Case 41 Bodhidharma's Mind-Pacifying                         
Bodhidharma sat facing the wall.


The Second Patriarch stood in the snow.

He cut off his arm and presented it to Bodhidharma, crying, "My mind has no peace as yet! I beg you, master, please pacify my mind!"

"Bring your mind here and I will pacify it for you," replied Bodhidharma.

"I have searched for my mind, and I cannot find it," said the Second Patriarch.

"Now your mind is pacified," said Bodhidharma.
 
Mumon's Comment

The broken-toothed old Hindu came so importantly, thousands of miles over the sea.

This was raising waves where there was no wind.

In his last years he induced enlightenment in his disciple, who, to make matters worse, was defective in the six roots.

Why, Shasanro did not know for ideographs.
 
Mumon's Verse 
     Coming east, directly pointing,
     You entrusted the Dharma, and trouble arose;
     The clamor of the monasteries
     Is all because of you.
 
          This is a classic Zen story about the Enlightenment of Huike the second Zen Patriarch.  It is told in reduced form in this koan because it is expected that every Zen student already knows the story.  Here is the story in a little more detail.  

          Bodhidharma comes from India about 550CE.    At that time in China Buddhism existed as a religion but only through translations of Sutras.  Consequently it was more a religion of doctrine, philosophy and study then the practice of meditation.  Bodhidharma was the first lineage Buddhist teacher to come from India and the Buddhism he brought emphasized meditation practice and having that same enlightenment experience as the Buddha had.  Bodhidharma set himself up in a cave on a mountain in Northern China and had very few students, one of them was Huike.
          The story is that Huike was already a monk and had an earnest desire for enlightenment.  He seems to have been deeply suffering if he was willing to cut off his arm to get Bodhidarma's attention.  I am not sure this part of the story is actually true but it does point to the commitment one must have if one is to follow this practice all the way to enlightenment.  Once he has Bodhidharma's attention he asks.  "Please pacify my mind."

​Bodhidharma responds, "Bring your mind here and I will pacify it for you."

Huike responds,  "I have searched for my mind, and I cannot find it."

This is interesting because Huike would not have responded this way unless he had been practicing meditation  for many years.  I don't think Huike gave this response immediately but rather this is like being given a koan.  It can take years to properly respond.  Huike was probably sent off to meditate after being asked the question.  When he fimally gives this response that he cannot find his mind it is because he has pealed away all the layers of his thought and there is just quiet, there is nothing there.  But still this experience has not quite sunk in.  It takes Bodhidharma to point out that this finding nothing is just the point, and then Huike has that deep experience of insight that transforms everything.
          The enlightenment experience has two sides.  One side of the experience is samadhi,  the other side is insight that results from samadhi.  One cannot happen without the other.  Huineng the 6th Patriarch refused to separate the two but the fact is that samadhi usually precedes insight.  There are many different types of samadhi.  Normally samadhi is defined as meditative absorption but actually samadhi is a normal state of mind that we commonly experience playing music or sports or doing art or anything that naturally absorbs us, our random thoughts quiet, and we are fully concentrated on the subject at hand.  "Fully engaged mind and body" this is how Dogen Zenji described samadhi and this is the practice of Zen whether on the cushion or off.  Samadhi on the cushion can also take a variety of forms.  We can become absorbed in the breath or listening or posture, etc, any one of the many objects of meditative concentration. And then there is the samadhi where the mind is just plain quiet without any particular object of meditative concentration.  We are not in true samadhi until all random thought stops and the mind is fully quiet and this is much more difficult then one of the many forms of natural active samadhi.  Put me in skis going down a mountain at 30mi/hr and I will instantly be in samadhi and it has been that way since I was a teen.  But it took me 7-8 years of daily meditation practice and several sesshins before I first experienced samadhi on the cushion.  Samadhi on the cushion is different.  It is different because because the mind is not so deeply engaged that there is not room for insight.  Koans are meant to pull us out of samadhi for just a moment to spark insight.  And what is that most important insight? 
"I have searched for my mind, and I cannot find it," said the Second Patriarch.
"Now your mind is pacified," said Bodhidharma.

          The insight is simple,  when we quiet our mind we discover that there is nothing there.  The Buddha said that we have no Atman (soul).  In the Mahayana we use the term emptiness to describe the insight or we might just say there is no self.   But this simple insight changes everything.  Before our whole way of thinking was built on the idea of an individual self.  Now our whole way of thinking is going to build on the insight that there is no individual self.

A note:  I changed the translation that I pulled off the internet from,
"I have searched for my mind and I cannot take hold of it",  to
"I have searched for my mind and I cannot find it."  The reason I made the change is not only that other translations correspond to my change, which they do, but that the original translation does not properly give the insight.  The first translation is the insight of a beginning meditator.  For the beginning meditator it is quickly obvious that the stream of thought which passes through consciousness, and we might think of as our mind, cannot be grasped.  Some might also say that our awareness/consciousness is our mind and it cannot also be grasped.  This seems a deeper insight but it is not enough.  To experience that it all disappears in truly deep meditation is the basis for insight that this koan is trying to express.  As I always do in this blog I am trying to push the reader to work hard and deepen your meditation.
          

Case 40 Tipping Over a Water Bottle                 
 
When Isan Oshõ was with Hyakujõ, he was tenzo [典座 head cook] of the monastery.
Hyakujõ wanted to choose a master for Mount Tai-i, so he called together all the monks and told them that anyone who could answer his question in an outstanding manner would be chosen.
Then he took a water bottle and stood it on the floor, and said, "You may not call this a water bottle. What do you call it?"
The head monk said, "It cannot be called a stump."
Hyakujõ asked Isan his opinion.
Isan tipped over the water bottle with his feet and went out.
Hyakujõ laughed and said, "The head monk loses."
And Isan was named as the founder of the new monastery.
 
Mumon's Comment
Isan displayed great spirit in his action, but he could not cut himself free from Hyakujõ's apron strings. He preferred the heavier task to lighter one.
Why was he like that, eh?
He took off his headband to bear the iron yoke.

Mumon's Verse
     Tossing bamboo baskets and ladles away
     He made a glorious dash and swept all before him.
     Hyakujõ's barrier cannot stop his advance;
    Thousands of Buddhas come forth from the tips of his feet.
 
          True Story:  Here in the USA a Zen Master is paired with a Tibetan Buddhist teacher for a public talk/debate.  The Zen Master holds up an orange and says "What is it?"  The Tibetan fellow looks at he Zen Master incredulously and says, "Don't they have Oranges where you are from?"  The Zen Master breaks out laughing.

          Straight ahead runs the Way.  Don't be thrown by ridiculous questions.  Recognize that they are ridiculous and act appropriately.  The head monk is caught.  He thinks he should say something profound but then nothing profound comes to his head.  His answer is truly lame. He could of said "I don't see a thing," referencing his understanding of Emptiness.  He could of said "All the Universe is contained in that bottle," showing his understanding of interdependence and non-duality.  They would have been better answers but still Isan's answer would of won.  He wasn't interested in profound thoughts he had better things to do. 


          I am not saying there is no profundity in Zen.  Deep meditation opens the door to profundity but in the practice of non- attachment we have to learn to let go even of those deep thoughts, if we are to continue to deepen meditation and then bring that quiet mind into our daily lives.

          All koans are context driven and the most obvious interpretation may be misleading.  We might think from this koan that Zen is simply anti-intellectual as we might think several koans are anti-intellectual.  But here we are in the late stages of this Koan collection.  Like Isan who was an advance monk  if you have gotten this far then it is time to drop even the profundity and come back to simply functioning but now with a difference.  All that profundity just sits in the background.  It is not that it has gone away but it is no longer something that needs to be thought about but has simply become part of who you are.  
          Years of meditation and deep meditative experience gives one a clear mind.  This clear mind sees the world exactly as it is without overlaying  layers of thought.  Some would say this is the essence and final outcome of meditation practice.  But who is to say what a clear mind is?  Most people already think they know what a clear mind is.  The other day I loaned a friend a sutra titled by the translator Journey to Reality.  My friend looked at the title and said, "Isn't this all reality as it is."  Though my response was, "Just read the book," I didn't contradict him but our normal view of reality like that of clarity is not the same for one who who has deep experience in meditation.  And the deep clarity of one who is well practiced in meditation is different from what we normally think of as clarity.  It includes both the mundane and the profound,  the mind is quiet and deeply knowing at the same time. 






























Mumon's Verse 頌曰
颺下笊籬并木杓            Tossing bamboo baskets and ladles away,
當陽一突絶周遮    He made a glorious dash and swept all before him.
百丈重關欄不住    Hyakujõ's barrier cannot stop his advance;
脚尖□出佛如麻    Thousands of Buddhas come forth from the tips of his feet.
 

Case 39 A Mistake in Speaking               
 
A monk said to Unmon, "The brilliance of the Buddha silently illuminates the whole universe. . ."
But before the could finish the verse, Unmon said, "Aren't those the words of Chõetsu the Genius?"
"Yes, they are," answered the monk.
"You have slipped up in your speaking," Unmon said.
Afterward, Shishin Zenji brought up the matter and said, "Tell me, at what point did the monk err in his speaking?"
 
Mumon's Comment
If you clearly understand this and realize how exacting Unmon was in his method, and what made the monk err in his speaking, you are qualified to be a teacher of heaven and earth.
If you are not yet clear about it, you are far from saving yourself.
 
Mumon's Verse 
     A line cast in the rapids,
     The greedy will be caught.
     Before you start to open your mouth,
     Your life is already lost!
 

          This short exchange between Ummon and a monk is the type of exchange that is typical in Sanzen which in the Rinzai Zen tradition of koan practice is usually a short meeting where the student presents an answer to the koan he/she is studding and the teacher gives a short response guiding the student in his/her practice.  With some teachers these exchanges are so short that the teacher will do sanzen with each student several times a day during a retreat with as many as 40 students.  Sasaki Roshi was like that.  Some times the student would enter the room and before he could finish his bows Sasaki would ring his bells sending the student away calling for the next student. This never happened to me but as a student I would try out all sorts of answers in trying to answer my first koans which were all quickly rejected until they were not.  As a student one has all sorts of ideas how to answer a koan.  Usually a student thinks that if he/she just thinks through the koan clearly he /she will be able to give a proper answer.  Yes of course the student must understand the question the koan is asking but thinking alone will not give the answer.  Often a student will give some verbal expression of what they think is the deepest understanding of the koan by quoting something out of classic Zen literature.  That is what this monk has done and we see it was quickly rejected.  There are two things that strike me as wrong, from a teacher's perspective, with what the monk said.  One, he is quoting someone else.  This is wisdom borrowed from some one else not the monks own expression.  It has been said that that all the past sayings of all the great Zen Masters are all just a bunch of crap.  They are all digested and second hand.  Not fresh, not personal, not being experienced NOW!  The other thing wrong with what the student said is that it was an idea and not an expression again of what the student was experiencing in NOW.
          Many years ago during one sesshin with Sasaki Roshi I passed several koans.  I was sitting very deeply and out of that deep sitting the answers came quickly and naturally.  But then at the next several sesshins I could not pass any new koans.  I could not even pass the koans I had previously pass.  Why?  Sure I was filled with new Buddhist wisdom but it was all just intellectual.  I knew why I wasn't passing any more koans.  I was not sitting deeply enough to pass any koans.  

Case 38 A Buffalo Passes the Window                      

Goso said, "A buffalo passes by the window. His head, horns, and four legs all go past. But why can't the tail pass too?"
 
Mumon's Comment

If you make a complete about-face, open your eye, and give a turning word on this point, you will be able to repay the four kinds of love that have favored you and help the sentient beings in the three realms who follow you.

If you are still unable to do this, return to this tail and reflect upon it, and then for the first time you will realize something.
 
Mumon's Verse 
         Passing by, it falls into a ditch;
         Coming back, all the worse, it is lost.
         This tiny little tail,
         What a strange thing it is!
 

          To understand this koan we have to start by understanding exactly what it is asking.  Start with the metaphor of the Buffalo.  The Buffalo or Ox has been a common metaphor in Zen for centuries used to describe the various stages of the practitioner's development along the path.  Many series of drawings with a boy and a Buffalo have been drawn to represent the stages of Zen development. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/mzb/oxherd.htm  
          There are two ways that we can interpret the metaphor of the Ox.  There is the before enlightenment interpretation where the Ox represents our individual mind and the stages of our development start with our learning to become mindful of our mind.  Then we progress by learning to control and purify the mind and then eventually with a purified mind we can forget our self conscious efforts at training and then completely forget the self and enter into samadhi.  This samadhi experience also called Kensho or Satori is the essence of the enlightenment experience but a single experience does not make enlightenment.  True enlightenment comes from continued training that saturates one so deeply that it becomes part of everyday life.  So now the Ox or Buffalo represents not just our ever changing samsaric mind as we work to purify it but our True Self which we must experience again and again.  Now what does the Buffalo passing through the window represent?  Might the window represent the gateless gate and the Buffalo passing by the window our experience of kensho?  But still something is missing, there is no tail.  Does the tail represent our failure to completely let go?  Harada once told me that life was too short to completely purify the mind.  Even with a deep experience of kensho and them more experiences we still find ourselves at times caught in our ego bound individual perspective.  So we let go, and let go and let go again and again.

          More then just not being ever fully able to purify ourselves of ego we also need to recognize the deep mystery that we will never fully be able to clarify.  Dogen writes in the Genjo Koan:

When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.
 
​What is missing?  Well just about everything is missing, so much is a mystery that we ever grab just a little bit of the Truth.  Through our practice we might have realization after realization.  For those who have deep experience in zazen then our practice touches a never ending well of realization.  But we can never drink all the water in the well.  The water comes from a deeper source that we cannot even touch.  It is like this, What is the source of our realization?  Why has the Universe manifested in the self conscious form of a human being?  Why can this form become Self conscious?  When we intuit the Non-Dual then we understand that all dualistic explanation is incomplete. To open our eyes to the mystery is to open our eyes to the cosmic.  Every drop of water of water reflects the whole Universe because it is not  separate from the whole Universe.  Like wise we cannot be separated from the whole Universe which is our True Self.  Dogen continues:
  
 For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. 
Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.
 
All this writing about the mystery is a little bit beside the point because if you stop your thoughts and open your eyes and ears then all around is the mystery.  In the silence we intuit it but as soon as we open our mouths or try to explain it in writing the intuition is gone.  Like all Zen koans this koan is not about any specific understanding but rather about entering that place beyond dualistic understanding.