. They say things like: “Priest So-and-so treats his monks as solicitously as nurslings.” “Priest B regards prostrations before Buddhist images as the very heart of Buddhist practice.” “Priest C takes only one meal each day.” “Priest D sits long periods at a stretch without ever lying down—he’s a living buddha.”

What has the Zen school come to!

Long ago during the Southern Sung dynasty, Zen master Mi-an Hsien-chieh, a native of the state of Min, was crossing the mountains into Wu-chou to visit the teacher Chih-che Yüan-an. One day, as he was sitting warming himself in the sun, he was approached by an elderly monk who was obviously a veteran of the Dharma wars. “Where will you go when you leave here?” the monk asked him.

“I’m going to Ssu-mei to visit Fo-chih T’uan-yü at the monastery at Mount A-yü-wang,” Mi-an replied. “When the country falls into spiritual decline, even young monks on pilgrimage are affected,” said the monk. “They pay attention to what they hear, but neglect what they see.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mi-an. The monk replied, “There are currently a thousand monks residing at Mount A-yü-wang. The abbot can’t possibly give personal instruction to each one. Do you think he’s going to find time to work with someone like you, who’s making out all right on his own?”

“Then where am I to go?” said Mi-an, tears appearing in his eyes. “There’s a priest named Ying-an T’an-hua in Mei-kuo, Ch’u-chou. He’s young, but his discernment is second to none. Go see him.”

Mi-an followed the monk’s advice. He studied under Ying-an for four years, in the course of which he was able to break through and grasp the vital life-source of the buddha-patriarchs.

Practicers today move around from temple to temple looking for a place that offers them comfortable living conditions and serves them bowls of thick gruel at mealtimes. They don’t give much thought to the problem of birth and death, or to penetrating the secret depths. They come wandering into temples like herds of deer; they come filing in like a swarm of ants. There is a world of difference between practitioners like them and a true seeker like Mi-an.

Priest Wu-tsu Fa-yen once addressed the following remarks to his pupils:

Back twenty or thirty years ago, I traveled around the country looking for a teacher. After I had spent some time practicing under several experienced masters, I thought my study was over. But when I reached Mount Fu and joined the assembly under master Yüan-chien, I found that I couldn’t even open my mouth. After that, while I was practicing under Master Po-yün, I got my teeth into an iron bun. When I was finally able to chew it, I discovered it possessed hundreds of marvelous flavors. How would I express that? I’d say,

The flowers on the cockscomb crown the early autumn;

Who dyed the purple in their splendid silken heads?

Soon winds will come, their combs will brush together,

An endless struggle will unfold before the temple stairs.

Did you hear him? “I thought my training was over.” Now if Fa-yen, when he believed his practice was at an end, had not entered Yüan-chien’s chambers, and had not come under Po-yün’s wing, he might have carried his mistakes around with him to the grave. What a precious thing a Zen teacher is whose eyes are truly open. A priceless treasure not only for men, but for devas as well. But even that remains unknown to those today who throw their lives away by supposing prematurely they have concluded their training.

One day early in Fa-yen’s career, when he was studying under Yüan-chien, Yüan-chien told him, “I’m not getting any younger. By staying here with me, you may be wasting valuable time. I want you to go to Po-yün Shou-tuan. He’s young in years, and I’ve never actually met him, but judging from the verse comment he made on the three blows Lin-chi received from Huang-po, he’s an exceptional monk.⁵ If you study with him, I’m sure you’ll be able to bring your Great Matter to completion.”

Fa-yen knew in his heart the truth of his teacher’s words. He bade him farewell and set out for Mount Po-yün.

What magnanimity! Yüan-chien’s total selflessness deserves ourdeepest respect. How different from the Zen teachers today! When they certify a student, they hand him a piece of paper containing a line or two of some lifeless words they have written on it, telling him, “You are like this. I am like this too. Preserve it carefully. Never change or deviate from it.”

Students receive these certificates with deep bows of gratitude, raise them over their heads in attitudes of reverence. They guard them religiously all their sleeping and waking hours until the day they die—and in the process they make a total waste of their lives. Their own true face remains forever unknown to them. The reason why Yüan-chien chose Po-yün’s temple to send Fa-yen to is because he was suspicious of prosperous training halls that were filled with monks, and because his sole concern was to keep the true Zen wind from dying out.

One day, when Fa-yen was working as head of the milling shed, one of the monks suddenly pointed to the turning millstone and said, “Does that move by supernatural power? Or does it move naturally?” Fa-yen hitched up his robe and made a circumambulation of the stone. The monk said nothing.

Later, Master Po-yün came into the shed and spoke to Fa-yen. “I had some monks here visiting from Mount Lu. They had all experienced enlightenment. When I asked them to express their understanding, they did it very well, with words of substance. When I questioned them about episodes involving Zen masters of the past, they were able to clarify them. When I requested comments on Zen sayings, the comments they supplied were perfectly acceptable. In spite of all that, they still weren’t there yet.”⁶

Po-yün’s words brought deep doubts to Fa-yen’s mind. “They had achieved enlightenment,” he pondered. “They were able to express their understanding. They could clarify the stories the master gave them. Why did he say they still lacked something?” After struggling with this for several days, he suddenly broke through into enlightenment. Everything that had seemed so precious to him was now cast aside, as he raced to Po-yün’s chambers. When Po-yün saw him, he got up and began dancing about for him, waving his arms and stamping his feet. Fa-yen just looked on and laughed.

Afterward, Fa-yen said, “I broke into great beads of sweat . . . then suddenly I experienced for myself ‘the fresh breeze that rises up when the great burden is laid down.’”⁷

We must prize Fa-yen’s example. After only a few days of intense effort, he transcended in one leap all the gradual stages of attainment—the Three Wisdoms and the Four Fruits—and penetrated directly the hearts of all the twenty-eight Indian and the six Chinese Zen patriarchs. After that, he spoke with effortless freedom whenever he opened his mouth, taking students completely unaware when he responded to their questions, and cutting the ground from under them with his own questions. Reflect deeply, and you will see that this is the very point at which men of great stature surpass the countless ranks of average men; and it is at this same point that the lax and indolent lose hope.

Long ago, Emperor Yü saved a hundred provinces from the ravages of flood by having a passage cut open for the Yellow River at the Dragon Gates. But the project took years, required the forced labor of countless men and women, and cost many of them their lives. Emperor Kao-tsung struggled through a period of great upheaval to establish the foundations for a dynasty of Han rulers that endured for four centuries. But the policies he initiated during the forty years of his reign resulted in death and suffering for untold millions of his subjects. What these two emperors accomplished has made their names known throughout the world. Yet their achievements were defiled by the illusory passions that engendered them. The difference between such worldly achievements and the spiritual exploits of a Zen teacher like Fa-yen, which were utterly free of the defiling passions, is vaster than the difference between sky and sea.

Unfortunately, however, we have another species of teacher in our Zen school. The kind who puffs up self-importantly when he’s able to round up seven or eight monks. He stalks like a tiger with a mean glint in his eye. Parades around like an elephant with his nose stuck proudly in the air. He delivers smug judgments:

Master So-and-so is an excellent priest. His poems are reminiscent of Li Yu-lin. Writes prose like Yüan Chung-lang. And the ample fare you get in his temple cannot be matched anywhere else in the country. There is a morning meal, a midday meal, tea and cakes three times a day. Before the afternoon tea-break is even over, the board sounds announcing the evening meal. The master teaches the Dharma of “direct pointing” itself, and ushers students into enlightenment with no more effort than it takes to pick up a clod of dirt at the roadside. Mr. Kobayashi’s third son went to him and was immediately enlightened. Mr. Suzuki’s fourth son went and grasped the Dharma right off. Samurais and farmers, artisans and merchants, even butchers, innkeepers, peddlers, and everyone else who passes through the gates of his temple—he leads them all straight into the realm of truth. I don’t know of a training hall in the world to compare with it. Any monk on pilgrimage who fails to enter So-and-so’s gate is making the mistake of a lifetime; he is throwing his search for satori right out the window.

Phffmp! What graveyard did you pillage for those old left-over offerings? Who did you get that line about “direct pointing” from? How can you say that enlightenment comes as effortlessly as “picking up a clod of dirt”? Are you really talking about the “secret transmission” of the Sixth Patriarch? The “essential matter” Lin-chi transmitted? If it was as easy as you say it is, and it was enough for a student merely to receive and accept a teaching after his teacher explained it to him, why do Zen people speak of the “wondrous Dharma that the buddhas and patriarchs do not transmit”?

One day long ago when Zen master Hsiang-yen Chih-kuan was studying under Kuei-shan Ling-yu, Ling-yu addressed the following question to him: “I’ve heard you have a brilliant mind. They say you’re so perceptive that when you were with your late teacher Po-chang you gave answers of ten when he asked about one, and answers of a hundred when he asked about ten. But that intellectual sharpness and perceptiveness is the very source of birth and death. What I want from you right now is a single phrase that comes from a time prior to your birth.”

Chih-kuan, utterly confused, returned to the monks’ quarters in a daze. He took out the writings he had been studying and began to comb them for a phrase he could take back to Ling-yu. But he was unable to come up with a single one. He sighed to himself, “You can’t satisfy hunger with a painted rice cake.”

He begged Ling-yu for some clue that would help him answer. “If I told you something now,” Ling-yu replied, “later you would curse me to your dying day. Whatever I said would be mine, it would have nothing to do with you.”

Chih-kuan ended up taking all his writings and study-notes and tossing them into the fire. “I’ll never study Zen again in this lifetime,” he said. “I think I’ll go on an extended pilgrimage. I can beg my way as a mendicant monk. At least I can avoid wearing myself out like I’m doing now.”

He took leave of Ling-yu with tears in his eyes, and made straight for the Hsiang-yen-ssu Temple in Nan-yang to pay homage at the memorial tower of National Master Hui-chung.⁸ When he got there, he decided to stay for a while and rest up from his long journey.

One day, Chih-kuan was out clearing away some brush and weeds. His sickle struck a pebble, throwing it against the trunk of a bamboo with a sharp toe. At that instant, he attained enlightenment. He hurried back to the monks’ quarters and washed to purify himself, then he lit some incense and bowed deeply in the direction of the temple on far-off Mount Kuei where Ling-yu resided. “The gratitude I owe you for your great compassion is far greater than that I owe my own parents,” he said. “If you had given in to my pleas that day and said something to help me, this moment would never have arrived.”

Do you see? The masters of our school have never imparted one shred of Dharma to their students. Not because they were worried about protecting the Dharma, but because they were worried about protecting their students.

The monks that teachers must deal with today are generally ignorant, stubborn, unmotivated types who aren’t even up to sitting through a single stick of incense. They teach these people and nurse them along with tender care. But they might as well take a load of dead cow-heads, line them up, and try to get them to eat grass. The teachers muck about, doing this and trying that, endeavoring to get these fellows free of themselves. Instead, they end up saddling them with an enormous load of shit. Then they sanction them, give them fine certificates of enlightenment, and loose them upon the world. The difference between such teachers and priests like Ling-yu and Chih-kuan is a difference of mud and cloud.

If anyone tells you, “I can preach a Dharma that will enlighten people,” you can be sure of two things: one, he is not an authentic teacher, and two, he himself has never penetrated the Dharma. Even if he possessed the wisdom of Shariputra and the eloquence of Purna, he couldn’t possibly get his miserable beak into the wondrous untransmittable essence that Zen teachers have transmitted through the centuries from Dharma father to Dharma son.

The venerable Ananda was a cousin of the Buddha. He followed him into the priesthood at a young age and became his personal attendant, in which capacity he served constantly at the Buddha’s side. So not only was he habitually exposed to the Tathagata’s virtuous influence for many years, he was also no doubt affected in no small measure by the personal instruction he must have received. In spite of that, Ananda was never able to break through the barrier into enlightenment. It was not until after the Buddha’s death, when he went to his fellow disciple Kashyapa to continue his study, that he succeeded in “forgetting his self and yielding up his life.”

In light of all this, how is it that enlightenment, which was so difficult for the ancients to achieve, is now so effortlessly attained by the moderns? Could it be that the ancients were weak or lacked ability? Could it be that today’s students are more mature and highly developed? Could it be that the teaching methods the ancients used were inferior to those of today?

Hui-k’o cut off one of his arms. Tz’u-ming jabbed a gimlet into his thigh. Another monk did zazen constantly without ever lying down to rest. Another shut himself up in a hermitage and never left it. Why did they subject themselves to such adversity? If the easy enlightenment of the moderns is genuine, the hardships the ancients endured was mistaken. If the hardships the ancients endured was not mistaken, there is something wrong with the enlightenment of the moderns.

It is unavoidable if a person of great resolve strives to break through to enlightenment and fails. But once someone vows to achieve enlightenment, no matter what hardships he may face, even if it takes him thirty or even forty years of arduous effort, he should without fail achieve his goal and reach the ground of awakening that was realized and confirmed by Zen patriarchs before him. How can that same ground be reached by any of these moderns who live in a half-drunk, half-sober state, misusing their lives because they trust to a common, ignorant view that believes enlightenment is attained effortlessly, like picking up clods of dirt from the ground? Are such people any different from the man of Ch’i, who ran to the cemetery when he was hungry to beg leftovers from the worshipers?⁹

It is because of this that Seng-chao states in The Treatise of the Precious Treasury:

There are ten thousand ways leading to enlightenment. A fish that grows weary remains in a trickling stream. A sick bird alights and stays among the reeds. The one never knows the immensity of the ocean, the other never knows the vastness of the great forests. It is the same for practicers who turn aside from the great Way and enter small, insignificant bypaths. After striving and acquiring a certain amount of merit, they stop while they are still halfway to their destination and thus never reach the final truth of ultimate suchness. By forsaking the great Way in order to pursue small, insignificant bypaths, and contenting themselves with a small measure of attainment, they never reach the complete satisfaction of great and ultimate peace.

Who are the people who pursue the “great Way”? Those true seekers who achieve an authentic Kenshō and bore all the way through into the profound source of the great Dharma. Who are those who pursue the “small and insignificant bypaths”? Pseudo-Zennists who accept their perceptions and sensory awareness, their seeing and hearing, as some kind of ultimate attainment.

Seng-chao was indeed a man of superior capacity, one of those he himself called “authentic vessels of the Mahayana Dharma.” He lived during the latter Chin dynasty, before the First Patriarch came from the West and brought Zen to China. He stood alone amid a vast ocean of uncertain Buddhist doctrine and expounded a profound, perfectly correct Dharma of unsurpassable greatness. There is a world of difference between him and Zen people today. It is like comparing gold with tin, or masters with servants. He deserves our profoundest respect.

Ch’ing-su, a monk from Ku-t’ien in the kingdom of Min, served as an attendant to Tz’u-ming.¹⁰ In his later years he took refuge in Lu-yüan, Hsiang-hsi, living by himself and leading a quiet, retired existence. Tou-shuai Ts’ung-yüeh, who was still a student at the time, was occupying a neighboring dwelling. One day, a visitor brought Tou-shuai some litchis. He called to Ch’ing-su, “Someone brought me some fruit from your home province, old man. Let’s share them.”

“I haven’t seen any litchis since my teacher passed away,” Ch’ing-su replied with an air of sadness. “Who was your teacher?” asked Tou-shuai. “Master Tz’u-ming,” he replied.

When he had a chance, Tou-shuai invited Ch’ing-su over and questioned him further about his life and practice. Ch’ing-su in turn asked Tou-shuai whom he had studied with. “Hsin-ching K’o-wen,” he said. “Who was his teacher?” asked Ch’ing-su. “Huang-lung Hui-nan,” answered Tou-shuai.

“Young Hui-nan was only with Tz’u-ming a short time,” said Ch’ing-su, “yet he and his disciples now are enjoying great success.”

The remark surprised Tou-shuai. “This is no ordinary old monk,” he thought to himself. Later, putting some incense into his sleeve, he went to Ch’ing-su and asked for his instruction.

“A man of my meager virtues, who doesn’t get a chance to meet people, really shouldn’t presume to teach others,” said Ch’ing-su. “But if that’s what you want, why don’t you express the understanding you have attained as straightforwardly as you can?”

When Tou-shuai finished, Ch’ing-su said, “That may have gained you entrance into the realm of buddhas, but it’ll never get you past the gates of Mara’s realm. An old worthy said, ‘The difficult Barrier is not reached until you utter an Ultimate Word’¹¹—that is something you still have to learn.”

Tou-shuai was about to reply to this, but Ch’ing-su suddenly asked, “How would you say something without working your mouth?” Once again Tou-shuai started to speak, but Ch’ing-su cut him off with a high-pitched laugh. Tou-shuai was suddenly enlightened.

Several months later, Ch’ing-su certified Tou-shuai’s enlightenment. He added a caution: “Everything Hsin-ching taught you was perfectly true and correct, but you left him much too soon, before you had finally grasped the marvelous working in his Zen teaching. What I’ve done now is to reveal that working to you and enable you to use it freely and unrestrictedly. But I don’t want you to stay here and become my Dharma heir. Your teacher is Hsin-ching.” Eventually, Tou-shuai did receive Hsin-ching’s Dharma transmission.

Later, when Layman Wu-chin was studying with Tou-shuai, Tou-shuai mentioned what Ch’ing-su had told him concerning the Ultimate Word. Some time afterward, when Wu-chin resigned from his post as prime minister and was passing the Kui-tsung-ssu Temple where Hsin-ching was living, he stopped to pay him a visit. One night the two men were talking and Wu-chin was telling Hsin-ching what Ch’ing-su had said, when Hsin-ching suddenly flew into a rage. “What a disgusting mess of bloody vomit that bonze spewed out! Don’t believe a word of it! It’s a pack of lies!” Wu-chin was unable to finish what he was saying.

In the third year of Emperor Hui-tsung’s reign (after Hsin-ching had passed away), Chüeh-fan Hui-hung paid a visit to Layman Wu-chin at Ching-hsi in Hsia-chou. Wu-chin said, “It’s too bad Hsin-ching didn’t perceive Ch’ing-su’s true meaning.”

“You have only grasped what Ch’ing-su said about the Ultimate Word,” said Chüeh-fan. “You have yet to realize that Hsin-ching was dispensing his drastic Zen medicine right before your eyes.” “Could that be true?” declared Wu-chin, taken aback. “If you aren’t sure, think back. Reflect thoroughly on the meeting you had with Hsin-ching,” said Chüeh-fan.

The instant Layman Wu-chin heard Chüeh-fan’s words, he discerned the true meaning of Master Hsin-ching’s behavior. He lit an offering of incense and prostrated himself in the direction of Kui-tsung-ssu, repenting his mistake and begging the now-deceased Zen teacher for forgiveness. He brought out a portrait of Hsin-ching he had been storing away carefully, made obeisance before it, and inscribed a eulogy above the painting. He presented it to Chüeh-fan.

Ah! Tou-shuai, you had the wisdom to visit Ch’ing-su, and you received his teaching, but you were unable to rid yourself of its traces—all the ruts and grooves it had impressed in your mind. That is the reason why, when Layman Wu-chin came along, he fell right into them. Unless Chüeh-fan had been able to make a good and timely application of Hsin-ching’s drastic medicine, Wu-chin would never have recovered from the incurable illness he had contracted.¹²

Each Zen master possesses ways and methods all his own of applying his wisdom to benefit his students and bring them to realization. How can others possibly hope to calculate their limitless scope?

My own opinion is this: while the above assessment may well be true, I still think it is regrettable that when Chüeh-fan revealed to Wu-chin the drastic medicine Hsin-ching had used, it seems to have worked with no more strength than a punctured drum.

A superior man of Layman Wu-chin’s caliber is rarely seen in the world. He rose to become chief minister of state, and lived to be nearly a hundred years old. He won the emperor’s complete trust, was highly esteemed by the ministers under him, deeply respected by the educated classes, and beloved by the common people. His wisdom was unsurpassed, his benevolence was vast, a man worthy to serve at the emperor’s side. Zen master Chüeh-fan made a special trip just to see him. Zen master Ta-hui also traveled far in order to pay him a visit. What mistake could a man of his stature have committed that would bring him, when he recalled Hsin-ching’s angry outburst, to go into the starry night, light incense, and bow penitently in the direction of Kui-tsung-ssu? Everyone who belongs to the school of Zen should understand: there exists in our school an essential matter that can only be penetrated in great enlightenment.

When Po-chang’s nose was tweaked by Ma-tsu, it cost him all the peace and equanimity he had previously attained. When Lin-chi was struck by Huang-po’s fist, he lost both home and country. When Feng-hsüeh’s pride was crushed by Nan-yüan, it stripped his face right off. When Hsüeh-feng heard Yen-t’ou’s “Khat!” it drained his spirit dry. When Yün-men got shoved out the door and broke his leg, it stunned him senseless. For Chih-kuan, it was a pebble striking a bamboo. For Tz’u-ming, it was Fen-yang’s hand over his mouth, muffling him. Ts’ui-yen was done in by a piece of broken tile. Yüan-wu was moved to tears by a love poem. Ta-yüan’s heart was destroyed by the sounds from a flute. Ta-hui was struck down by the poisonous heat of a south wind.¹³

The circumstances through which these priests came into their own, by forgetting what happened in the Himalayas when the World-honored One was caught in the light of a poisonous star,¹⁴ is something even the devas and devil kings cannot discern.

When Su-shan heard Chih-kuan state that “words are produced by means of sounds, but sounds are not words; forms and shapes appear to be real, but they are not,” he thought that Chih-kuan had thoroughly articulated the Dharma truth. So when it came time for him to leave Chih-kuan, he made him a promise: “I’ll wait until you have become abbot, then I’ll return to the temple to gather fuel and draw water for you.”

But later, when Su-shan came up against Ming-chao Te-chien, he suffered a severe setback. He realized for the first time how circumstances really are among followers of Zen. Upon returning to Chih-kuan and hearing him teach his students, he was overcome with disgust—the way a highly cultured minister might feel listening to the uncouth banter of a peasant. He made gagging noises as though he were vomiting. He had given his word to serve as Chih-kuan’s disciple because he had believed him to be the only genuinely enlightened member of Ling-yu’s brotherhood. Now, since he was able to see the true content of Chih-kuan’s teaching, everything had changed completely.

I want all of you to be aware that the study of Zen can effect a miraculous transformation that will change you to the very marrow of your bones. If Su-shan had not clambered his way arduously up the complicated tangle of vines Ming-chao had lowered down for him, how could he ever have matured into the great vessel he later became?

When Lung-ya was struck by Zen master Lin-chi, he said, “If you want to hit me, go ahead, but I still say there’s no meaning in the First Patriarch’s coming from the West.” When he was hit by Zen master Ts’ui-wei, again he said, “If you want to hit me, go ahead, but I still say there’s no meaning in the First Patriarch’s coming from the West.” Where Lung-ya stood, he saw no buddhas above him, no sentient beings below him; there was no sky over his head or earth beneath his feet. The whole universe, the great earth—it was all a single holeless iron hammer. Hence Hsüeh-tou dubbed him “a blind dragon for whom neither seer nor seen exists.”¹⁵ The regrettable truth of the matter is, Lung-ya could not have grasped Lin-chi’s Zen even in his dreams.

Lung-ya had come down with a grave illness, one that the buddhas and patriarchs themselves cannot cure. Often students latch onto a pile of matted filth like Lung-ya did and joyously assume they have obtained the very heart of the ancestral teachers, the “priceless jewel” The Lotus Sutra says is “concealed in the lining of your robe.” Their misfortune is, they haven’t the faintest notion that what they havereally obtained are the same filthy nails and wedges that Master Yün-men was constantly working to pull out for his students.

Even if they realize that the nails and wedges are there, and attempt to remove them on their own, they only end up like Papiyas, the devil king, who proudly went around sporting a stinking dog’s corpse on his head. When the corpse was first placed there by Upa-gupta, the Fourth Indian Patriarch, Papiyas danced with delight, thinking to himself, “What a glorious adornment I have! Now there’s no reason for me to envy the headdresses of Brahma or Indra.” But when he returned to his palace, his wives fled, pinching their noses, avoiding him with their faces contorted in disgust. Only then did he realize that his headdress consisted of three maggot-ridden corpses—a man, a dog, and a snake. The devil king was bewildered and demoralized, and tormented by the anger and resentment that burned within him.

Much the same thing happens to a Zen student. He encounters a Zen master and sees his assertions demolished. He receives the master’s instruction and, eventually, he receives his confirmation. When that happens, he assumes, “I have attained my goal, concluded the Great Matter. The buddha-patriarchs themselves have nothing for me to envy.”

Unfortunately, in the end his views become distorted, withering into dry, stale things. He discovers that he is at odds with himself at all times, whether active or at rest. The light that seems to have come into his darkness shines without a trace of strength, so he lives down in a jackal den, or dwells in a cavern of disembodied spirits, burdened by an iron yoke around his neck and heavy shackles around his arms and legs.

Someone with a true Dharma eye sees this as a scene of total and unrelieved despair. Because the student will never understand Zen, not in his dreams, not if he waits until the Year of the Ass.¹⁶ On the contrary, before he knows it he is lying among the other burnt-out seeds, rotting away, incapable of generating new life. Isn’t he a man walking around with a dog’s carcass on his head? He could run off to the ends of the earth looking for a way to rid himself of his burden, but meantime the rot would only worsen, the stench would only grow more loathsome. When will he ever be free of it? What can he possibly do?

Well, if a person really has a mind to reach the basic ground that has been realized and confirmed by the Zen patriarchs, it is by no means impossible. As a start, he should work on the koan Does a Dog Have the Buddha-nature? If he concentrates on it single-mindedly and keeps at it for a long time without wavering or faltering, he is certain to break through to realization. He must not stop there, however. He must cast all that he has attained aside, and turn to tackle one of the difficult-to-pass koans. If he proceeds in this way, he will surely come to see that the ground where the ancients lived and functioned is not found at any level of intellectual understanding.

Hsi-keng was initially enlightened when he penetrated the koan of The Old Sail Not Yet Raised. But he didn’t rest content with that first realization, he went on and introspected Su-shan’s Memorial Tower for four more years. Only when he had penetrated that koan did he develop into a great Dharma vessel. Had he stopped at that point, and dwelled where, as he said, “there is nowhere on earth to put it,” he would have remained floating aimlessly on a vast expanse of stagnant water, a dead lump of rotting flesh even a decrepit old crow wouldn’t have given a second look. If that had happened, do you think he would have developed into a great Zen master? Someone who was sought out to serve as abbot at ten different Zen temples and monasteries?¹⁷

Here is where the secret to the final breakthrough is found. A great deal has been said about it, most of it mistaken, much of it irresponsible nonsense. Daitō Kokushi said, “In the morning our eyebrows meet; in the evening we brush shoulders. What do I look like?”¹⁸ Those words are extremely difficult to place your trust in, extremely difficult to grasp. Kanzan Kokushi said, “Chao-chou’s koan The Cypress Tree in the Garden contains a vital function that works like a bandit.”¹⁹ Those words are likewise exceedingly difficult to penetrate and pass into. We must revere the deep compassion of these two Zen teachers, who left behind these hidden keys to total transformation so they would be there when a descendant appeared with the capacity to grasp them. Their utterances are truly the claws and fangs of the Dharma cave.

Once a person has bored his way into them, once his body has been covered with white beads of sweat, then he may rightly call himself a descendant of Hsi-keng, one of those Hsi-keng said “would be appearing daily in the land beyond the Eastern Sea.”²⁰ If, on the other hand, he finds that he hesitates or vacillates, and is unable to pass through them, he must never claim that he is a descendant of Kanzan Kokushi.

Today, wherever you go, Zen priests say, “Words and letters. Zen phrases. Those are the tools of slaves and servants. I don’t have any use for them.”

Wrong! Dead wrong! Are those two great Zen masters slaves or servants? If they are, I’m one too. While I don’t care much for the high and mighty attitude that makes those priests look down on others as their inferiors, I don’t despise them for it either. However, they are supposed to be descendants of Daitō and Kanzan, and as such, they should be able to penetrate their utterances. Otherwise, what right have they to refer to themselves as “small fish inhabiting the ocean of the true Dharma”?

If a person has not penetrated these sayings, then even if he has achieved attainment, even if his practice is single-minded, he should still, without further thought, just take them and begin to introspect them; he should abandon himself to the task with total concentration and relentless effort.

It’s like chopping down a huge tree of immense girth. You won’t accomplish it with one swing of your axe. If you keep chopping away at it, though, and do not let up, eventually, whether it wants to or not, it will suddenly topple down. When that time comes, you could round up everyone you could find and pay them to hold the tree up, but they wouldn’t be able to do it. It would still come crashing to the ground.

A person may not be ruined because he commits a single wrong act, but if he persists in doing wrong, it will eventually bring about his downfall, whether he wants it or not. When that time comes, he will not be able to prevent it even if he goes to all the gods of heaven and earth and begs with tears in his eyes for their help

Introspecting a koan is like that. It isn’t a question of choosing a koan, scrutinizing it once, and penetrating it. If you work on it relentlessly, with unflagging devotion, you will penetrate it whether you want to or not. When that time comes, even the combined effort of all the devil kings in the ten directions could not prevent it from happening. Why they couldn’t even glimpse what was going on. And there is nothing that could bring you such intense joy and satisfaction!

But if the woodcutter stopped after one or two strokes of his axe to ask the third son of Mr. Chang, “Why doesn’t this tree fall?” And after three or four more strokes stopped again to ask the fourth son of Mr. Li, “Why doesn’t this tree fall?” he would never succeed in felling the tree. It is no different for someone who is practicing the Way.

I haven’t been telling you all this in hopes of impressing you with the originality of my ideas. All of the matters I have related here are ones that greatly concerned my teacher Shōju. He was constantly grieving and lamenting over them when I studied with him thirty years ago. I can never tell people about them without finding tears streaming down my old cheeks and dampening my robe. Now, as I recall the earnestness with which old Shōju entrusted his teaching to me, the way he told me how much he was counting on me, I feel an immediate need to run off somewhere and hide my worthlessness. I am divulging my true thoughts to you like this only because I fervently desire that you will expend every effort to make the true, penetrating wind blow once again through the ancestral gardens, and breathe vigorous and enduring strength into the fundamental principles of our school.

Finally, I ask that you overlook once more an old man’s foolish grumblings, and thank you all for listening so patiently and attentively during these long talks. Please take good care of yourselves.

The fifth year of Gembun (1740), during the final third of the first month.