Satori, The Koan, and Monastic Polishing, Cont.

If we do not know whether a living dog has Buddha Nature can we say with certainty that a stone statue of a dog has no Buddha Nature? (Yes, we can.) The question, then, as originally posed is reasonable but insoluble. It is not, therefore, a proper koan but pondering it can carry a person a very long way into shame, humility and compassion.

To say simply that a proper answer is a meaningless "Mu" negation leaves out too much of the deliberation.

Other kinds of questions and answers came into vogue. In these exchanges the ego and its insipid questions were shown to be disgraceful frauds which did not deserve the dignity of a response. "What is Buddha?" The standard answer: "A pound of flax seeds." Or, "Are there any teachings which go beyond those of the Buddha and the Patriarchs?" "Yes, those that deal with sesame buns."

One remarkable exchange deserves repeating:

A novice approached a master and begged him for instruction.

"Before I can teach you anything you must say one word of truth," said the master.

The novice thought for a moment. "Buddha!" he responded.

Angrily, the master dismissed him. "Come back when you can speak a word of truth!"

The novice thought and thought and decided on a better answer. The next day he returned to the master, knelt at his feet, and whispered, "Compassion." But again the master dismissed him.

The novice struggled to find a more impressive answer, one that would surely be undeniable in its truth. Thinking he had found it in the word "Love", he returned to the master.

As he began to kneel, the master suddenly kicked him.

"Ouch!" cried the novice.

"Sit down," said the master. "You have finally uttered a truthful word."

(A spontaneous response, by definition, is not corrupted by the ego.)

During the dismal period which followed the Golden Age, Chan Master Da Hui wisely advocated a method known elsewhere as mantra yoga. Accordingly, a candidate for satori was given a 'koan' exactly as he would be given a mantra. He was expected to recite it constantly, to fix his attention on it while he ate, walked, or worked, until his mind would automatically finger it, endlessly circulating it as a rosary. Eventually the threshold of meaning would be crossed. When the meaning dropped away, the ripe mind would drop away with it.

Da Hui objected to the practice of many Chan masters who resorted to long, mind-blanking meditation sessions as replacements for the bankrupt koan exchange system. He thought that it led to quietism, an other worldly approach to life that functioned as little more than a retreat from society. A Chan man should be able to withstand societal pressure. 'Going to market with one's shirt open,' (being a casual, unselfconscious person) was and still is the only acceptable attitude.

Da Hui's objections to long periods of sitting may have been prompted by considerations of health. Hemorrhoids are a distressing fact of life in hard-cushion 'sitting' monasteries.

In any school, satori is experienced only by a ripe mind and a ripe mind is a mind which at the very least understands the First Noble Truth of Buddhism: Life is bitter and painful. How or where this truth is learned is unimportant. Monasteries, we find, often see themselves as dispensaries of this great truth.

Regardless of how profound a man believes his understanding of suffering is, monastery life in the Japanese style, for example, will take his definitive line and plumb new depths of meaning with it.

When Dogen Zenji (1200-1253) introduced Zen into Japan, it got drafted into Samurai military service and was never furloughed. It is still practiced with 'strictly by the book' regimentation. Zen was, at its introduction, a fully formed creature. (There is much history between the time Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon... some 540 years. There is even more history between the time Zen was founded in China and the time Dogen introduced it into Japan, some 700 years. This is seven hundred years of Chinese genius at work.)

Dogen had been a Lin Ji (Rinzai) monk but rejected this tradition because he believed it did not probe deeply enough the mysteries of Buddhist mysticism. (By the year l200, koan study had become a ludicrous waste of time.) Further study in China and a complete conversion to Soto Zen enabled him to return to Japan and write what still remains the bible of Soto monastery life.

Looking at one of the sections, the Taitaikoho: How Junior Priests Must Behave in the Presence of Senior Priests, we find that Dogen lists sixty-two rules of behavior.

In the following, a junior priest is defined as any monk who has been studying less than five years. A senior is any monk who has been studying five years longer than the monk in his presence.

Here is a sample of the rules:

#l. You must wear your robe and carry your mat whenever a senior is present.

#3. You must clasp your hands respectfully whenever you see a senior; you may not allow your hands to hang down.

#9. When with a senior, you may not scratch yourself or hunt for vermin.

#l0. You may not spit or blow your nose when with a senior.

#l4. You may not touch a senior when near him.

#38. No junior may go to bed before all the seniors in the house have retired.

#39. No junior may take food before a senior takes food.

#56. If a senior happens to occupy a less important seat than you at some function or meal, you should not bow to him and thereby call attention to his placement.

The rules extend to sleeping. (The same hall used for meditation was also used as a dormitory.) From the Bendoho: How to Train in Buddhism, we find:

"... the five rules when sleeping:

(l) The head must always point in the direction of the Buddha statue.

(2) No one may observe the Buddha from a lying position.

(3) The legs may not be stretched out.

(4) Trainees may not face the wall or lie on their faces.

(5) The knees may not be raised."

The rules which govern eating defy description. There is, for example, a mandatory gesture - the raising and lowering of the left hand, palm upturned - that a recipient of food or drink must make to signal sufficiency to the serving monk. Marie Byles reports that she once witnessed a new trainee, who did not know this gesture, have her tea cup filled to overflowing. The serving monk just kept on pouring.

I made the identical gaff. During the first meal of my first sesshin (several straight days of l6 hours a day meditation designed to inflict maximum stress), I was seated second in line. Between every two monks a small tray which held a honey pot and dipper was placed for use on the initial meal, a thick, hot breakfast cereal.

I hadn't noticed the first monk use this palm-up gesture of sufficiency as the serving monk ladled the cereal into his bowl. But as the serving monk began to serve me, he accidentally knocked over the honey pot, flipping the dipper out onto the corner of my robe and the rug. The first monk and I immediately tried to clean up the mess. The serving monk saw what had happened and that my attention was diverted, but he nevertheless continued to slap huge spoonfuls of cereal into my bowl. I whispered 'Thank you, That's enough.' But that was not the correct way to indicate sufficiency and so the gruel kept coming. By the time the first monk realized what was happening and reached across me to take my left hand and pump it up and down, palm up, there was a mountain of glop in my bowl you could have measured with an altimeter. Since meditation cannot resume until everyone has eaten and since it is mandatory that everything in one's bowl be consumed, I sat there digging away at this Everest of Grits for nearly half an hour into the time for the next meditation session. Forty pairs of eyes furtively watched me eat the stuff... without benefit of honey since the messy pot had been removed.

Even the act of brushing one's teeth has a body of rules and regulations governing it, as does the manner in which one carries a towel when going to bathe.

To add to the misery, senior monks frequently behave like drill sergeants and junior monks, to curry favor, inform on each other. Junior monks are routinely pushed around and insulted and made to work during nearly every minute that they are not in the meditation hall. Sleep is a luxury and nutrition does not seem to be a consideration of menu-planning. In response to the attacks of poor diet, exhaustion, lack of sleep and unrelenting criticism, the ego will very likely send up a white flag. And we will then arrive at the same place, the 'kitchen refuge,' in which Doe Ming found himself after his koan bashing.

Although American Zen monasteries tend to be more relaxed, their routines are still calculated to be stressful. There is no point in being otherwise. (Need it be said that it is absolutely essential that the people who formulate the stress are themselves enlightened?)

Somewhere there must be a formula: a month in a Zen monastery is equal to a year on a chain-gang or six months in hell. Monks who survive five years of this treatment are on intimate terms with the First Truth. That Japanese Soto Zen is able to turn out so many truly great masters is proof that the system, abysmal as it seems, works.

Hui Neng, however, wouldn't have approved. Life in his South China monastery is still characterized by gentleness and good humor. We can best illustrate the difference between the Japanese and Chinese styles by noting their respective methods of keeping people awake during meditation. Japanese Zendos are patrolled by a fellow with a stick who beats the sleepy; Chinese Meditation halls are patrolled by a fellow with a pot of jasmine tea.

Previous Page   Index    Next Page