CHAPTER 14

The Process of Zen: Mental Work and Insight

To cut out the nonsense and get back to the real story, the heart and goal of Zen are as explained briefly above; as for the process of real Zen, if we reduce it to essentials there are two conditions, mental work and insight, which are like the two wings of a bird or the two wheels of a chariot—it is necessary to have both. I will now cite some examples of the great Zen masters of the early T'ang dynasty in relation to the mental work of practicing meditation concentration and the insight of seeing essence and awakening to the Way.

The Example of Ancestor Ma

Zen Master Tao-i of Kiangsi was surnamed Ma in lay life, so he is commonly called Ancestor Ma, or Great Master Ma. During the K'ai-yuan era (713-741) of the T'ang dynasty, he was practicing concentration on Heng-yueh (also called Nan-yueh) in Hunan. At that time the Zen Master Huai-jang of Nan-yueh Mountain, who was one of the great disciples of the sixth patriarch and had attained the Dharma, knew that Ma was a great vessel of Buddhism. Therefore he went to ask him, "Great Worthy, [a term of respect used by Buddhists], what is your aim in sitting meditation?"

Ancestor Ma answered, "I want to become a Buddha."

Zen Master Huai-jang then took up a piece of tile and began rubbing it in front of the hermitage where Ma sat meditating every day. (Note that this is a Zen method of education.) One day Ancestor Ma asked the master, "Why are you rubbing the tile?" to which the master replied, "I am polishing it to make a mirror." Ancestor Ma then asked, "How can a tile be polished into a mirror?" The master answered, "Since polishing a tile does not make it a mirror, how can sitting meditation make one a Buddha?"

Hearing this, Ancestor Ma became doubtful, so he asked, "What would be right?" Master Huai-jang then explained, "It is like an ox pulling a cart: if the cart is not going, would it be right to hit the cart or to hit the ox?" (the cart symbolizes the body, the ox symbolizes the mind).

Having had this question posed to him, Ancestor Ma had no way to reply. It was not that he could not give an answer to this question; he was just in the process of making the principle of the metaphor clear and looking back into his own mind. The master also said, "Are you learning sitting meditation, or are you learning to be a Buddha? If you are learning sitting meditation, meditation is not in sitting or reclining. If you are learning sitting Buddhahood, Buddhahood does not have a fixed form. Originally it is a teaching that does not dwell on anything, so there should be no attitude of grasping or rejection in relation to it. If you take sitting to be Buddhahood, that is equivalent to killing Buddha. If you cling to a fixed form of long sitting without moving to be Buddhism, you really do not understand the principle yet."

After listening to this, Ancestor Ma felt clear and refreshed, pleasantly elated, as if he had drunk some ambrosial elixir. He then bowed to the Zen master and again asked, "Then how should I apply my mind in order to attain formless samadhi?" (Samadhi is translated as "accurate reception.") The master answered, "Your study of the teaching of the mind ground is like planting seeds, while my explanation of the essentials of the Dharma is like the sky sending down rain and dew. Now that causal conditions are meet for you, you will naturally see the Way."

Ancestor Ma now asked, "If the Way has no visible form or appearance, how can it be seen?" Zen Master Huai-jang replied, "The spiritual eye of the mind ground itself can see the Way. Formless samadhi too is this very principle."

Then Ancestor Ma asked, "Does this have becoming and decay?" The Zen master answered, "If you see the Way in terms of becoming and decay, or in terms of assemblage and dissolution, then this is not the Way," after which he said in verse,

The mind ground contains all seeds;
When there is moisture, all of them sprout.
The flower of samadhi is formless;
What decays, and what becomes?

Hearing the master's instructions, Ancestor Ma gained access to enlightenment, and his mind soared to the freedom of liberation. After this he followed Great Master Huai-jang for nine years, making daily progress in penetrating the inner mysteries of the mental reality of Buddhism.

Now that I have told the story of the circumstances connected with the enlightenment of the great master Tao-i or Ancestor Ma, I trust it will be clear to everyone whether or not the teaching of Zen requires the key of meditation concentration work! But do not forget that it was through the activity of Great Master Ma that the culture of Chinese Zen in the T'ang dynasty finally began to work on a grand scale; he was an epoch-making man, not to be compared with ordinary shallow people. And even in his case, neither will it do to overlook the fact that he had certainly already gone through a long period of intense practice of meditation concentration before his enlightenment; only thus was he able to wake up to enlightenment suddenly on receiving the simple explanations of Great Master Huai-jang of Nan-yueh.

Even so, after his enlightenment, Ancestor Ma remained with his teacher for nine years, working for him, taking every opportunity to refine his realization of the Way to which he had awakened before he could penetrate the innermost mysteries. Let us ask ourselves if our capacities and virtues are superior to those of Great Master Ma. How can we arbitrarily say that the Zen of sudden enlightenment at a word is such an easy thing?

To sum up, learning and virtue are practical matters and must be actually carried out and applied with true sincerity. This is especially true of Zen; it cannot be randomly sought or easily attained by frivolous conceits. I hope the youth of this generation will understand at a very deep level that nothing in the world can be done successfully with a hasty and careless attitude.

The Example of Master Fa-jung

Zen Master Fa-jung of Ox Head Mountain had studied all the Confucian classics and histories by the time he was nineteen years old. Then he read the Buddhist Great Wisdom sutra and realized a thorough understanding of true emptiness. All of a sudden, one day he lamented, "The worldly classics of the Confucians are not ultimate principles; the true vision of wisdom is a vehicle beyond the world." Then he went into seclusion on Mount Mao, where he entered into discipleship under a teacher and shaved his head to become a monk. Later he went to a cave on the northern crags of a temple on Ox Head Mountain called the Recondite Abode, where there occurred the marvel of birds bringing flowers to him.

During the Cheng-kuan era of the T'ang dynasty (627-649), the fourth patriarch of Zen, Great Master Tao-hsin, observed an atmospheric phenomenon from far off and realized an extraordinary person was living on that mountain, so he went by himself to try to find him. He inquired of the monks at a nearby temple, "Is there a man of the Way around here?" Though he was speaking to an ordained monk, his words were in effect the same as speaking to a lay person. He was actually upbraiding the monk for incompetence because monks are supposed to have left society for the express purpose of practicing the Way. Thus we can see how straightforward and uncompromising the great Zen masters were, which is why they met with the loathing of worldlings wherever they went.

The monk asked, "What monk is not a man of the Way?" The fourth patriarch countered, "Ah! What one is a man of the Way?" to which the monk had no reply. Another monk then said, "A few miles deeper into the mountain there is someone called Lazy Jung, who does not rise when he sees people, and does not make any gesture of greeting. Might he not be a man of the Way?"

So the patriarch went into the mountain, and saw the master sitting there calmly in an upright position, paying no attention to him whatsoever. The patriarch asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Watching mind," replied the master.

The patriarch asked, "Who is watching? What is mind?" The master had no reply but got up, bowed, and inquired, "Where is your lofty abode, Great Worthy?"

The patriarch said, "I do not stay in any fixed place; sometimes I go east, sometimes west."

The master then asked, "Do you know Zen Master Tao-hsin?"

"Why do you ask about him?" the patriarch replied.

The master said, "For a long time I have been hearing of his virtue, and hope to get a chance to pay him a visit."

The patriarch said, "Zen Master Tao-hsin is this poor wayfarer, me."

The master then asked, "Why did you come here?"

The patriarch answered, "I came specially to visit you. Is there any place to stay?" The master pointed behind him and said there was a separate hut.

When the master led the patriarch to the hut, they saw tigers and wolves surrounding it, so the patriarch raised his hands in a gesture of fright. The master inquired, "Does this still exist?" but the patriarch responded, "What is this?" The master then said nothing. Then the patriarch wrote the word Buddha on the rock where the master had been sitting. When the master saw it, he was startled; the patriarch asked him, "Does this still exist?" The master did not understand; he bowed his head and asked for an explanation of what is truly essential.

The patriarch explained, "The hundreds and thousands of gates to the truth are all ultimately in the mind; the subtle virtues as numerous as river sands are all in the source of mind. All aspects of discipline, concentration, wisdom, and manifestations of spiritual powers, are all inherently there, nowhere else but in your mind. All afflictions and obstructions caused by habit are originally void and null. All causes and effects are like dreams and hallucinations.

"There is no world to leave, no enlightenment to seek. Humans and nonhumans are equal in essence and character. The great Way is open and vast, beyond thought and reflection. You have now attained this truth and lack nothing more. You are no different from Buddha; there is no other teaching.

"Just let your mind be free: do not perform contemplative practices, and do not make your mind clear. Do not arouse greed or anger, do not embrace sorrow or worry. Flowing freely, unhindered, you are free in all ways, however you will. Not doing good, not doing evil, in all activities and circumstances, everything that meets your eyes is an inconceivable function of Buddhahood. It is blissful and sorrowless, so it is called Buddhahood."

The master said, "Granted that the mind is complete, what is Buddha, and what is mind?"

The patriarch answered, "If not for mind, there is no asking about Buddha; when asking about Buddha, it is not that it is not the mind."

The master then asked, "If I am not to perform contemplation practices, how should I quell my mind when objects arise?"

The patriarch therefore explained, "Objects are neither good nor bad; good and bad arise in the mind. If the mind does not insist on labeling, from where can deluded feelings arise? Once deluded feelings do not arise, the true mind is in charge of all knowledge. Just let your mind be independent and free, and do not try to quell it anymore; this is called the ever-present body of reality, and it has no change. I received the teaching of sudden enlightenment from Great Master Seng-ts'an, and now I hand it on to you. You now heard me clearly and truly; just live on this mountain, and later there will be five adepts who will carry on your original mission."

So the master lived on the mountain after this, and his teaching center became so populous as to be like that at Huang-mei, where the fifth patriarch of Zen taught. In the early 650s, when the followers were so numerous they lacked for provisions, the master went to the city, more than twenty-five miles away, to raise alms by preaching. Going in the morning, he would return at night with an enormous sack of grain on his back, which he gave to the congregation of three hundred students so they would not lack two meals a day. In three years a local governor invited the master to lecture on the Great Wisdom sutra at a temple, and huge crowds of people gathered to listen to him.

By this example of the circumstances connected with the enlightenment of Zen Master Fa-jung of Ox Head Mountain, it can be clearly understood that what Zen calls illumining the mind and seeing its essence has to do with the importance of insight. When Master Fa-jung was living alone on Ox Head Mountain practicing meditation concentration, he had already reached the realm where he forgot the scheming mind and was oblivious to things and self. That is why there occurred the marvel of birds bringing him flowers in their beaks.

This is similar to a story in the Taoist classic Lieh-tzu about someone living by the sea who palled around with a flock of seagulls every day: because he had no scheming mind, had no idea or thought of harming living creatures, and had already forgotten machinations to the point where he did not know the birds were birds and did not know he was himself, he and the gulls grew more familiar day by day.

Later, someone saw the man with the gulls and called out to him, telling him to take the opportunity to grab a few gulls and bring them over. When the man heard this, it stirred his mechanical mind, and he prepared to grab a gull. But once the birds saw him in this state, they immediately flew away before he could catch them.

Thus it is obvious that Master Fa-jung's practice of meditation concentration had not only reached the realm where one forgets machinations and the self, but also still had within it the virtue of mercy and love toward the life of beings as well as profoundly deep achievement in meditation concentration. That is why the fourth patriarch Tao-hsin told him that he already had everything except an awakening.

But even after he awakened to the Way, he still worked hard for the sake of others. For a large congregation of ordinary students, he personally went down the mountain to preach for alms, coming back with a load of rice to feed everyone. No longer would he have birds bringing flowers in their beaks, or have ghosts and spirits send rice to protect the Dharma! This principle, this key, is one that should be studied above all by people who are obsessed with occultism; for the moment we will refrain from adding explanations for them.

Next, after the fourth patriarch Tao-hsin arrived on Ox Head Mountain, he saw some tigers and wolves; he threw up his hands and put on an expression of fright. Because of this, Master Fa-jung gave rise to doubt and asked him, "Do you still have the kind of psychology that is afraid of tigers and wolves?" The fourth patriarch immediately asked him back, "What is this that can become afraid?" If Fa-jung replied that it is mind, where is the mind? And what is it like? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Does it exist after death? There must be a whole string of questions to go on pursuing. But Master Fa-jung did not go on, and the fourth patriarch said no more.

Now the fourth patriarch wanted to seize the opportunity to create a situation in which he could give him some education, so he wrote the word Buddha on the rock where Fa-jung usually sat and then sat down himself. To a sincerely pious Buddhist like Fa-jung, who left home to study Buddhism, this would have seemed like a truly blasphemous act, so he became upset and was very suspicious of this man who called himself the fourth patriarch of Zen.

The fourth patriarch had already figured that the master would react like that, so he immediately asked, "Do you still have the mentality that gets upset because of worshiping images without knowing where the real Buddha is?" The patriarch was taking the opportunity to educate the master, to get him to understand that the mentality of fear about which Fa-jung had asked, and the mentality of being upset about which the patriarch was asking now, are just different aspects of the functioning of this mind. Whether it be joy, anger, sadness, happiness, or any sort of psychological or physiological change, all are just activities of the mind. If you do not clearly understand the substance and characteristics of the fundamental source of the nature of this mind, then whatever you may learn is all just seeking outside of mind; it has no truth in it, since it is just dependent functioning of mind according to changes in the physical environment.

In this way Fa-jung realized his own mistake, and then asked the fourth patriarch to teach him. Only thus did he draw out a long discourse on principles from the patriarch, who clearly told him the essential methods of cultivating the mind ground. (The original document is quoted above; please forgive me for not deeming it necessary to add a lot of explanatory notes. All you have to do is read it carefully, and it should naturally become clear to you. Too much talk, on the other hand, would be like drawing legs on a picture of a snake.)

But even after this the fourth patriarch still told Master Fa-jung to stay in the mountains and practice quietly. Only after going through a long period of refinement did the master come down from the mountain with a mind transcending things to work for the actualization of his teaching mission for the benefit of the people of the world. No longer was he "Lazy Jung." All that hardship and toil, all the effort and labor, he did entirely for the sake of other people.

By this it can be known that if we young people of today, who were born in a time of great difficulty for the country and the world, want to bear the responsibility for taking care of our families, governing our nations, and bringing peace to the world, unless we are highly cultivated and work in the world with transmundane hearts, we will be stymied by present realities and become narrow-minded and afflicted with selfishness. Please excuse me for saying this; it is not up to me to preach, but when I came to this point in my talk these admonitions seemed to slip right out of my mouth!

The Example of Master Ch'ang-ch'ing Hui-leng

Zen Master Ch'ang-ch'ing Hui-leng went back and forth for twenty years between Hsueh-feng and Hsuan-sha, two great Zen masters. Over this period of time he wore out seven cushions sitting in meditation. Nevertheless he still did not understand Zen. Then one day when he rolled up a bamboo blind, he suddenly had a great awakening. He composed a verse saying,

What a difference! What a difference!
Rolling up the blind, I see the whole world.
If anyone asks me what religion I understand,
I will raise my whisk and directly strike.

Hsueh-feng said to Hsuan-sha, "He has penetrated through." "Not yet," replied Hsuan-sha, "This is a product of ideational consciousness. He must be tested again."

That evening, when the community of monks came up to greet the Zen master, Hsueh-feng said to Ch'ang-ch'ing, "Hsuan-sha does not agree with you yet; if you really have true enlightenment, bring it out to the assembly." So Ch'ang-ch'ing composed another verse, saying,

In myriad forms one body's revealed alone;
Only when people realize it themselves is it their own.
In the past I searched by mistake on the road;
Today I look on it as ice within fire.

Hsueh-feng looked at Hsuan-sha and said, "You can't consider this a product of ideational consciousness any more, can you?"

The Example of Master Ling-yun Chih-ch'in and Peach Blossoms

Zen Master Ling-yun Chih-ch'in studied with Zen Master Kuei-shan. He awakened to the Way on seeing peach blossoms, and composed a verse saying,

For the last thirty years I've looked for a swordsman;
How many times have the leaves fallen and new twigs sprouted?
Ever since seeing the peach blossoms once,
To this day I no longer doubt.

Upon reading this verse, Kuei-shan questioned Ling-yun's enlightenment and found that it tallied. Kuei-shan said, "When you attain enlightenment through conditions, you never backslide or lose it. Best keep it secure yourself."

From the third and fourth examples, it can be seen that Zen enlightenment places emphasis on the work of cultivating and realizing meditation concentration as well as on the insight to perceive the Way. Zen Master Ch'ang-ch'ing Hui-leng sat for twenty years, wearing out seven cushions, and still did not understand Zen; after his enlightenment, he again went through strict testing by the Great Masters Hsueh-feng and Hsuan-sha before he really got it right. People who study Zen today say they have attained enlightenment without having even sat through a single grass mat, but I'm afraid it is not quite so easy.

Also, consider the example of Master Ling-yun awakening to the Way on seeing peach blossoms; it looks very relaxed and elegant, and indeed rich in literary ambience, but you must not by any means forget the hard work to which he referred when he said, "For the last thirty years I've looked for a swordsman"! If you think that the ancients were immediately enlightened with consummate ease upon seeing peach blossoms or plum flowers, consider how many fine flowers you have seen in the course of your lives; why are you not yet enlightened?

Even if the story were interpreted to mean that once Ling-yun saw the peach blossoms he awoke to the principle of the activity of living potential, and this counts as Zen, since you have seen people eating food, wherein there is even more of the function of the activity of living potential, you should have been enlightened long ago. For example, Newton discovered an earth-shaking rule of science on seeing an apple fall to the ground, but just think of how many people past and present have eaten apples every day without discovering anything new. So in this way it can be known that awakening to the Way on seeing peach blossoms is not within your purview!

Aside from these examples, people often bring up another Zen story about seeing that the mountains are not mountains, seeing that the rivers are not rivers, and seeing the mountains and seeing the rivers; so I might as well include a discussion of it here. This story comes from a statement given in a formal lecture by Zen Master Wei-cheng, who said, "Thirty years ago, before I had studied Zen, I saw the mountains were mountains and the rivers were rivers. Later, when I had personally seen a Zen teacher and had attained initiatory experience, I saw that the mountains are not mountains and the rivers are not rivers. But now that I have attained peace, I see the mountains simply as mountains, and see the rivers simply as rivers. Tell me, everyone, are these three views the same or different? If anyone can distinguish the black from the white, I will admit that you have seen me in person."

Because this story is part of traditional Zen lore, students of later generations, including people all over the world today, have taken it as a handle on Zen study. Some people say it represents the so-called three barriers of Zen. Others say that it is necessary to reach the point at which you see that mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers, and then turn around again to arrive at seeing mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers again; this they identify as the realm of great penetration and great enlightenment. In reality, these explanations are ultimately just impressionistic talk; these views may seem to be correct, but they are not.

First of all, it is necessary to understand clearly that this talk by Zen Master Wei-cheng is about his own personal experience in practice. When it comes to the matter of whether Master Wei-cheng had actually attained great penetration and great enlightenment himself, you first of all cannot invent some fabrication and make up a subjective determination of the issue on his behalf.

His first stage, where he says he saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers, of course, represents the state of anyone before studying the Zen Way. Everyone is like this, seeing the mountains, rivers, and earth, the various human and natural environments in the physical world clearly and distinctly; this does not require any special interpretation.

For the second stage, where he said he saw mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers, it is one hundred percent certain that this is a state achieved through the actual application of meditation concentration work. If one has genuinely practiced meditation concentration work and the method and process of cultivation realization, and if one's inner and outer physical and mental application and conduct have not gone astray in any way, then eventually this should cause the physical and mental temperament and constitution to undergo a great change. The eyes will be full of spiritual light, the spirit will solidify, the energy will mass, and the material word seen by the eyes, the mountains, rivers, land, and so on will naturally seem as though one is in a waking dream, like images of light reflected in water. One will feel that everything in this material world is all dreamlike, illusory existence, totally unreal; and one will also see people as like mechanical robots.

Many people who reach this stage, whether they are studying Zen or practicing Taoism, thereupon assume it is the true Way, but really this sort of state has nothing to do with the Way. This happens because of long immersion of the body and mind in quiet concentration, resulting in diminution of psychological and biological instincts, and repletion with vital energy that causes the brain and nervous system to undergo a change resembling electrical charging, so one sees the phenomena before one as ephemeral and has no feeling of reality. This is similar to the scattering of vision experienced when the body is depleted and weakened after a serious illness, or when one is about to die. Of course, this phenomenon associated with sickness and dying does not itself represent the state of people practicing meditation concentration who see mountains and rivers as not being mountains and rivers: it is just a way of making a comparison. One is due to illness or dying; one arises from being filled with the living power of life; so they are not exactly the same.

But you must not forget that this kind of phenomenon is just a different sensation of the biological organs; what enables you to produce such feelings and cognition is still the function of your consciousness and thought. If you assume that seeing mountains as not being mountains and seeing rivers as not being rivers is a good phenomenon reflecting practice of Zen or Tao, that is still mediocre; if so, then you might as well take a hallucinogenic pill or a moderate dose of tranquilizers, for would that not cause a similar marvel? Can you say this is the Way?

So many people who study Zen and lecture on Zen today, both in China and the rest of the world, often bring up this issue. I cannot but add some explanation to the matter so that practitioners avoid making the mistake of entering into byways and ruining the useful physical body.

Coming to Zen Master Wei-cheng's third stage of seeing the mountains as mountains again and seeing the rivers as rivers again of course represents a Zen state where he had advanced a step farther, so he said of himself that he had attained peace. If you just go by these remarks and assume that this is great penetration and great enlightenment, then you might as well relax and go to sleep, waking up to see that mountains are still mountains and rivers are still rivers. Would this not be more direct and enjoyable?

Therefore it is really not easy at all to read the classics and stories of Zen; we should not by any means become confused by fragmentary interpretations. It is essential to seek personal experience of realization; only then do you know the ultimate. If we were to take this one story, which only points to a process of practice, and augment it so that it would be perfectly complete, we would have to cite the saying of T'ang dynasty Zen Master Nan-ch'uan, "When people today see this flower, it is like a dream," to be able to approach the final Zen work of letting go. In sum, this story only refers to the mental work involved in Zen; it is not completely relevant to the insight of enlightenment.