People are scared to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void. What they don't realize is that their own mind is the void.

Looking for the one Mind, you grasp at objects and think that you are onto something. Coming back from your job, you get home, sit and contemplate this one Mind. You expect to get a definite, substantial answer one day "this is it!", you expect a complete resolution of things.

You get all your bones and joints of this body, you place them before you, and then you wait for the enlightenment of the ancients to strike you like a lighting bolt would strike an unsuspecting tree. You are here waiting for this Mind to fill up the emptiness you see all around.

What if you're the one filling up the emptiness? What if you're that which tries to have something definite rather than nothing?

When the light was blown out, Deshan was suddenly enlightened and said:

All these abstract doctrines are like a single hair in vast emptiness. All the affairs of the world are like a drop of water in a boundless ocean.”

Abstract doctrines, Zen cases, Zen discussions, all of that lead you nowhere. Sure, these discussions and theories can clear things out for a while, but I am sure you eventually come back to the same fundamental question "What is all of this?". This question still tries to fill up the emptiness, the vast, boundless ocean.

What does this emptiness look like? Well, as soon as you reason about it, it looks like something. Trying to grasp at that only creates further conceptions of it. What is it that is here?

Alright, we'll get the promised first section reviewed since we just covered the preface last time.

The Master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.

I find it interesting he mentions Buddhas and sentient beings as the One Mind, and then says nothing else exists. Why doesn't he mention non-sentient beings or things by name if they exist? If there was a time before sentient beings or a hypothetical time after, and the Mind is without beginning, they must exist even independently of sentient beings, I would think. I'm not sure what to make of this.

It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons.

This very much aligns with the "negative theology" of the Christian mystics. It is not something that fits in the Aristotelean categories, which are supposed to encompass all that can be described or exist.

It is that which you see before you- begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error.

Although it cannot be described it is there right in front of our eyes. The only mistake is trying to fit it into the categories and concepts.

It is like the boundless void which can not be fathomed or measured. ""The One alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to ' seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind.

It is empty or void and attempts to imagine or seek it are a mistake.

Yet most don't see it. So how does one maintain it or grasp it or seek it? It apparently isn't the default mode for most people.

Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain to it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.

Here's are answer, reiterated from the preface. Stop conceptualization and relax.

Thanks Huangbo, but apparently that is all easier said than done. How does one simply "stop" what the mind seems to do naturally and automatically? Is it a practice of faith? Experimentation? Something that needs cultivated? Waiting with vigilance? Or is there a different strategy for this depending on the person?

For the answers to this (I hope) and more, stay tuned for our next installment.

Here's your song of the day. Later

See my previous post on Case 1 - Zhaozhou's Dog here.

Hello again party people! There's been some great discussion in my first couple of posts in the series, let's keep it going. I'm sure you'll have something to say about this one.

Case 2. Baizhang’s Wild Fox

Every time Baizhang taught there was an old man who followed along with the congregation to hear the Dharma and left when the congregation withdrew. Unexpectedly one day he stayed behind, so Baizhang asked him, “Who is the one who stands before me?”

The old man said, “I am not human. In the time of the ancient Buddha Kasyapa, when I was dwelling here on this mountain, a student asked me if a person of great practice still falls into cause and effect or not. I replied that he does not fall into cause and effect, and consequently I have had five hundred births in the body of a wild fox. Now I am asking you, Master, to turn a word on my behalf so that I can escape from being a wild fox.” Then he asked Baizhang, “Does a person of great practice still fall into cause and effect or not?” 

Baizhang said, “He is not deluded about cause and effect.”

At these words the old man was greatly enlightened. He bowed in homage and said, “I have already shed the fox’s body, which rests on the other side of the mountain. Please, Master, give it the funeral services due a dead monk. ”

Baizhang ordered the duty distributor to pound the gavel [to summon the assembly] and announced to them, “After we eat, we shall hold a funeral for a dead monk.” The congregation [were puzzled] and began to discuss the matter among themselves. They went to the infirmary, but there was no one there sick. [They wondered] why Baizhang was acting like this.

After their meal, Baizhang led the congregation to a cliffside on the other side of the mountain, where he took a stick and pulled out the body of a dead fox [from a crevice in the rocks]. They then formally cremated the body.

That night Baizhang went up to the teaching hall and related the full story of what had happened.

Huangbo then asked, “One wrong reply and this man of old fell into a wild fox’s body for five hundred lifetimes. If each and every reply is right, then what? ”

Baizhang said, “Come here and tell him.” Huangbo then came up and gave Baizhang a slap. Baizhang clapped his hands and laughed and said, “I knew barbarians’ beards were red, and here’s another red-bearded barbarian. ”

Wumen said,

[When the wild fox monk asserted that the person of great practice] “does not fall into cause and effect,” why did he fall into a wild fox’s body?

[When he heard that such a person] “is not deluded by cause and effect,” why did he shed the fox’s body? If you can focus the eye [of enlightened insight] here on this, then you will know why, long ago on Baizhang Mountain, [the old man] won for himself five hundred lifetimes flowing with the wind.

Verse

Not falling into, not being deluded by—

Two faces of a single die.

Not being deluded by, not falling into—

A thousand thousand errors.

The Chinese. As always, please correct me if I messed it up. I'm doing my best here.

百丈野狐

 二　百丈野狐

百丈和尚、凡參次、有一老人常隨衆聽法。衆人退、老人亦退。忽一日不退。師遂問、面前立者復是何人。老人云、諾。某甲非人也。於過去迦葉佛時曾住此山。因學人問、大修行底人還落因果也無。某甲對云、不落因果。五百生墮野狐身。今請、和尚代一轉語貴脱野狐。遂問、大修行底人、還落因果也無。師云、不昧因果。老人於言下大悟。作禮云、某甲、已脱野狐身住在山後。敢告和尚。 乞、依亡僧事例。師、令維那白槌告衆、食後送亡僧。大衆言議、一衆皆安、涅槃堂又無人病。何故如是。食後只見師領衆至山後嵒下、以杖挑出一死野狐、乃依火葬。師、至晩上堂、擧前因縁。黄蘗便問、古人錯祗對一轉語、墮五百生野狐身、轉轉不錯合作箇甚麼。師云、近前來與伊道。黄蘗遂近前、與師一掌。師拍手笑云、將謂、胡鬚赤。 更有赤鬚胡。 無門曰、不落因果、爲甚墮野狐。不昧因果、爲甚脱野狐。若向者裏著得一隻眼、便知得前百丈贏得風流五百生。 

頌曰

不落不昧      

兩采一賽      

不昧不落      

千錯萬錯   

Okay this one is a bit longer. Let's dive in.

“I am not human. In the time of the ancient Buddha Kasyapa, when I was dwelling here on this mountain, a student asked me if a person of great practice still falls into cause and effect or not. I replied that he does not fall into cause and effect, and consequently I have had five hundred births in the body of a wild fox. Now I am asking you, Master, to turn a word on my behalf so that I can escape from being a wild fox."

Dang. 500 lifetimes as a wild fox, that seems like a lot. He's not learning his karmic lesson so he goes to Baizhang to help him escape the cycle.

Why a wild fox? Why not a crane? Well, in ancient China, foxes were symbols of intelligence and cunning. They were also thought to be tricksters and had the ability to shape-shift into human forms.

So he told a student that a person of great practice does not fall into cause and effect. He was then born into a wild fox's body for 500 lifetimes. Seems like some kind of karmic punishment. He gave bad teaching and STILL doesn't see that it's because he gave bad teaching that he's in this predicament.

He's ignoring the consequences of his own actions.

Baizhang said, “He is not deluded about cause and effect.”

At these words the old man was greatly enlightened.

A person of great practice understands cause and effect. What they do with that understanding is up to them.

Allow me to link to a comment I made recently about a time in my own life where I was able to stop my own "karmic" cycle. When I was younger I had to move around a lot and struggled to make friends. I was lonely. I started believing that there was something inherently wrong with me. I didn't have great socialization skills so yeah, people didn't really like me all that much. I also had no filter. Truthfully, I was a bit obnoxious lol. But most people aren't so bold with their dislike and ironically, because someone was, I was able to have a realization. My comment goes more into detail about the situation but basically I decided to ignore someone's unjust treatment of me and break my own cycle of rejection>hostility>rejection>hostility through kindness and patience and in the end I realized how other peoples' actions were fueled by my actions and my actions were fueled by how I felt about myself, and how I felt about myself was fueled by others' actions...

See the cycle? It wasn't 500 years but it was about 19 and that was enough for me.

Huangbo then asked, “One wrong reply and this man of old fell into a wild fox’s body for five hundred lifetimes. If each and every reply is right, then what? ”

Baizhang said, “Come here and tell him.” Huangbo then came up and gave Baizhang a slap. Baizhang clapped his hands and laughed and said, “I knew barbarians’ beards were red, and here’s another red-bearded barbarian. ”

LOL.

My googling tells me that "red-bearded barbarian" refers to Bodhidharma. He's saying "here's someone that can see", as in see what he was about to do, which was slap, and beat him to it.

I wonder if the red is also a reference to a red fox's coat. Like "you clever little shit". Haha.

Okay, now what does Wumen have to say about it all?

Wumen said,

[When the wild fox monk asserted that the person of great practice] “does not fall into cause and effect,” why did he fall into a wild fox’s body?

[When he heard that such a person] “is not deluded by cause and effect,” why did he shed the fox’s body? If you can focus the eye [of enlightened insight] here on this, then you will know why, long ago on Baizhang Mountain, [the old man] won for himself five hundred lifetimes flowing with the wind.

I think I already addressed those questions.

How about you? Can you think of a time in your life when you had a realization about yourself and other people like that? Like I said, I was socially stunted so maybe it's more common to realize this stuff sooner than I did. I wanna know your thoughts!

🛎️🦇's Verse

(To the tune of the Barney theme song)

I hate you

You hate me

Why do we do that?

Don't you see?

With a great big pause and a shifting of a view

Now I see I hate me too

(to be continued...)

I feel like I read Huangbo and Foyan once or twice a year. May be fun to work through them together. I'm using the blofield translation because it is the only one I can find. Share any interesting translation choices from versions you may have.

P'ei Hsui's Preface:

The great Zen Master Hsi Yun lived below the Vulture Peak on Mount Huang Po, in the district of Kao An which forms part of the prefecture of Hung Chou. He was third in the direct line of descent from Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch, and the pupil of a fellow-disciple of Hui HaL

My comment: Lineage is important for these guys, which brings up some interesting questions. If the transmission is outside of the text, than of course lineage would be important, the fire would be passed. But then what are the books for?

And do different lineages make for different methods of awakening or pointing towards one's true nature? If there are different methods, is the strict category of "zen" the only way to see what they see? (that's my perennialism coming out.)

Holding in esteem only the intuitive method of the Highest Vehicle, which cannot be communicated in words,

"highest vehicle" sounds like he is referring to "Mahayana."

"Intuitive" is an interesting word to use. I really want to see any other translations people have. I understand intuition as a way of understanding something outside of conscious thought or description.

Again, if it cannot be communicated in words, what are we wasting our time with here?

he taught nothing but the doctrine of the One Mind

I'm curious what other translations exist of the phrase "One Mind." Mind is a slippery word, and I think for the sake of keeping things precisely as meant by the author, best to use the phrase as an empty signifier until we get more context.

holding that there is nothing else to teach, in that both mind and substance are void and that the chain of causation is motionless.

I'm wondering if "void" is the same word used for "empty" in other texts. It conjures the same concept for me. Things are without inherent, independent existence.

In philosophy, its an ongoing question that has existed since the presocratics. What is a thing? Is it its function-a chair for sitting? Is it its form? The way the atoms are formed in the thing? Emptiness or void would say that things are what they are at all (inherently at least). Meaning is not present in the thing.

And it also isn't present in our mind. Mind (and things) are void.

Mind is like the sun journeying through the sky and emitting glorious light uncontaminated by the finest particle of dust. To those who have realized the nature of Reality, there is nothing old or new, and conceptions of shallowness and depth are meaningless.

What is "the sky" in this analogy?

The sun is not affected by the things that it illuminates. We (it) have/has (are/is?) something perfect and unclouded, regardless of our pasts, our future, our learning, our habits or anything else?

Those who speak of it do not attempt to explain it, establish no sects and open no doors or windows. That which is before you is it._ Begin to reason about it and you will at once fall into error.

How do you speak on something without reason or explanation? This is the genius of the koans or cases.

Anyway, what does the text mean?

I can't really speak on something like that.

The dao that can be named is not the eternal dao.

I think the Christian mystics, often influenced by Aristotelean rationalism, often used "negative theology." Only speak on what it isn't.

Only when you have understood this will you perceive your oneness with the original Buddha-nature. Therefore his words were simple, his reasoning direct, his way of life exalted and his habits unlike the habits of other men.

"only" when you have understood this.

So this is the task. Stop reasoning about it, explaining it, or establishing sects with (presumably) doctrines.

Disciples hastened to him from all quarters, looking up to him as to a lofty mountain, and through their contact with him awoke to Reality. Of the crowds which flocked to see him, there were always more than a thousand with him at a time.

Huangbo is bussin

Next line is just the author of the preface talking about how he met Huangbo and recorded his teachings with fidelity, although he could only get about one fifth of it. It isn't really interesting for this discussion so Imma omit it.

That took a little longer than I had hoped so I'm going go do the first section later.

Cheers!

See my previous post about the preface here.

Thanks everyone who chimed in! I'd like to make this a daily thing for a while.

Case 1. Zhaozhou’s Dog

A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have the Buddha nature or not?”

Zhaozhou said, “No.”

Wumen said,

To study Zen you must pass through the barrier of the Buddhas and Patriarchs. For wondrous enlightenment you must get to the end of the road of the mind. If you do not penetrate the ancestral teachers’ barrier, if you do not end the road of the mind, then in all that you do [seeking to follow the Buddhist Path] you are but a ghost haunting the forests and fields.

But tell me, what is the barrier of the Buddhas and Patriarchs? It is this one word “No”—this is the barrier of Zen. This is why [this collection] is called the Zen school’s barrier of the gate of No. If you can pass through it, not only will you see Zhaozhou in person but you will then be able to walk together hand in hand with all the generations of ancestral teachers. You will join eyebrows with the ancestral teachers, see through the same eyes, and hear through the same ears. Won’t you be happy!

Do any of you want to pass through the barrier? Just arouse a mass of doubt throughout your whole body, extending through your three hundred sixty bones and your eighty- four thousand pores, as you come to grips with this word “No.” Bring it up and keep your attention on it day and night. Don t understand it as empty nothingness, and don’t understand it in terms of being and non-being. It should be as if you have swallowed a red hot iron ball that you cannot spit out. After a long time [at this] you become fully pure and ripe; inner and outer are spontaneously fused into one. It is like being a mute and having a dream: you can only know it for yourself.

Suddenly it comes forth, shaking heaven and earth. It is like taking a great commanding general’s sword in your hand: you slay Buddhas and Patriarchs as you meet them. On the shore of birth and death, you find great sovereign independence; you wander at play in samadhi among all orders of beings in all planes of existence.

But how will you bring up [Zhaozhou’s “No”] and keep your attention on it? Bring up the word “No” with your whole life force. If you do this properly without interruption, it is like a lamp of truth: once lit, it shines.

Verse

A dog... the Buddha nature...

He fully expresses the correct imperative.

As soon as you step into being and nothingness,

You lose your body and your life.

Here's the original Chinese I found on Wikipedia. If it's incorrect, please correct me.

趙州和尚、因僧問、狗子還有佛性也無。州云、無。

___________________________________________

GBP's commentary:

If you can pass through it, not only will you see Zhaozhou in person but you will then be able to walk together hand in hand with all the generations of ancestral teachers. You will join eyebrows with the ancestral teachers, see through the same eyes, and hear through the same ears. Won’t you be happy!

LOL. He's really hyping it up. He wants you to want it!! You already do! Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this book. He wants you to cease your conceptual thinking out of pure exhaustion. He's trolling you with love.

More thoughts...

So interestingly, when we look at the Wikipedia page, there are longer versions of this koan. I knew there were longer versions but what is interesting to me is that Wumen picked this version for his collection.

As I understand it, "No" is the closest thing we have in the English language to 無 if we're picking one word.

無門關 is the Chinese name of the collection here, Wumenguan.

If I put the characters individually into google translate, I get this:

無 - No

門 - Gate

關 - Close

If I put in the combinations of the characters:

無門 - No Way

門關 - Door Closed

無關 - Irrelevant OR having nothing to do

無門關 - No Gate

Interesting.

I would propose an alternative translation to The Gateless Gate. I would call it The Unclosed Gate.

Why am I saying all of this?

I think "un-" is a better translation of 無 here.

Joshu isn't saying "no", literally no, a dog doesn't have a buddha nature. He's saying "I'm not engaging in your conceptual thinking with you", but in fewer words.

Verse

A dog... the Buddha nature...

He fully expresses the correct imperative.

As soon as you step into being and nothingness,

You lose your body and your life.

It's not a gateless gate, it's unclosed. It's not open, it's unclosed. There is a difference.

Open is passive. It's more of an announcement. IT IS OPEN. We all know what that means.

Unclosed is active, it's inviting. Was it once closed? Why? What's in there?

It is like being a mute and having a dream: you can only know it for yourself.

🛎️🦇's Verse

Swallow a red hot sphere

REALLY think about why you're here

Now sit, don't think, doubt doubt, wink wink

And you've stopped!

For you're getting ____

The master asked Nan-ch’uan (Nansen),' “What is the Way?”

Nan-ch’uan said, “Ordinary mind is the Way.”
The master said, “Then may I direct myself towards it or not?”
Nan-ch’uan said, “To seek [it] is to deviate [from it].”
The master said, “If I do not seek, how can I know about the Way?”
Nan-chu’an said, “The Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. To know is to have a concept; to not know is to be ignorant. If you truly realize the Way of no doubt, it is just like the sky: wide open vast emptiness. How can you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it?” At these words the master had sudden enlightenment. His mind became like the clear moon.

I read this book a couple of years ago, and I greatly appreciated Joshu's simplicity and directness. I decided to read it again, and this first lecture fascinated me. Nan-ch'uan explains the Way plainly and matter of factly, just like any other teacher in a different profession. It can be set up like a simple logical argument that is the only medicine Joshu needed, but if this is all he needed I don't think Joshu was very far off the ground at this point. The rest of the book continues in the same spirit. This makes me wonder of the extent of the impact of lineage, and just how much of the style of the master goes down to their student. What do they keep? What do they get rid of and why?

Joshu's remedy:

Only concepts can be known or not known.

The Way is not a concept.

Therefore, the Way cannot be known.

One should only seek for what can be known.

Therefore, one should not seek the Way.

In my AMA someone asked me 'Why not start with a book of instruction written by a zen master?' so I figured I'd see what ol' Wumen and them had to say firsthand. Or at least as firsthand as I can get.

Full disclosure: sometimes I try to be clever. Sometimes I’m not trying to be clever at all but it just happens. I can't take credit for those times. Sometimes I don't know what people are talking about on here. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I look like a dingbat (probably because I am one). 

I'm doing this study for:

1. Fun
2. To understand the Zenny references here so I can make more clever puns, see 1.
3. So you guys will fight with me in the comments, see 1.
4. To share a bit about me and where I came from
5. To learn more about you and where you came from, because I’m interested in you!

I'm using J. C. Cleary's translation.

And now without further ado...

Preface

For the Buddha’s words, the mind is the source: the gate of nothingness is the gate to truth.

Since it is the gate of nothingness, how can we enter? Surely you have read the saying, “What comes in through the gate is not the family jewels; what is gained from causal circumstances is bound to decay. ”

Such talk is like raising waves where there is no wind, like cutting a wound in healthy flesh. But even worse is to get stuck on words and phrases in the search for interpretative understanding: [this is like] trying to hit the moon with a stick [or] scratching an itch from outside the boot. What connection will there be?

In the summer of 1228, Huikai was head of the congregation at Longxiang at Dongjia. The patch-robed ones asked for instruction, so he took the public cases of the people of old to use as [one would use] a piece of tile to knock on a gate. He guided students according to their potentials and the potentials of the moment. Finally Huikai’s remarks were copied and on the spur of the moment made into a collection of forty-eight cases, not arranged in the order he gave them. The whole collection is called Wu Men Guan [Wumen’s barrier or The barrier of the gate of nothingness].

If you are a person [true to your real identity], you will not mind the danger; you will enter directly at a single stroke. Fearsome monsters cannot hold you back, and even the Zen Patriarchs of India and China can only beg for their lives as they look to your awesome presence. But if you hesitate, it will be like watching through a window as horse and rider go by—a blink of an eye and they’ve already gone past.

Verse

The Great Path, the gate of nothingness, has no gate.

Amidst the thousand differences, there is a road.

If you can pass through this barrier,

You walk alone through heaven and earth. 

The original Chinese version thanks to u/Lin_2024:

禅宗无门关

佛语心为宗。无门为法门。既是无门。且作么生透。岂不见道。从门入者。不是家珍。从缘得者。始终成坏。恁么说话。大似无风起浪好肉剜疮。何况滞言句。觅解会。掉棒打月。隔靴爬痒。有甚交涉。慧开绍定戊子夏。首众于东嘉龙翔。因衲子请益。遂将古人公案。作敲门瓦子。随机引导学者。竟尔抄录。不觉成集。初不以前后叙列。共成四十八则。通曰无门关。若是个汉不顾危亡。单刀直入。八臂那吒拦他不住。纵使西天四七。东土二三。只得望风乞命。设或踌躇。也似隔窗看马骑。贬得眼来。早已蹉过。颂曰。大道无门千差有路透得此关乾坤独步

___________________

Golden Peach Blossom's iron-clad thoughts:

Will you show Wumen what it takes to pass through his gate? I bet you can't. Go ahead and see if you're a person of true strength and merit. And knowledge. And wisdom. 

End of post. Wasn’t that fun? 

___________________

Just kidding. Here's what I think:

Wumen is playing with us but definitely isn’t just trolling: 

“What comes in through the gate is not the family jewels; what is gained from causal circumstances is bound to decay. ”

Such talk is like raising waves where there is no wind, like cutting a wound in healthy flesh. But even worse is to get stuck on words and phrases in the search for interpretative understanding: [this is like] trying to hit the moon with a stick [or] scratching an itch from outside the boot. What connection will there be?

He's saying that all this high-falutin' talk just needlessly confuses people. It's not helpful. 

He guided students according to their potentials and the potentials of the moment. Finally Huikai’s remarks were copied and on the spur of the moment made into a collection of forty-eight cases, not arranged in the order he gave them. 

My prediction is that the order is really important whether it was intentional or not. (My guess is intentional but like, surfing the Way style.) Let's find out as we go along.

If you are a person [true to your real identity], you will not mind the danger; you will enter directly at a single stroke. Fearsome monsters cannot hold you back, and even the Zen Patriarchs of India and China can only beg for their lives as they look to your awesome presence. But if you hesitate, it will be like watching through a window as horse and rider go by—a blink of an eye and they’ve already gone past.

OooOooooo…Wumen’s calling us OUT! Come on and take the bait, little fishies. Papa Dragon’s here to play. I see this as truth AND dare. But he says right there that there’s no gate, so quit thinking and go.

Can’t wait to see what happens!

🛎️🦇's Verse

Dowsing stick in hand

Is there a drop to be found?

My petals are parched

______________

Would you believe me if I told you that “footnut”was unintentional? 🏄‍♀️ 

Next in the series: Case 1 - Zhaozhou's Dog 🐕

One of the more frustrating (for Buddhists) aspects of their own religious practice is that it doesn't produce real results for anyone and no one has met much less personally attained the enlightenment they try to entice new converts with and by which many of them ended up joining the religion.

To try and explain this discrepancy between the millions of Buddhists across the centuries and no one that has obtained enlightenment through observance of the Buddhist faith, Buddhists resort to upholding two doctrines:

• Gradualism - The belief that enlightenment is gradually obtained over countless eons of diligent adherence to the faith.

Of course, Zen Masters reject the Gradualism countless times both explicitly in formal instruction and by the fact that every generation of Zen Masters produced enlightened Buddhas for the next generation. Huineng's poetry smackdown of Shenxiu is one of the more famous examples of this.

The other common apologetic doctrine produced to "explain" the lack of living Buddhas coming from Buddhism is that of Practice-Enlightenment. In other words, the religious practice (zazen/prayer/meditation) is itself the enlightenment of Buddhas and one can enter/exit this enlightenment-state by performing the zazen/prayer/meditation ritual.

As far as I know, this was invented either by Dogen or Dogen's church and has been picked up by missionaries from Japan as well as New Age guru-types.

Since Zen never took root in Japan, Japanese Buddhism banned Zen texts, and Chinese Zen Masters caused such a stir in Japan whenever they visited and hosted public interviews we're dealing with two issues when it comes to the "practice-enlightenment" doctrine.

1. Prioritization of private-subjective trance-experiences interpreted through a religious lens.

2. Cordoning off "Masters" from public interviews where critical questions about their enlightenment-claims would naturally come up.

We see Foyan reject these both simultaneously when he cites Xuansha saying:

Foyan said, "People nowadays mostly take the immediate mirroring awareness to be the ultimate principle. This is why Xuansha [835-908] said to people, "Tell me, does it still exist in remote uninhabited places deep in the mountains?""

https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/famous_cases#wiki_xuansha.27s_deep_in_the_mountains

This is the fish-hook in all of Zen. It's not enough to claim you have an understanding or repeat something someone else said even if it's a Zen Master saying it, you also have to be able to answer questions publicly about it.

In practice, this looks something like extensive interrogation of the Zen texts we have translated, public conversation about them with other people, engagement with the lay precepts, and formal AMAing on a regular basis.

Zen is more philosophy than religion

Zen's only practice is.public interview. As we all you.can be wrong in public interview because public interview in Zennisnt about what you like or having the right toman opinion no matter how uneducated.

But Zen Masters are transform wrong into right or.vicecersa (www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/famius_cases). How does that work? How does philolosophy explain these transformations?

Example

Should John Brown have a statue?

Right answer: No.

He conducted domestic terrorism and publicly executed civilians. No matter what the cause we do not celebrate and intend to carry forward that behavior.

Wrong answer made right: Brown made war on human traffickers who supported domestic terrorism conducted by pro-slave factions, who were not "civilians" in any sense. He deserves a statue formhis bravery and sacrifice, and we want to celebrate and encourage his example for future generations.

How about in Zen?

21. Yunmen's Shit Scraper

Yunmen: Because a monk asked, "So what is Buddha?"

Men said, “A dry shit scraper.”

This is a wrong answer: Buddha is nothing more than toilet paper. How lowley and irreverent.

But try living without it.

Even more, toilet paper can only be used one time. You can't use.otnand.thwn venerate it or even offer it to someome else to get a use out of it.

Wumen Uno Reverse

Yunmen's teaching was famous by Wumen's time, and Wumen reverses the reversal:

[Yunmen uses] a “shit scraper"

next to prop up the gate and hang the doors. Dharma waxes and wanes.

Wumen argues that Yunmen's house uses used toilet paper to prop open the gate of Enlightenment to learners, and uses used toilet paper as hinges on the doors the.community uses. Obviously a terrine idea that doesn't help anybody, and therefore is weak sauce dharma.

#.Why.bother?

Philosophy is about proving truth and religion is about faith justifications. Zen is about demonstratable freedom arising from genuine direct experience. Just as experience varies so does , understandimg.

Being fixed to any understanding isn't any kind of freedom. Having freedom means you can see where philosophy fails and where religious lies.

There are two sides to every coin.

If you look at the top five questions that people need to answer to understand the Zen tradition?

1. Catechisms: What defines Zen versus what defines Buddhism, new age, meditation religions

   • The four statements of Zen
   • /r/zen/wiki/Buddhism
   • /r/zen/wiki/Zazen
   • /r/zensangha/wiki/Topicalism

2. Authority: What's the difference between koans, sutra bibles, philosophy.

   • Wumen's Checkpoint, the Barrier of Mr. Gateless.
   • Zen Doctrine of No-Mind, D.T. Suzuki

3. History: what is the history of Zen and where does one learn it? What's the difference between koan collections, sayings texts, and books of instruction?

   • Wansong's BoS, Clearly trans.
   • Yuanwu, BCR

4. Faith & Topicalism: what constitutes a reasonable argument in the Zen tradition, in philosophy, or in religion? What is the role that Faith plays in scholarship, particularly the topicalism of Western Buddhist academia?

   • Pruning Bodhi Tree
   • At a glance perhaps resources like this: https://apologiabyhendrikvanderbreggen.blogspot.com/2016/10/philosophy-of-religion-versus.html?m=1

5. Translation: how do Zen Masters redefine terms, how is Chinese translated, what is the contextual meaning given culture and tradition?

   • For example wiki pages like: r/zen/wiki/dhyana

And you look at the level of education that they have?

1. Graduated high school
2. Graduated hs with honors
3. Graduated college
4. Graduated college with critical thinking degree, philosophy, comparative religion, art history, literature.
5. Graduate degree

I think in general that this framework drives what conversations best serve the audience and what material we should be putting on the wiki.

       EDIT

I am deeply amused to by the number of people who either barely graduated high school or do not have any kind of formal training in critical thinking and textual analysis, but nevertheless chose to comment in this thread.

They're really coming out of the woodwork for old ewk.

      EDIT 2

Nobody reads book of serenity or Blue Cliff record and thinks yeah these people weren't into education and learning.

Do we think there were not academic cultures before the Western educational system was invented?

I'm getting some weird anti-intellectual racist vibes.

A monk asked Fuketsu, "Both speech and silence transgress; how can we not do so?" Fuketsu said,

"I often think of Konan in march;

The partridge chirps among the scented flowers."

• Mumonkan

It's easy to take things for granted. It's easy to forget that there are flowers everywhere. It's easy to fail to take notice and forget.

The priest pen-hsi asked the Layman, "Do you have a word to say about Bodhidharma's coming from the West?"

The Layman said, "Does anyone remember it?"

Pen—hsi said, "How can you say the spirit of it hasn't been remembered?"

The Layman said, "How can I know about ancient times? I don't even know East from West."

Pen-hsi said, "But it's happening right now."

The Layman said, "I can't find a word for it."

Pen-hsi said, "Wise men of former times have talked about it and shed light on it for others."

The Layman said, "My teacher has very sharp eyes."

Pen—hsi said, "So it is, when you begin to talk about the ineffable!"

The Layman said, "Maybe there's something your eye doesnt see."

Pen—hsi said, "You can't quibble about my eyesight in the noonday sun!"

The Layman said, "It goes right through my skull."

Pen—hsi said, "So you've noticed it, then."

The Layman said, "What could this Chinaman possibly have that is unique?"

Pen-hsi returned to his room.

• Sayings of Layman P'ang

Since we know the wiki is crawled by the usual suspects; archivists, scholars, researchers, and web API scraper daemons that feed into large language models, and various other stayers-in-their-room. I think it could be a relevant way to document what we sometimes take for granted. So much of what we don't know about the past eras and generations is due to nobody bothering to write down what everyone would consider "common knowledge" at the time, that is then forgotten completely by history.

So I compiled my notes on various flowers mentioned in the zen record to post them as an OP, It proved to be more than would fit in the character limit for a text post, so I decided to put it here in the wiki. It still proved to be more than would fit in the character limit, so I broke it up into sub-pages for each flower.

So this is that. Stop by and smell the flowers if you get a chance. Also, all live specimen donations are welcome.

edit

The current set of subpages, for people having trouble with wiki links on new reddit:

lotus refers to two species [pink lotus, or sacred lotus (荷花)], and [white lotus (白蓮花)].

peach (桃)

peony (芍藥)

Two different types of Chinese trees are called "plums" in English, (楊梅) and (梅花)

rice (稻)

rushes (燈芯草)

willow (垂柳)

wisteria (紫藤)

#The Case

興化謂克賓維那曰，汝不久為唱導之師。賓曰，不入這保社。師曰，

會了不入，不會了不入。曰總不與麼。師便打曰，克賓維那法戰不勝 罰錢五貫，設饡飯一堂。次日，師自白槌克賓維那法戰不勝，不得喫 飯。即便出院。

Xinghua said to Kepin, the duty-distributor^1, "You will soon become a guiding teacher."

Kepin replied, "I will not join this fellowship."

The master said, "If you understand, you won't join; if you don't understand, you also won't join."

Kepin said, "Not like this at all."

The master then struck him and said, "Kepin, the duty-distributor, lost the Dharma battle. The penalty is five strings of coins, and he must provide a meal for the entire hall.^2"

The next day, the master himself struck the clapper and announced, "Kepin, the duty-distributor, lost the Dharma battle and is not allowed to eat."

Kepin immediately left the monastery.

#Miaozong's Instruction in Verse^3

興化打克賓

一棒一條痕

古人雖已往

留得典刑存

三十年後

幾箇知恩

Xinghua struck Kepin,

One blow, one welt remains.

Though the ancients have passed away,

Their exemplary conduct endures.

Thirty years from now,

How many will recognize their compassion?

Baochi's Instruction in Verse^4

興化風行艸偃

克賓失錢遭譴

打翻向上機輪

石火電光難辨

雙明雙暗全收

是聖是凡齊遣

一天風雨翛然

紅蓼白蘋兩岸

When Xinghua's wind blows, the grass bows,

Kepin loses money and faces reproach.

The wheel of the dharma is turned.

Flashes of sparks and lightning are hard to distinguish.

Both understanding and confusion are fully received,

Saints and ordinary people are equally dismissed.

A day's wind and rain passes without restraint,

Red smartweed and white duckweed line both shores.

#Zukui's Instruction in Verse^5

興化堂前法戰新

普天率土盡歸仁

赤幡卓出清風面

有理教渠別處伸

A new Dharma battle unfolds before Xinghua Hall,

All under heaven returns to benevolence.

The red banner rises, revealing a face of pure wind,

With reason, instruct them to extend it elsewhere.

####Scholarship Corner

1. The title following Kepin's name is "Weina" which gets translated by Grant as duty-distributor. Does anyone have a scholarly source of information on the titles and their roles in the community?

2. Is this penalty something that could even be reasonably expected to be paid by a Preceptor?

3. I remember that Kepin shows up again, Revenge of the Jedi style, and gets enlightened. So he "got the welt" in more sense than one. "Thirty years" is something like the period of study traditionally ascribed for someone to be a master at something. It's not endorsed at its face value in Zen but Zen Masters elsewhere have played with that language.

4. "wind and rain" can be figurative language for someone's challenges, akin to the phrase "trials & tribulations". "紅蓼" and "白蘋" are the plants referenced in the last line. They are frequently listed together in poems but in this case they are employed to describe the non-transformative nature of enlightenment which is compared with crossing to "the other shore".

5. This instructional verse needs some work. I can't find anything relating to the characters for "red banner" (赤幡) online. One route with this is that back in India, they would raise a flag when a debate was happening and "pure wind" is a reference to a teaching by someone else, so, only if someone can show their Zen understanding in dharma-combat can they head off to transmit it to a community of their own.

####Praxis

Self-styled "Zen Buddhists" often claim to have done and "passed" dharma-combat. In reality, they do ritual-performances, highly-scripted ceremonies, and exchange secret mystic passwords that allow them to "level up" within the organization. Depending on which franchise branch of the religion you go to, it's somewhere between the sort of stuff you'd get from joining Freemasonry and Scientology.

What scholarship from the past 30 years has conclusively shown is that all those church rituals have no connection with the Zen practice of free-form improvisational spiritual combat.

Just like Kepin couldn't show his chomps when Xinghua interviewed him, anyone that fails to AMA is exposed before the whole community. It might seem that Xinghua was being harsh when he fined him and banned him from the cafeteria but it's Nanquan's cat all over again. The community's intent is the production of Buddhas & Patriarchs. Even if someone's the best tea-picker, rice-cooker, or scribe all that is just farting around according to Zen Masters if they can't demonstrate enlightenment at the drop of a hat.

But what does this all mean for us, personally?

Consenting to participate in public interviews is a Zen tradition. You aren't studying Zen if you don't get interviewed and interview others.

All the enlightened Zen Masters gatekept their tradition on both ends of the interview table; questioner & answerer. If you can only do one but not the other you're out.

Interviewing Zen cases and books of Zen instruction and planting one's own flag as Queen (or King) of the Dharma Hill is a Zen tradition. It's on you to do the same.

In this thread, I encourage meaningful dialogue and invite others to freely contribute to this thread as a free and open space to share your personal point of view. I also encourage others to actively listen to each other, use respectful language when addressing one another, and consider offering feedback which is specific, actionable and focused on improving others and the community at large.

Welcome to Public Interview Three

These interviews encourage discussion around the core elements found within the Zen record, allowing us examining the community's views on the different questions and answers and comparing those views to the record itself. The interviews also allow for feedback about this community itself, encouraging some positive and negative feedback for the community to consider.

Questions:

What is 心 mind/heart?
When Zen masters mention "essence/substance and function", what are they talking about?
What are some things you have learned from r /zen.

Thank you for participating. 🙏

Here are the links to prior interviews:
Public Interview 1
Questions:
What is the purpose of Zen?
What are some ways Zen has positively impacted your life, and what are a few ways Zen has negatively impacted your life?
Who is Bodhidharma, and what is his teaching?
Name the top two reasons you visit r /zen

Public Interview 2
Questions:
What are: Zen masters, Adepts, Ordinary people
Why does enlightenment happen?
How do you study Zen?
Name one criticism of r /zen

Alright round 2. After u/Dillon123 pointed out there was a more complete version of this text I started over with the translation effort. I'm now far enough in that I should be able to post one section a week. So here's the first. This is Mingben's preface to the book. If you see numbers in the text they are my footnotes for the completed translation. I may or may not include them in the posts depending on how long the posts get.

Preface 信心銘闢義解上 Preface to Faith in Mind Inscription : Dispelling Intellectual Interpretations

聞夫少林不立文字直指之道。方二傳而至璨大師。師作信心銘五百八十四字。得非遽變乃祖之風而為文字流布耶。或謂不然。是欲顯示其直指之道俾後之學者具正信而破邪惑也。謂信者何。信其廣大心體與諸佛平等無間。必欲其自信而入不假修證。一入信位决定不退轉也。故此銘與不立文字之說。並驅於千古之下而不相悖者。益信大師立言之至荷法之誠也。嗟今學者膠於義解。不能廓悟神心洞見源底以資正信。返以是銘為引證談柄之張本。其金屑入眼之喻。不能無及於吾大師也。余因繫影于舟。凡兩句下申之以語偈。不敢炫耀見聞仰攀勝軌。誠欲闢義解顯正悟曉同志勵自[A1]己也。其有傍不甘者。則余罪過當何以釋諸。故以信心銘闢義解。摽其名焉。

"It is heard that the teaching of Shaolin(1) does not rely on written words but directly points to the Way(2). After the second transmission, it reached Master Sengcan. The Master composed the Faith in Mind Inscription of 584 characters. Could this not signify a sudden departure from the tradition of the Patriarchs, turning it into something transmitted through written words?

Some say otherwise: this was to illuminate the Way of direct pointing, enabling future learners to develop correct faith and dispel delusions.

What is meant by 'faith'? It means faith in the vast, boundless essence of mind, which is equal and indistinguishable from that of all Buddhas. One must have self-faith to enter this state, without relying on practice or realization. Once one enters the state of faith, one is decisively beyond regression.

Thus, this inscription, together with the teaching of 'not relying on written words,' has been passed down through the ages without contradiction. This further affirms the Master’s utmost sincerity in establishing his words and bearing the Dharma(3).

Alas, modern practitioners cling to intellectual interpretations and fail to achieve broad awakening of the spiritual mind or to penetrate to the root source that would establish true faith. Instead, they use this inscription as a basis for argumentation and debate. This is akin to gold dust entering the eyes — it blinds rather than benefits(4). Such consequences, regrettably, also touch upon our great Master.

As I reflected on this while traveling by boat, I appended a few verses beneath each pair of lines from the Faith in Mind Inscription. I do not dare to flaunt my knowledge or emulate the great path of the sages. My sincere intention is to refute intellectual interpretations, reveal true understanding, and inspire like-minded individuals to encourage themselves.

If there are those who feel resentment from the sidelines, then how can I excuse myself from blame? Therefore, I use the Faith in Mind Inscription to refute intellectualism and set forth its name as a mark."

1. Where Bodhidharma was said to have settled after his meeting with the emperor. See case 1 of Book of Serenity.

2. Reference to the Four Statements of Zen.

3. A sanskrit word which can be transliterated as "Way, path, law, principle".

4. As seen in this case from the Record of Linji:

"A government official, governor Wang, comes to visit Linji's monastery, and as they passed the Meditation Hall Wang asked whether the monks read the sutras. Linji said, "no." Wang asked whether they learn meditation, again Linji says, "No." Baffled, Wang asks what it is that they do, and Linji replies, "They are all in training to become Patriarchs and Buddhas."

Wang replies, "Gold dust may be valuable, but in the eye it can cause blindness." Linji responds, "And to think I used to believe you were just an ordinary person!" (translation Stephen Addiss)."

I’m leaning no from what I can bring to mind, but others who are more familiar with the texts, I’m asking for your assistance. I personally think anyone who understands from a very basic level, the words being used, has a chance.

I’m not only including things like race, sex, disability etc, but also earned status, like educational attainment, wealth/occupation/social status. Does a criminal have the same chance of enlightenment as a philanthropist? Would a zen master reject instructing either on this basis?

1. Where have you just come from?

The mountains in the tropics are always noisy, people who’ve never been have the wrong idea.

2. What's your text?

Master Hui called on master Sushan Ren.

When he first arrived, he found Sushan sitting in the teaching hall accepting inquiries.

Hui first looked over the great assembly, then asked, “How is it when leaving instantly?”

Sushan said, “Space is full; how will you leave?”

He said, “If space is full, it’s better not to leave.” Sushan then stopped.

Hui left the hall and called on the chief monk.

The chief monk said, “I just watched you replying to the master; what you said was quite extraordinary.”

Hui said, “I just blurted it out; really it just happened that way. Please be so kind and compassionate as to instruct me in my ignorant confusion.”

The chief monk said, “In an instant is there any hesitation?”

Hui was greatly enlightened at these words.

3. Dharma low tides?

Zhaozhou says: Only remake the deeds of the past, don’t remake the person of the past.

#CAUTION Wear Eye Protection. 🚧

National Teacher Wuye said to some disciples,

"The essence of your perception and cognition is the same age as space, unborn and undying. All objects are fundamentally empty and quiescent; there is not a single thing that can be grasped. The deluded do not understand, so they are confused by objects; once they are confused by objects, they go around in circles endlessly. You should know that the essence of mind is originally there of itself, not based on constructs. Like diamond, it cannot be broken down*. All phenomena are like reflections, like echoes; none have real substance. Therefore scripture says, 'Only this one thing is true; any other is not real.' If you understand all is empty, there isn't a single thing affecting you. This is where the Buddhas apply their minds; you should practice it diligently."

🔧

^* Like all metaphors, all constructed explanations, this one can be broken down.

The Diamond Cutter scripture says, "If one is scornfully reviled by others, this person has done wicked acts in previous ages which should bring him down into evil ways, but because of the scorn and vilification by others in the present age, the wicked action of former ages is thereby extinguished."

🔨

Hardness and Toughness

A diamond is harder than any other natural material, and any diamond can scratch any other material.

An ordinary stone is tough, and any two ordinary stones can crush a diamond to dust between them. This is because of the slight flexibility of the stone, that it is tough.

If melted down in a furnace, ordinary stone can be spun into fiber that retains the toughness of the stone. This fiber can be pressed into shape, and impregnated with the crushed diamond. The result is a blade that when wielded properly, cuts through anything made by man or nature.

Flesh and blood, although soft and fragile, is able to do all of the above through the application of perception and cognition. A push or a pull, a carefully planned sequence of events, and flesh bends, breaks and remakes the hardest and toughest with ease. Constructing all these phenomena.

Once built, a structure seems like a permanent part of the landscape, people become blind to it, they don't really see it for what it is. It stops being thought of as an assembly or parts and it's thought of like a mountain, like they'll be there forever and they must have always been. but it was put there by people. Any structure can be brought down by one person with an angle grinder, and the mind to use it.

"If I pick it up, you then turn to before picking up to construct a theory; if I don't pick it up, you then turn to when it's picked up to construe mastery. Now tell me, where is my effort to help people?"

🦺

#WARNING Use tools properly. 🚧

1) Where have you just come from?
Google. r/zen. Doing the dishes. Making some tea. Highly recommend this chocolate puerh tea from a brand called Numi.

2) What's your text?
This. 🪷

3) Dharma low tides?
What do you suggest as a course of action for a student wading through a "dharma low-tide"?

Whatever you do, just remember that everything is temporary. Try to do something physical whether that be lifting weights or even just taking a walk. Breathing exercises can be very helpful to calm down your fight/flight response. Look into vagal toning. The mind-body connection is powerful and cannot be overlooked.

What do you do when it's like pulling teeth to read, bow, chant, sit, or post on ?

Go to the gym, watch boloney on Netflix, cry, take a nap.

When people come to this forum only to make claims of understanding they can't answer questions about; we know they lost.

When people grief-troll me for repeating what Zen Masters say about their beliefs and practices, they're really just grieving that Zen isn't what they like; we know they're at a loss for life.

When people who haven't spent years studying this on academic and personal levels, can't ask questions to the people who have; we know they're lost.

This last category of "self-study/self-proclaimed autodidact" fails when combined with the New Ager belief in the supernatural value of subjective-private experience-events produces a culture of illiterate ignorance. Arguably, the Baby Boomers have and continue to do a lot to uphold anti-intellectualism as a cultural norm in the USA but part self-reflection involves recognizing how one's predecessors beliefs, conduct, and conditions aren't the only one's out there or even necessarily true, healthy, or relevant.

Before they were Zen Masters, they left (sometimes ran away) from home, made a set of lifestyle vows that set them apart from 99% of humans that have ever walked the earth, and voraciously interviewed the Zen Master of whatever community they ended up in.

The glue holding the Zen tradition together is it's unrelenting dedication to interview as both the test for and mark of affiliation and everything that entails: sincere inquiry, honest self-reflection, intellectual integrity, and shining the light of awareness on everything held up to it.

I encourage everyone to not waste their time repeating the same failures of Zen study they made before; but really, it's Wumen saying this.

If you make the effort, you must finish in this life. Don’t go on forever suffering more disasters.

AMA.

Case 3: Gutei Raises a Finger

*三　俱胝豎指

俱胝和尚。凡有詰問。唯舉一指。後有童子。因外人問。和尚說何法要。童子亦豎指頭。胝聞。遂以刃斷其指。童子負痛號哭而去。胝復召之。童子迴首。胝卻豎起指。童子忽然領悟。胝將順世。謂眾曰。吾得天龍一指頭禪。一生受用不盡。言訖示滅。

• 無門曰】

俱胝並童子悟處。不在指頭上。若向者裏見得。天龍同俱胝並童子。與自己一串穿卻。

• 頌曰】

俱胝鈍置老天龍　利刃單提勘小童　巨靈抬手無多子　分破華山千萬重

Section 3: Gutei Raises a Finger

"Zen Master Juzhi, whenever questioned, would only raise one finger. Juzhi’s attendant was later asked by an outsider, 'What is the essential teaching of the Master?' and the attendant raised a finger. When Juzhi heard of this, he used a blade to cut off the attendant’s finger1. The attendant, crying in pain, ran away. Juzhi called him back, and when the attendant turned his head, Juzhi raised his own finger. The attendant suddenly attained enlightenment.2 When Juzhi was nearing the end of his life, he said to the assembly, 'I attained the One-Finger Zen from Master Tienlong3, and I have benefited from it for my entire life without exhausting it.' After these words, he passed away."

Wumen's Comment

Gutei's and the boy's realization did not lie in the finger. If you see this clearly, Tianlong, Gutei, and the attendant and you can all be strung together on a single skewer.

Verse

Gutei made use of old Tianlong,

The sharp blade tested the attendant

The giant spirit raises the hand [of One Finger Zen], nothing more,

Splitting Mount Hua into countless pieces.

Context

The text Compendium of Five Lamps5 was complied by Dachuan Puji (1179-1253), a Master with surviving interview records of his own6. In that text, the origin of One Finger Zen is recounted:

When Jinhua Juzhi first became the priest of a small temple, a Buddhist nun named Shiji visited him. Wearing her hat and grasping her staff, she walked around him three times and said, “If you can speak, I’ll take off my hat.” Three times she did this, but Hangzhou did not reply. She then began to leave. Hangzhou said, “It’s getting late. Why don’t you take shelter here.” “Say the right word and I’ll stay.” Again Hangzhou did not reply. After the nun left, he sighed and said, “Though I inhabit the form of a man, I don’t have a man’s spirit. It would be better if I left the temple and went traveling, seeking knowledge.” That night a mountain spirit appeared and advised him that he must not leave, for a great bodhisattva would appear in the flesh to teach him the Dharma. Ten days later Master Tianlong came to the temple. Jinhua received him and bowed. Then he told him what had happened previously. Tianlong simply held up one finger. Jinhua thereupon attained great enlightenment. From that time forward students came from everywhere, but Jinhua merely raised one finger and offered no other teaching.

Translation Questions

童子 is often translated as “boy”, but this makes no sense in context. First, there are no Cases of children living in Zen communes anywhere in the 1,000 years of historical records. Second, Zen Masters commonly had attendants throughout the record.

Wonderwheel has it “attendant boy”, other 1900’s translators have it as “boy”, with no explanation as to how a child might have wandered into a Zen community and taken away the attendant job from a professional monk.

The exception is Blyth, who notes: “What is called “a boy” here means one who has entered the monastery to recite the sutras and so on, but who has not yet received the tonsure, 落髪, perhaps between 12-16 years of age.” (Blyth p.58)

Discussion

Why is it that mountain that is split in pieces? The reasonable interpretation is that Earth Womb Bodhisattva, who is famous for vowing to save all sentient beings from hell, has achieved that goal.

The big issue

I want to make sure the discussion section answers the most common questions. I of course have read this five million times, so I no longer know what the common questions are.

Thoughts?

###Huanglong’s Three Checkpoints (Wonderwheel)

"How is my hand like the hand of Buddha?"

Able to touch the pillow at the back of my head,

I unconsciously laughed a great laugh.

From the first, the hand is throughout the body.

"How is my leg like the leg of a donkey?"

Not yet lifting a step, stepping along in time has manifested.

A single assignment and the four seas are circumnavigated.

Straddle backwards on the three legs of Yangqi.

"Everyone exists by a particular cause of birth."

Each and every one has the innate function of penetrating in-depth.

Nazha broke his bones to return them to his father.

Can it be that the Fifth Ancestor relied on the cause of his father?

The hand of the Buddha, the leg of the donkey, and the cause of birth

Are not Buddha, not the Way, not Zen.

It is not strange that the narrow pass of the gateless checkpoint

Ties up and exhausts the monks' deep animosity

Wumen recently was present at Ruiyan (Lucky Cliff) mending the opposite parts of the rope-bench, judging past and present, and cutting off everything at the trailhead of the worldly and the sacred. Only a few who are curled up and hibernating will arouse the sound of thunder. Wumen was asked to be in the head-seat to set up a mountain of monks. To thank him I respectfully offer these gathas. Written by Wulaing Zongshou (Measureless Longevity of the Lineage) in the late spring of the 3rd terrestrial branch of the 7th celestial stem of the Shaoding era [1230 C.E.].

The things in quotations are Huanlong’s, and the rest of the verses are from a guy whose name I can’t find in Chinese, but Blyth calls him Muryo Soju. These come as a response to Wumen's instructional book, so that's the context in which they are read.

I think the barriers are 1) do you deal with life with the same familiarity with which you grab your pillow at night? 2) Can you find your way by yourself? 3) Are you the person you are because of where and from who you were born?

There's a bunch of references in this one and I recommend all of you get your digital copy of Blyth.

There's a recent comment I made:

Why do people want to change rZen?

1. Why don't you create a forum for the topic and texts and beliefs you have?

2. Why keep forcing your beliefs on those who don't want them, instead of sharing those beliefs with those who are genuinely interested?

3. Why go someplace that has a reading list of stuff you don't want to read, wouldn't understand if you did, and don't want to talk to other people about?

I'm going to do a post about this because I think it's a really fascinating question that we find in Zen textual history over and over again.

The simple answer is that you don't like what you have to say. You don't want to hear other people say what you have to say.

And you don't want to examine yourself.

These kind of people are in contrast to people from Buddhism forums who send me messages like "ewk sucks", when they know I'm blocked by an account or post. Those kinds of people don't want to examine themselves because they hate other people which is a contrast.

what do Zen Masters teach?

Foyan is the nicest guy you'll ever meet... For my group of people that don't have many nice guys.

One day he recited a story to me: Zhaozhou showed some

fire to a student and said, “ Don’t call it fire. What is it?” I wondered deeply at this: obviously it is fire— why not call it fire? I contemplated this for three years, always reflecting, “ How dare I use the feelings and perceptions of an ordinary man to ask about the realization of sages?”

That's the whole thing.

That's examining yourself.

So we have people who don't want to examine themselves because they hate others and we have people who don't want to examine themselves because they hate themselves.

People who read these books can I identify very quickly whether someone is willing to examine themselves or not.

If not, then they are obviously hating somebody.

Last time my post was removed for whatever reason. I’m gonna take a chance with this one as I don’t have any of my books close by. Yoyo mod, yoyo. Try to be mindful of this.

This is the question of true nature (statements of zen) aka buddha nature (various) aka one mind (huang bo) aka reality nature (hengchuan). Because I read hengchuan yesterday:

Huang bo talks about the one mind as a mind outside of you (Mind vs mind).As in every living being is in possession of it. Hengchuan does the same, in “every one of you have a part of it.” So his mind is independent of you.

Implicating that it’s a part of a universal.

What is it?

You already have it (numerous)! So what is your problem, (partly mine, partly Foyan or maybe someone else popularised)?

If I say the problem is confusion about what you like and dislike VS who you REALLY are, do you agree?

Those who somewhat agree with this and say this is not a matter of a different state of being, explain yourself.

Pls

Where have you just come from?

I’m omnivorous with my reading. When it comes to zen, I’ve been reading “Swampland Flowers,” which is surprisingly eclectic. The letters vary in tone, etc.

I also don’t shy away from modern non dual philosophers like Robert Spira and thinkers from other traditions like Meister Eckhert. I am (controversially) an unabashed perennialist.

Outside of zen, I enjoy reading Western philosophy, history and psychology. I’m reading Julian Jayne’s’ “bicameral mind.” A real mind bender for anyone wanting to expand their horizon.

For philosophy, Heidegger is zen-ish in that the ordinary everyday mind is truer than the conceptual. He is an anti-philosophy philosopher. If we want to go off topic, I’ve read the whole damn western canon (practically) so we can talk about it.

2. What's your text?

The zen stories where Joshu trolls Nanquan stick with me. Like I remember one where Joshu was all like “help, help, I’ve fallen in the well,” and when Nanquan brought him a ladder he hopped out on his own and thanked Nanquan.

3. Dharma low tides?

My main thing is self inquiry, so if I’m dissatisfied I try to find who or what is actually dissatisfied.

Or I’ll eat some chocolate or walk my dog. Or lift weights.

#Post(s) in Question

Post: https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1guflov/wumens_gateless_checkpoint/

Link to episode: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831/11-24-24-gatelesss-fairwell-part-2-notes-from-the-previous-episdoe

Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831

Buymeacoffee, so I'm not accused of going it alone:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ewkrzen

#What did we end up talking about?

A list of questions, criticisms, and some bewiderment at why people pretend to know what enlightenment is in the comments.

#You can be on the podcast! Use a pseudonym! Nobody cares!

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call.

In response to a recent post on mac & cheese and zen,

I was thinking about what improvisation is. As I'm a jazz musician, naturally I was thinking about jazz improvisation and what makes a great improviser. Funnily enough, somewhere in the comments of the post, a reference was made to jazz. I tried responding to the comment with what I'm about to share here, but my comment never appeared. I'll try it again, but now in a separate post.

In jazz, I learn to improvise by listening, repeating, and internalizing what jazz masters have played in the past. In my study room, I COPY, again and again and again. I copy in different harmonic contexts, different tempi, different measures. But I copy.

But that's studying jazz, not playing jazz.

When I'm playing a concert, I have to play jazz, and the point of playing jazz is to improvise. If I would copy other people's lines on stage, there would definitely be people in the audience that enjoy what I'm doing, because it will sound good. However, it would have nothing to do with jazz.

A great jazz improviser is someone who is flexible on stage, who can react to things as they arise (internally in the form of ideas, and externally in the form of sounds that are produced by the other musicians).

Yet, a jazz master is someone who has studied a lot of jazz.

Without studying, chances are small that you'll be able to improvise with flexibility. You won't be able to hear what is happening on stage, and so you won't be able to react to it. You'll either copy lines that you have learned, or you'll play a bunch of random notes and scales, hoping that it will sound good. Yet it won't. And it won't be jazz.

If you ask a jazz master after a concert why they played what they played in a particular section of a particular song, they'll look at you funnily. What kind of question is that? Go and study and play, and you'll see for yourself.

"There are about a hundred years of jazz records."

Equally, "There are about a thousand years of zen historical record".

I want to see how far I can go with this analogy.

For Case 20 of the Wumenguan, Wumen provides the verse (低頭俯視四禪天) which translates to something like "Lowering the head and gazing downward at the Four Dhyāna Heavens".

That happens to perfectly describe Vairocana sitting in the center of the Four Wisdom Buddhas (which map the transformation of the eight consciousnesses into the Fourfold Wisdom). These Wisdoms (represented by the Wisdom Buddhas) sit atop the four elements of form, and symbolize non-dual understanding.

I wish to look at Case 35 of the Wumenguan, which happens to contain this phrase "7 hands and eight feet" (七手八脚) that'll start our investigation.

The Fifth Patriarch asked a monk, "In the story of the girl whose soul (魂) left her body, which one is the true self?"

Wumen replied, "If you realize the true self here, you will know that entering and leaving the shell is like staying in a guesthouse. If you haven't realized it yet, don't run around aimlessly. When the elements of earth, water, fire, and wind suddenly disperse, you will be like a crab dropped into boiling water, flailing with seven hands and eight feet. At that time, you won't be able to speak or say anything."

This speaking of the four elements dispersing and a separation of the soul and the body (which we can parallel to the Sambhogakaya and the Nirmanakaya), with the third, the Dharmakaya, being cosmic space emptiness... Which is likely why Case 20 reads:

若眞達不擬之道、猶如太虚廓然洞豁。

If one truly attains the path of non-conceptualization, it is like the great void—vast, open, and unobstructed.

That is describing the Dharmakaya (three in one), the cosmic space Vairocana Buddha. But we're not fixating on that today, we're looking at this 七手八脚 phrase, which isn't a Wumen invention.

From what I can see the earliest instance of it appears in 栖復 (Qi Fu)'s Commentary on the Lotus Sutra in a metaphor about those who will talk too much, that sometimes speech will arise from a habit of excessive talking, these people are described as having seven arms and eight feet. This phrase also appears in a few Zen records before Wumen's use.

One of them is the 續古尊宿語要 for example, where the monk Fozhao Guang, heir of Dahui is recorded as having said:

出隊歸。

Returning from the procession:

云。七手八脚。三頭兩面。

Saying: "Seven hands, eight feet; three heads, two faces."

耳聽不聞。眼覰不見。

"The ears hear but do not perceive; the eyes look but do not see."

苦樂逆順。打成一片。

"Bitterness and joy, adversity and compliance—beaten into one."

阿呵呵。是什麼。

"Ahaha! What is this?"

路逢死蛇莫打殺。

"If on the road you meet a dead snake, do not strike it."

無底籃子盛將歸。

"Carry it back in a bottomless basket."

This dead snake in a bottomless basket bit is rather fitting coming off the heels of my last post, Revisiting Seven Penetrations Eight Holes with Mingben where we were just reading about this.

The Three Heads are likely the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya, the two faces are the Sambhogakaya and the Nirmanakaya (the Sambhogakaya being the spirit of instruction and teaching, the Nirmanakaya being the physical form vocalizing or manifesting the teachings). Yet where is Vairocana's mouth? Can they speak above the Four Dhyana Heavens?

In Zen Sect Hymns of Ancient Records, Pearl Collection (禪宗頌古聯珠通集), we see two other uses of this phrase before I see it appear in use by Wumen. Here's the first:

七手八脚三頭兩靣耳聽不聞眼覷不見啼得血流無用處不如緘口過殘春(保寧勇)

"Seven hands and eight feet, three heads and two faces,
Ears hear nothing, eyes see nothing,
Crying blood, yet of no use—
Better to seal your mouth and pass through the end of spring."

So this theme of this phrase with it being attached to speech gives clarity to Wumen's verse and highlights the intentional contradiction he makes in placing the phrase right after stating that when the four elements scatter, "you will be like a crab dropped into boiling water, flailing with seven hands and eight feet." (Talking a lot - what is meant by this? Screaming - thinking frantically - panicking?) followed by "At that time, you won't be able to speak or say anything." (For you will be deprived of the physical form, and thus the Nirmanakaya).

In another scroll of the Pearl Collection, there was another instance of the phrase:

七手八脚神頭鬼面棒打不開刀割不斷閻浮跳躑幾千回頭頭不離空王殿

"With seven hands and eight feet,
The divine head and ghostly face strike with a stick that cannot break,
A knife that cannot sever;
The world of suffering leaps and stumbles countless times,
But the head never leaves the empty king's hall."

This above passage also contains yet another phrase that would be borrowed by Wumen in "divine head and ghostly face" (神頭鬼面), such as where he says in the Wumenguan,

"Master Ruiyan Laozi buys and sells himself, Creating divine heads and ghostly faces. Why is this so? One calls out, another responds. One is clear and awake, another is not deceived by others. But recognizing this, are you not still the same as before? If you try to analyze it further, It is simply the wild fox's understanding."

Letting the wild fox's understanding run commentary in my head - seven hands and eight feet.

What precepts? Let the crab boil, then enjoy the meal.

For when one's mouth is stuffed with crab, it's hard to speak and make oneself look stupid.

One of the working assumptions I''ve had for a long time is that Zen records ended in China around 1400. With maybe a few exceptions pushing the date on further. Recently, however, and looking into the two female Masters that wrote commentary in the 1600s, we come across a large body of records of informal instruction and interview, formal public interview, and commentary on Zen instructional classics.

From Beata Grant's introduction,

"Even a cursory perusal of these two collections points to Zukui's deep familiarity one might say even intimacy with the words and deeds of the great tongue Masters as describing texts from the song dynasty onward. Just to give an example, she writes a long series of quatrains entitled "On a spring day, thinking of the masters of the past" each, one of which plays poetically on an episode or teaching from a different tong dynasty. Master. Zukui was also extremely fond of the Blue Cliff record the famous song dynasty anthology and even wrote a series of verse commentaries on each of its 100 cases."

When we consider the existence of that other Chinese master of the era whose name I forget who went to Japan and pissed off Dogenists and Catholic missionaries equally by his popularity and hitherto-in-Japan-unknown demonstration of Zen public interviews; the terminus date of the Zen tradition is pushed back and the popular claim that Zen is somehow a Japanese tradition or uniquely preserved by Japan is again exposed as racist as claiming that Latin Europe carried on engagement with Greek Philosophers that were "forgotten" elsewhere.

I got into the bad habit of commenting on the buddhism sub so now it keeps popping up in my feed, some dude asked if he was breaking the precepts because he's been a life-long hunter that eats what he shoots.

While I have 0 issue with people being vegan and even believe it can be a good thing, I basically said something along the lines of "while traditionally this is the case, I see eating meat as according to nature and that we are technically killing a living thing when we eat plants, and unless you're shaving your head and becoming a monk, you don't need to outright quit eating meat and shave your head or feel guilty.

But the overwhelming response was to convince this guy to become a vegetarian and I got down voted to hell, idk I guess it just feels irresponsible in some ways to guilt people into a decision when a person just wanders into a sub one day and is worried they're accumulating some mystical bad karma that's gonna ruin your chance at Happiness.

Idk maybe I'm just salty, but a holier than thou disagreement feels like someone telling you f$%k you with a smile and a handshake feels worse than what you get here, which is a f$%k you and smacked with stick.

Somebody brought this up and it covers lots of ground that we go over (and over) in this forum, so here goes:

ewk said:

I want to emphasize that my argument that Zen is ordinary mind and that we all think the way Zen Masters think least once in awhile by pointing out that when you learn to do any task like making boxed macaroni and cheese you start off by following the directions. Over time you get less and less careful about measuring liquids and times. Eventually you start adding things to the macaroni and cheese that the directions do not call for, and then necessarily changing cooking times.

Then someday as an old person you're visited by a person of the age of five and you offer them macaroni and cheese and what they receive is some sort of concoction with macaroni and cheese as a base. They say how do you make this?

It's not the recipe on the box.

Is there a method to it?

It's not following a recipe.

The act of improvisation is not one of following rules and creating them. The same could be said of being alive.

So one could say that in a sense, we're all "making macaroni and cheese" all the time. If making macaroni and cheese is Zen, then what's enlightenment? It's not really anything in and of itself right, it's just when we realize that we are doing "making macaroni and cheese"?

ewk said:

No, we cannot say that we are making macaroni and cheese all the time. Some people are failing to follow a recipe. Some people are following a recipe. Some people are not do anything but hating recipes.

Religion and philosophy are recipes. When people improvise too much with these recipes, it creates a splinter group like protestantism or utilitarianism.

Zen Masters say that following a recipe or not following a recipe is not the way.

For Discussion

1. We might not be making mac and cheese all the time but we are alive all the time?
2. Is this conversation "Zen teaching" or academic?