Case 95 Baofu Drinks Tea

Here's my most recent translation.


95 Baofu Drinks Tea

[Yuanwu’s] Appended pointer says:

Where there is a Buddha do not get there and stop; to stop manifests a life of horns on the head. Where there is no Buddha, quickly run by; if you do not run by, the grass is ten feet deep. If you are abundantly upright, clear and all naked, red and all washed, with external affairs being without machinations, and the external being without affairs, you do not escape sticking by the stump waiting for a rabbit.
Just say, altogether, is treading the living walk not like this or is it like this? A test is raised for examination:

Raised:

There was a time Changqing said, “I would rather there be talk about arhats having the three poisons; don’t talk about the Tathagata having two kinds of language. I don’t say the Tathagata is without language, only is without two types of language.”
Baofu said, “How do you make it alive to be the Tathagata’s language?”
Qing said “A deaf person struggles to be able to hear it.”
Baofu said, “I know for sure you are facing towards the way of the secondary head.”
Qing said, “How do you make it alive to be the Tathagata’s language?”
Baofu said, “Go drink tea.”

[Xuedou's] Ode says:

Oh, the head! Primary. Secondary.
A resting dragon does not reflect on the still water.
Having the moon without a place, the waves settle.
Having a place, the billows rise up without a wind.
Zen traveler Leng, Zen traveler Leng!
In the third month at the Dragon Gate of Yu, he incurred a spot on the forehead.



[My Comments:
Changqing Huileng (854-932) and Baofu Congzhan (d. 928) were both disciples of Xuefeng Yicun. It is said in the Zen records that “Baofu often inquired of his Dharma brother, Changqing Huileng, concerning ancient and current expedient methods of teaching.”

As Yuanwu’s pointer implies this koan is about the three levels of teaching in Zen. Yuanwu designates the three levels as (1) where there is a Buddha, (2) where there is no Buddha, and (3) the pure naked state without any outside entanglements.
Baizhang Huaihai (Pai-chang Huai-hai, Hyakujo Ekai) (720-814) taught the three steps of the teaching this way:

The words of the teachings all have three successive steps: the elementary, the intermediate, and the final good. At first it is just necessary to teach them to create a good state of mind. In the intermediate stage, they break through the good mind. The last is finally called really good—‘A bodhisattva is not a bodhisattva; this is called a bodhisattva. the truth is not a truth, yet is not other than truth.’ Everything is like this. Yet if you teach only one stage, you will cause sentient beings to go to hell; if all three stages are taught at once, they will enter hell by themselves. This is not the business of a teacher. (Thomas Clearly translation)

The first step then is the teaching “there is a Buddha”. This is the elementary step of dwelling in the good that affirms and teaches using positive metaphors, but staying in this stage is still living under the duality of good and bad and is thus a life with horns on the head. The intermediate step of not dwelling in the good is taught by negative metaphor such as the teaching of “there is no Buddha” to lead the student to transcend the former duality. However, to dwell in this stage is to allow the grasses of confusion caused by attachment to emptiness to grow. In the third stage, the transcendent unified synthesis of the first two stages is without even the conception “not dwelling.” Having no conceptions about Buddha or no Buddha, it is called being pure, naked, and completely washed. Though this third stage can be said to be the first stage of Zen, having a conception of being naked and clear is still a last attachment. The fruition of Zen is to go beyond the three stages, and this realization is the meaning of this koan.

“the Tathagata having two kinds of language” In most Mahayana Buddhism other than Zen, such as Tiantai (Tendai) and Pure Land, it is said that Buddha speaks two types of truths: the relative and the absolute, or the conventional and the genuine. Another way of saying this is that Buddha speaks in the two languages of affirmation or positive metaphor and negation or prohibitive words of negative metaphor. The relative or conventional language of positive metaphors affirms the Dharma as a good: that there is practice, that there is realization, that the mind itself is Buddha. The absolute truth uses the language of negative metaphor: there is no practice, no realization, no mind, and no Buddha.

“The Tatahagata is without two types of language”. From the Zen point of view, the two types of language correspond to the elementary and intermediate steps of the teaching and do not reach the third step that simultaneously synthesizes and goes beyond these two steps to speak the bare naked language of the nondual, beyond assertion and denial. Tathagata Zen speaks the nondual language of the Tathataga.

“How do you make it alive?” This is a Zen idiom that refers to using language in an alive manner and not in a dead manner. Baizhang Huaihai instructed, “In reading sutras and studying the teachings, if you do not understand their living words and dead words, you will certainly not penetrate the meanings and expressions therein." Asking “How do you make it alive?” is synonymous with asking for “turning words” that turn the mind around from externality and dualism to realize the nondual.

“A deaf person struggles to be able to hear.” This is a double entendre pun as the term “deaf” (聾) is also used in Mahayana (Great Vehicle) jargon as a depreciative term for a sravaka, a disciple of the Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle). In the frame of reference of the three vehicles of Buddhism, the people of the three vehicles are termed 聾, 緣, and 菩, that is, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas. So, when asked about the language of the Tathagata, Changqing's comment is also saying the disciples (sravakas) of the lesser vehicle struggle to be able to hear it, meaning they only hear the spoken words and are deaf to the meaning. He is thus pointing to one of the primary foundational issues of the Mahayana that says all beings are Buddha by nature and all things (dharmas) preach the Dharma, so there is no need to struggle or strive to hear the language of Suchness because whatever we hear is that language once we know the true Tathagata.
Changqing is being slippery and cutesy. When asked to make the nondual language ot the Tatagata come alive, he avoids both the affirmative statement about what it is and the negative statement about what it is not. In the context of Zen's three levels of teaching, Changqing is attempting to speak from the position of the third stage of being "naked and bare” by not asserting or denying any conception about it, while at the same time pointing to it by saying those who are not of the Mahayana struggle to hear it.

“facing towards the way of the secondary head.” Baofu is correcting Changqing because Changqing’s response still has the odor of attachment to the conception of not having a conception of not dwelling. “The Way of the secondary head” is the language still within the first or second stages and has not yet realized the nondual, that is, not reached the primary principle of the One Vehicle (Ekayana) as taught by Bodhidharma. By saying a deaf person "struggles," Changqing is implying that he and others in the know do not struggle because they hear the Tathagata’s language everywhere from everything. But the dualities of struggling and not struggling, hearing and not hearing, are still lingering conceptions clinging to Changqing’s words. He’s bragging that he doesn’t objectify the Tathagata’s language, but he is bragging based on pointing to others who do objectify the Tathagata’s language, and so he still has the whiff of “self and other” in his words and has not reached the nondual language of the Tathagata.

“Go drink tea.” Baofu is echoing Chang of Baizhang (not to be confused with Baizhang Huihai his teacher) who had a favorite saying when teaching the assembly,

“Baizhang has three tricks of the trade: ‘to drink tea’, ‘to cherish it’, and ‘to take a rest.’ By intending to discuss it further and to use comparative reasoning one knows you still have not penetrated.”

“To drink tea” is to hear and speak the Tathagata's language in the deepest sense. This tea is never exhausted. Baofu is telling Changqing he doesn't need to stir up waves with his comments about the deaf struggling to hear; it is enough to drink tea with the Tathagata, to cherish the drinking and the tea, and to let the waves rest on their own.

"Zen traveler Leng" This is an informal and comradely way of addressing Changqing Huileng using only his shortened personal name "Leng."

”In the third month at the Dragon Gate of Yu, he incurred a spot on the forehead.” This line uses a pun to eulogize Baofu’s words that Chingqing remained in “the secondary head”, by saying that “Zen traveler Leng”, i.e, Changqing, is bumping his head against the barrier of the nondual Tathagata’s language. The Dragon Gate of Yu is a legendary gate created in the mountains by Emperor Yu over 5,000 years ago for the Yellow River to pass through. The Gate is a narrow passage through the mountains where the river rushes through exceptionally fast. The third month is the month when the river is highest and the water is most turbulent as it passes through the gate, and it is said that if a lowly carp is able to swim upstream and pass through the gate on the third day of the third month it is transformed into a dragon, hence it is called the Dragon Gate. Xuedou is saying “Changqing, you wanted to be a dragon but you just bumped your head and remained a carp.” He is confirming that Baofu was the dragon in the interchange of that koan.

]

Case 87 Yunmen’s Medicine and Disease

Case 87 Yunmen’s Medicine and Disease

Raised: Yunmen said in teaching the assembly, “’Medicine and disease cure each other.’ The entire great earth is medicine. What particularly is oneself?
“Cure.”

Xuedou's Verse:

“The entire great Earth is Medicine.”
From ancient times to the present, how extremely wrong!
Don’t make the cart behind closed doors.
The path through is naturally desolate and empty.
Wrong. Wrong.
Yet, nostrils as far as heaven are also pierced.


[Comments:
Though Yunmen is considered a Dharma heir of Xuefeng, he first studied and came to awakening with Muzhou who (along with Linji) was a student of Huangbo. So Yunmen must have been well acquainted with the teaching of Huangbo’s teacher Baizhang. When Yunmen said to the assembly "Medicine and disease cure each other", he was quoting from The Extensive Record of Baizhang 《百丈廣録》. “Medicine” and “disease” were among the favorite teaching images used by Baizhang; for instance, he said, “Form and emptiness are also examples of medicine and disease curing each other.” Baizhang also said, “Ignorance is father, greed is mother. Self is the disease, yet self is the medicine too.”

Baizhang instructed,

“You must discern the words of the complete teaching and the incomplete teaching; you must discern prohibitive words and nonprohibitive words; you must discern living and dead words; you must discern medicine and disease words; you must discern words of negative and positive metaphor; you must iscern generalizing and particularizing words.”

And Baizhang also said,

“Yet all verbal teachings just cure disease; because the diseases are not the same, the medicines are also not the same. That is why sometimes it is said there is Buddha, and sometimes it is said there is no Buddha. True words cure disease; if the cure manages to heal, then all are true words--if they can’t effectively cure disease, all are false words. True words are false words insofar as they give rise to views; false words are true words insofar as they cut off the delusions of the many beings. Because disease is unreal, there is only unreal medicine to cure it. The words ‘the Buddha appears in the world to carry across the multitude of beings’ are of the nine-part teaching. They are words of the incomplete teaching. Anger and joy, medicine and disease, are all oneself; there is no one else.”

So, Yunmen was teaching the assembly from the true words of Baizhang and then to drive home the point, he distilled Baizhang’s teaching into the turning words of his koan: “What particularly is oneself?”

Yunmen was famous for his one word responses and in Case 87 of the Blue Cliff Record he gave such a response to his own question saying, “Cure” This could also be read as “The Cure” or “A Cure” if inserting an article. Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason, the Clearys left this out of their translation. In the Blue Cliff Record, Yuanwu’s comment on this one word of Yunmen’s is, “Cutting up clarity; attacking principle too! The noise is maintained.” ]

A Case of Mistaken (Fish) Identity

Sansheng's Golden Fish Scales
三聖金鱗

Raised: Sansheng asked Xuefeng, "[If] the golden fish scales that pass through the net are not investigated. [then] what is used for food?"
Feng said, "Wait until you come out of the net, then [I'll] speak to you."
Sheng said, "A learned and virtuous one of fifteen hundred people and [you] still don't know the 'head of the word' (huatou)."
Feng said, "[I'm] an old monk in residence managing numerous affairs."

###

The Zen koan "Sansheng's Golden Fish Scales" is included as Case 49 of the Blue Cliff Record (碧巖錄, Biyan Lu, J. Hekiganroku) and Case 33 of The Record of the Serene (從容錄, Congrong Lu, J. Shoyoroku). Unfortunately, the translations that I have come across by the Cleary brothers, Thomas and James C., (in their The Blue Cliff Record), Thomas Cleary alone (in his The Book of Serenity) and the Sanbo Kyodan lineage (on the internet at http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/eric.boix/Koan/Hekiganroku/index.html and http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/eric.boix/Koan/Shoyoroku/index.html ) leave out the important set up to the koan's gambit: that Sansheng is asking about huatou practice. All three translations state erroneously that Sansheng is asserting that the fish has come through the net, and all three leave out the reference by Sansheng in his response to the huatou.

The word huatou (話頭, J. wato) literally means "the head (頭) of the word (話).". The word "head" is used in the sense of the headwaters of a river and so it means "the source of language" itself. Zen Master Yuanwu is the commentator of The Blue Cliff Record and the huatou, method was widely popularized by his dharma heir Dahui Zonggao. In fact because of the great success of his popularizing efforts some people have mistakenly believed that Dahui actually created the huatou method. This koan is a demonstration that huatou comes directly through Linji as Sansheng is one of Linji's great dharma heirs.

What is a huatou? The koan presents a story in words. The story embodies some kind of dilemma of duality. The zen of meditation is to turn around (Skt. pravritti, as found in the Lankavatara Sutra) the flow or light of the ideation that results in duality to be aware of the source of the ideas themselves. The huatou is the kernel or pivot point of the koan upon which the focused attention can effect this "turn around" to see the source of the words.

The most famous huatou of all is in the koan Zhaozhou's "No." (Ch. "Wu", J. "Mu"). Other well known huatou center around the word "Who" such as "Who is repeating the Buddha's name?", "Who hears?" and "Who is dragging this corpse around?" Every genuine koan has its huatou that turns the attention around to point directly to the source of mind.

In Zhaoahou's famous koan, a monk asked Zhaozhou, "Does the puppy dog have Buddha Nature?" Zhou said, "No.". The mind naturally tries to reason this out by thinking about the concepts of Buddha Nature, which living beings have or do not have Buddha Nature, etc. Zhaozhou's reply is contrary to the usually held concept that all beings have Buddha Nature so another duality arises in the mind about why does he say "No"? The huatou method is to focus attention directly on the word "No" within the frame of the inquiry of what is the "head of this word"? "What is 'No'?" means what is the source of the very idea of "No"?

The Sixth Ancestor of Zen, Huineng, stated this question in the following way. "True Suchness, as it is, is the essence of thought. Thought, as it is, is the function of True Suchness." The huatou method is to focus directly on the essence or source of thought itself without being attached to the thought. As the Great Chinese Zen master Xuyun, whose life spanned the 19th and 20th centuries, said, "Hua is actually a wandering thought. You're actually talking to yourself. Before the wandering thoughts arise, one must illuminate on them. Look to see just what is the original face? This is called looking at Huatou." ( http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/clubs/buddhism/newsletter/news35.html )

Discussing the huatou in the sentence "Who is repeating the Buddha's name?", Xuyun also said, "Before this sentence is uttered, it is called a hua t'ou (lit. sentence's head). As soon as it is uttered, it becomes the sentence's tail (hua wei).." (http://www.sinc.stonybrook.edu/Clubs/buddhism/xuyun/index.html ) The usual practice is to begin investigating a huatou by mentally uttering simple rote repetition of the huatou word or phrase. This is looking at the tail of the word not the head, but it is quite natural to begin this way. The investigation of the huatou can be said to begin with the attention going "behind" or "before" the repeated word and seeing that thoughts arise in the context of thoughtlessness as sound arises in the context of silence. The attention turns away from the word by jumping off the rote repetition to look at the question of how does the word or thought itself arise from within the context of thoughtlessness? This becomes looking directly at True Suchness or Original Face. Xuyun says, "Our minute examination should be turned inward and this is also called 'the turning inward of the hearing to hear the self-nature.'"

The fish in Sansheng's koan is none other than one's own True Suchness, Original Face, Self-nature, etc.. Sansheng's opening line says, "I don't study the golden fish scales that pass through the net." (透網金鱗未審, lit.: pass through-net-golden-fish scales-don't-study) Sansheng is saying that in his huatou practice he is not studying the words or thoughts that have already arisen in the mind, i.e., the golden fish scales that have passed through the net of the differentiating thought processes. The translations that state this sentence as "The golden fish that's passed through the net" (Cleary) or "When a fish with golden scales has passed through the net" (Sanbo Kyodan) miss this point entirely. The phrase that they translate as "golden fish" is 金鱗 and 鱗 means "fish scales" not fish. Cleary ignores this altogether and translates "fish scales" as "fish". The Sanbo Kyodan translation includes the reference to the "scales" but it inserts "fish" to make "fish with golden scales" as if it is necessarily implied.

But Sansheng is neither asserting nor implying the fish has passed through the net, he is saying the fish's golden scales, i.e., thoughts, pass through the net and he knows that these are not the subject or object of huatou practice. Sansheng's next question is the serve to Xuefeng asking how then does one do huatou practice if thought is not studied? It must be assumed that Sansheng as a Zen master in his own right has his own answer to this question and that he is putting himself in the position or role of a senior student to ask his question for the Zen drama. When teaching the huatou method Zen teachers commonly say things like, "Chew on the huatou like a dog who won't give up a bone." Sansheng's question, "[If] one doesn't study the golden fish scales that pass through the net, [then] what is used for food?" has the double entendre of asking "what is there for the meditator to chew on if one is not examining thoughts or ideas (i.e., the golden fish scales)?" and also "what does the fish (True Suchness, Original Face, etc.) itself have for food if there is no source beyond it?" (which in the theistic context is like asking "if God is the creator, who creates God?").

Xuefeng's response "Wait until you come out of the net, then I'll speak to you." has several levels of nuance. First, on the surface, it simply takes the question at its face value, and Xuefeng takes the role of the teacher saying he won't give an answer to the student because the student must find it on his own. But also Xuefeng is saying to Sansheng, "I'll wait until you stop playing games trying to catch me in your net before I talk with you." And thirdly, Xuefeng is acknowledging that Sansheng himself is the fish and when he shows himself in a straightforward manner then they can talk as equals.

Xuefeng's response is a returning challenge to Sansheng pointing out the duality of the "net" and asking, "Which side of the net are you on?" The "net" in question is known in Buddhist psychology as the Seventh Consciousness. When the undifferentiated awareness of True Suchness of the eighth consciousness passes through the seventh consciousness it is differentiated into self and environment, subject and objects. Here is how Xuyun described this process in reference to the use of the huatou:

Each of us has a mind which is the eighth consciousness (vijnana), as well as the seventh, sixth and the first five consciousnesses. The first five are the five thieves of the eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. The sixth consciousness is the thief of mind (manas). The seventh is the deceptive consciousness (klista-mano-vijnana) which from morning to evening grasps the eighth consciousness' "subject" and mistakes it for an "ego". It incites the sixth to lead the first five consciousnesses to seek external objects (such as) form, sound, smell, taste and touch. Being constantly deceived and tied the eighth consciousness-mind is held in bondage without being able to free itself. For this reason we are obliged to have recourse to this hua t'ou and use its "Vajra King's Precious Sword" to kill all these thieves so that the eighth consciousness can be transmuted into the Great Mirror Wisdom, the seventh into the Wisdom of Equality, the sixth into the Profound Observing Wisdom and the first five consciousnesses into the Perfecting Wisdom. It is of paramount importance first to transmute the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, for they play the leading role and because of their power in discriminating and discerning. While you were seeing the voidness and the brightness and composing poems and gathas, these two consciousnesses performed their (evil) functions. Today, we should use this hua t'ou to transmute the discriminating consciousness into the Profound Observing Wisdom and the mind which differentiates between ego and personality into the Wisdom of Equality. (Ibid.)

Xuefeng's response is asking Sansheng whether he has actually transmuted the seventh consciousness or is he still holding onto and held by the net's function of discrimination?

Sansheng in order to meet Xuefeng face to face, needs to push the discussion beyond this question of the duality of which side of the net one is on. Sansheng says, "Fifteen hundred learned and virtuous people [in the assembly] and you still don't know the 'head of the word' (huatou)." Sanshang thus turns the question directly back onto Xuefeng implying "I am out the net, are you?" Sansheng's response stands as if saying that if he wasn't already out of the net then he couldn't have asked the first question as he did. On the surface he is challenging Xuefeng to the very last drop of duality saying, in effect, "You are in the teacher role here, so I asked you to say something about the huatou with my first question, and yet you, the teacher of 1,500 worthy people, refuse to reveal the huatou plainly. So does that mean you do not know the huatou, that is, the source of the mind?" Here the two Zen masters are meeting face to face and their eyebrows become entangled since already within the deeper meaning of Sansheng's response is his acknowledgment that neither he nor Xuefeng can actually say anything about the huatou as an object without becoming entangled in the net. Sansheng's saying "You still don't know the huatou" is a two-edged sword: on one edge is the upside down Zen praise of Sansheng for Xuefeng who did not fall into Sansheng's net and on the other edge is the last challenge to Xuefeng: "What can you say that shows how the huatou passes through the net to transform the net itself?"

Xuefeng's response is "[I'm] an old monk in residence managing numerous affairs." (老僧住持事繁) This response is the pure taste of Zen. It is completely plain spoken with no pretence to or perfume of any transcendent meaning. Yet, because the transcendent and the mundane are a complete unity and this unity is completely realized by Xuefeng, it is a completely transcendent statement by the huatou itself in its own words. Xuefeng's "[I'm] an old monk" (老僧) directly demonstrates the Great Mirror Wisdom of the transformed eighth consciousness. Since the statement is the statement of the huatou without any intermediation by the seventh consciousness acting as a differentiating agent mistaking things as objects, the huatou says it is "dwelling in residence" (住), thus the seventh consciousness is shown in its transformed state as the Wisdom of Equality. Xuefeng's "managing" (持) is the description of the sixth consciousness transformed into the Profound Observing Wisdom and the "numerous affairs" (事繁) being managed are the five sense consciousnesses transformed into the Perfecting Wisdom.

Now all this is just the used mouthwash of this poor student and should be immediately rinsed down the drain. If these fish scales have any value at all it could only be to encourage you to follow your meditation method diligently and not be confused by such glittering golden fish scales, so that you may personally grab the fish with your own bare hands.

_/|\_
Gregory

Case 42 龐居士雪 Layman Pang's Snow

42. Layman Pang's Snow

Raised: Layman Pang bid adieu to Yaoshan. Shan ordered ten people who were Zen travelers to go together to the main gate to see him off. The Layman pointed to the snow in the middle of the sky and said, "The excellent snow; flake by flake it does not fall at another spot."
At that time there was Zen traveler Quan who asked, "At what spot does it fall?"
The gentleman hit once with a slap.
Quan said, "A Layman too cannot get careless."
The gentleman said, "Like this you call yourself a Zen traveler. Lao-tzu has not liberated your dependence."
Quan said, "Layman how do you make it alive?"
The gentleman again hit once with a slap and said, "The eye sees like a blind person; the mouth speaks like a mute."
Xuedou separately said, "At the first questioning point, yet grab a snowball then hit."

Xuedou's own ode, placing another hit, says:

A trap.
Hit with a snowball, hit with a snowball.
The checkpoint of Elder Pang's function is unable to be grasped.
The superior person of Heaven does not personally know of the opening.
Inside of the eye, inside of the ear, decidedly easy-going.
Easy-going decidedly.
The blue-eyed barbarian monk is unable to differentiate.

Case 41 of the Blue Cliff Record

41. 趙州問死 Zhaozhou Asks About Death

Raised: Zhaozhou asked Touzi, "So, what about the time when the person of great death returns to the living?"
Touzi said, "It is not permitted to go traveling by night; the light must be cast to arrive."

The Ode says:

Search.
In the middle of life there is an eye; turning back is the same as death.
Why must the jealous physician do an exam of the family?
The esteemed words of the ancient Buddha did not arrive together.
One doesn't know who is let loose to scatter dust and sand.

Link http://home.pon.net/wildrose/BCR-Eng.htm#case41