Tag: The Zen Lineage

The case:

Vimalakirti asked Manjusri

‘What is a Bodhisattva’s method of entering non duality?’

Manjusri said, “according to my mind, in all things, no speech, no explanation, no direction and no representation. Leaving behind all questions and answers. This is the method of entering non duality.”

Then Manjusri asked Vimalakirti – ‘What is the Bodhisattva’s method of entry into non duality?’

Vimalakirti was silent.

There are three senses of Satori, Enlightenment, and this koan deals with the first. It is sometimes called Practice/Realisation, or Practice/Verification.

Both are an abbreviation of a longer phrase, which means hearing, accepting, practicing, verifying. So: we hear the Buddha’s teachings on non duality, we accept these teachings, we practice, and through practice those teachings are verified as true.

The story is a representation of the mind and sincere practice of Vimilakirti, although there appears to be two people. But Manjusri of course is not a person, but is the Bodhisattva of Wisdom.

And the two questions are subtly different.

Vimalakirti asks ‘What is the Bodhisattva’s method of entering non duality?’
So this refers to the teaching stage. Which is why Manjusri answers.

But Manjusri’s question, ‘What is the Bodhisattva’s method of entry into non duality?’ is the practice stage. Which is why it is met with silence.

So neither answer is the right answer, but the story portrays a progression from teaching to practice.

The teachings are the door that we have to go through, but we have to let go of the handle to experience the vast room.

The Gateless Gate, Case 24

The case: A monk asked Feng- hsueh, “Speech and silence are concerned with equality and differentiation, how can I transcend equality and differentiation?”

Feng- hsueh replied, “I always think of Chiang-nan in March, Partridges chirping among the many fragrant flowers.”

Commentary:

In this koan story, the monk is asking a clear question about Buddhist Doctrine. The master replies with what appears to be a complete non-sequitur, quoting a poem, which isn’t even his own poem. So one might imagine that the monk is asking an intellectual question and the master is trying to defeat it. But perhaps we are better seeing the monk’s question as exemplifying him having a particular, heroic idea of practice. Smashing through barriers. The master is balancing – not correcting- that understanding by simply expressing his present feeling state.

If as practitioners our attention is always on progress, like a fly trying to find where there is no glass, we pay no attention to the ground, the ground of our feeling being. Which is not heroic, but real. Not somewhere in the future, but now.

The thinking mind freezes all things, and itself. Everything can be seen yet nothing can be felt. Our practice is a kind of thawing out, a softening, despite ourself.

The Gateless Gate, Case 41.

The Case: Eko approached Bodhidharma and said, ‘My mind is not at peace, please pacify it.’

Bodhidharma said ‘bring me your mind and I will pacify it.’

After a while Eko said, ‘I’ve looked everywhere for my mind and I can’t find it.’

Bodhidharma said, ‘There, I have pacified it.’

Commentary: People, looking at us, might imagine that we are trying to remove something, like a person, inside a house, might want to clear the dirt from the window to enable him to see the world clearly. But there isn’t a person, and there isn’t a house either. The self is the dust cloud, innocently wishing the window clear; the wound, thinking some more picking will heal it.

The Gateless Gate, Case 7.

The case: A monk said to Joshu, “I’ve just arrived at the monastery, please teach me”.

Joshu said, “Have you eaten your rice?” The monk said, “yes I have.” Joshu said, “Then wash your bowl.”

Commentary: In the Chinese monasteries the monks would eat a kind of rice gruel, vegetables would be cut very small and the gruel – the rice and vegetables – would be cooked and cooked until everything interpenetrated each other. So, the gruel was a symbol for dependent origination, the whole cosmos.

And before the monks could eat, they would chant, and that chant would express gratitude for the rice and an acknowledgement of where the food came from; an acknowledgement that the whole universe was feeding them. So the gruel was also the reality of dependent origination.

Likewise, in the bowl of this bodymind, our experience, all of it, is like this rice gruel. Our experience now, all of it, is given to us by this entire universe. If we reject it, it will putrefy. If we cling to it, it will never be digested. To wish it different is a wrong view, because it is an expression of the whole universe, this miracle of something rather than nothing.