THIRTEEN

Intimate Words

In Zen, the truth that precedes sound and the intuitive perception that follows a phrase is called intimate talk—an expression that can be recognized and understood even though it has no sound. We meet these expressions with a truth that is already present within us.

Listening to shakuhachi music or the vocal improvisations of Meredith Monk, I close my eyes, lean my head back, and just let the sounds in. I am transported to a place that is familiar, yet somehow forgotten, almost primordial. I experience something that is within me that I didn’t know was there. Is it the music? Is it that which precedes those sounds? Is it the intuitive understanding that follows them? Or is it all three?

Although in intimate expression there is no sound, this expression cannot be called silent. This is not a matter that can be grasped by linear, rational, dualistic thinking, thinking that sets up polarities and oppositions: good against bad, heaven against earth, self against other, form against emptiness, speech against silence. Intimacy is not a matter that exists in the realm of polarities. Intimacy is the place where opposites merge.

Just as sound contains not-sound, so, too, does form contain not-form. Each is unified in a single, ineffable reality—right here, right now. Spirit and matter are the same reality. There’s not some special spiritual force that exists separate from the phrases we utter or the forms we perceive.

Ordinary understanding is seeing with the eye
and hearing with the ear. Intimacy is seeing
with the ear and hearing with the eye.

JOHN DAIDO LOOR I

On Mount Gridhrakuta, the Buddha addressed an assembly of thousands. He didn’t say a word. He picked up a flower and held it up for everybody to see. Out of the entire assembly, only Mahakashyapa, one of his disciples, smiled. Noticing Mahakashyapa’s smile, the Buddha said, “I have the all-pervading truth, the exquisite teaching of formless form. It has no reliance on words and letters. I now hand it over to Mahakashyapa.” Among the Zen koans, this is an archetypal example of intimate speech.

The Buddha gave an intimate discourse,
Mahakashyapa did not conceal it.
Flowers open in a night of falling rain,
Valley streams at dawn fill with spring fragrance.

Do not mistake the calling and answering of our regular conversations as intimate talk. The calling and the answering are ripples on the surface. They are not the intimate talk itself. In intimate talk no communication whatsoever can take place. Communication requires two points. Something goes from A to B. In intimacy, there are not two distinct entities and nothing to go from A to B. In the Zen transmission of wisdom nothing is transmitted; nothing goes from teacher to student. The student already has what the teacher has. The student already is the teacher. You already have what the enlightened one has. It just needs to be awakened, brought to life. Intimate talk brings it to life.

The best we can do is be always open and receptive. Whether we’re receiving Zen teachings, a work of art, or life itself, we can let it in, taste it, experience it, let it penetrate our cells, our pores, our breath, our being, and then leave it be.

In intimacy, there’s no knowing. There’s no reference system from which to know. There’s no outside or inside. There’s no thing that can be known or person that can know it. Not knowing fills the universe. There’s no place to put this gigantic body. It contains everything.

Without looking out the window
you can see the way of heaven.

LAOZI

Dogen said, “Life is nothing more than searching for and acting out the myriad possibilities of meaning with which the self and the world are pregnant.” We do this through expressions and activities. This involves not only the human world, but the nonhuman and nonliving worlds. Sit openly in the presence of a tree. Is nothing happening? Sit with an immobile and mute rock. Is nothing communicated?

All of reality is always awake and transmitting the truth, pointing to the truth. Even the insentient transmit intimate words. These mountains and rivers themselves are continually manifesting the words of the buddhas and ancient teachers. Dogen calls the sounds of the valley streams the eighty-four thousand hymns. The sounds of the river and the form of the mountain are all expressions of the buddha nature in absolute emptiness.

Silently and serenely one forgets all words.
Clearly and vividly, it appears before you.
When one realizes it, it is vast and without edges.

HONGZHI ZHENGJUE

In the opening words of the “Mountains and Rivers Sutra,” Dogen says, “These mountains and rivers of the present are the actualization of the word of ancient buddhas.” Some translations use “way” instead of “word.” I think “word” is more appropriate because Dogen specifically calls this chapter a sutra—the words of the Buddha. Rocks, trees, the wind, the ocean, are constantly manifesting the dharma.

Indeed, if we examine this teaching carefully, we see that all of the phenomena of this great universe—audible, inaudible, tangible and intangible, conscious and unconscious—are constantly expressing the truth of the universe. Do you hear it? Can you see it? If not, then heed the instructions of Master Dongshan and “see with the ear, listen with the eye.” Only then will you understand the ineffable reality of the world.

In his poem “The Jewelled Mirror of Samadhi,” Master Dongshan attempted to describe suchness, this-very-moment-as-it-is, in all its perfection and completeness, using many beautiful metaphors to convey this instant of reality. In one of the lines of the verse, he exclaims, “baba wawa.” When I first read this I had no idea what it meant, so I asked Maezumi Roshi. He said that it was the cooing of an infant. That cooing is the poignant expression of this incredible truth, of the buddha nature itself. It’s no different than the song of a bird, the sound of the wind in the pine trees, a Zen master’s shout, or Buddha silently holding up a flower on Mount Gridhrakuta.

Something must have been manifested when Buddha raised the flower because Mahakashyapa got it. It wasn’t until after Mahakashyapa had gotten it and smiled that the Buddha announced for the benefit of the rest of the assembly, “I have the all-pervading truth, the exquisite teaching of formless form. It has no reliance on words and letters. I now hand it over to Mahakashyapa.” First, Buddha held up a flower and blinked his eyes, Mahakashyapa smiled and the transmission was complete. Then, after that fact, the announcement was made.

Not equal to
Not metaphor
Not standing for
Not sign.

MINOR WHITE

Many times during my training, I sat in front of my teacher in dokusan, on the edge of seeing something. I would ask him and wait for an answer. But he gave me nothing: not a smile, not a twinkle in his eye, not a snort, not a quiver, and yet BAM! I would see it; I would get it. I repeatedly witness this as I am working with my students, in art and in Zen. I point or stay silent. Their realizations emerge from within. That’s why we call realization “the wisdom that has no teacher.” Everything is already in you. When you are open and receptive in your asking, when you’re alive and alert, everything is constantly teaching, everything is constantly nourishing. Direct pointing and intimate words are devices that awaken that which is already there.

Think about the stillness, then the sound, and then the perception that follows. Nothing comes from the outside. It’s like the koan. When you really see a koan clearly, nothing has come in from the outside. A good teacher tries to avoid derailing the process of discovery that the student can experience. When students discover it for themselves, they own it.

The truth is what happens in each one of us. That’s the cardinal point of practice. Practice, whether Zen or art, is a way of making the invisible visible. We are all complete, lacking absolutely nothing. This was the first teaching of the Buddha. It remains the first teaching of Zen. Some may realize the truth of this perfection, some may not, but nevertheless, we are all perfect. Practice is a way of making that fact visible.

This experience of intimate communication can take place when art is functioning at its best, when life is lived most freely and completely. The more this happens, the more easily new vistas begin to open and we begin to realize that the seemingly “mystical” experience is actually something quite ordinary. It is part of your life and my life. And indeed, an ordinary aspect of all beings.