SHOYOROKU: CASE 69

KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING: NOTHING TO PROVE

(A teisho from a 1994 Rohatsu Sesshin, at Palolo, Hawaii)

Nansen said: "the Buddhas of the three worlds do not know it is. The otter and the white bull do know it is." Nansen was the ancestor of many of the ancestors that we talked about earlier in this sesshin. One of the great early teachers of Zen in the Chinese T'ang period, he was the brother monk of Hyakujo, teacher of Joshu, uncle in the Dharma of Obaku or Huang-po and great-uncle of Rinzai.

One day he addressed his assembly and said, "The Buddhas of the three worlds - past, present, future - do not know it is. The otter and the white bull do know it is". Sometimes those animals are rendered, "fox and badger know it is." Thomas Cleary translates "cats and cows know it is." Anyway, the graphs used for those animals are very obscure and ambiguous. Maybe it doesn't matter much.

Knowing and not-knowing. So much is made of this among contemporary teacher to a degree that one fears for one's intellect and "I don't know" becomes a stock response in koan study. But all this points to the place or the depth of consciousness where not-knowing or "I don't know" might be the only true expression. "All Buddhas of the three worlds do not know it is."

When the emperor asked Bodhidharma "What is the first principle of the holy teaching?", Bodhidharma replied, "Vast emptiness, nothing holy." A very unsatisfactory answer for the Emperor, who was known as the bodhisattva emperor because he immersed himself in Dharma studies and surrounded himself with courtiers who were knowledgeable about the Buddha Dharma and frequently held exchanges and discussions with them.

Of course, philosophically, one can say the first principle of the Buddha Dharma is that form is emptiness and emptiness is form, but how abstract can you be? "Nothing is to be called holy, there is nothing there at all," Bodhidharma said. "Then," the Emperor asks, "who is this standing there before me?" Who are you in your fine robes, your distinguished bearing, your venerable age, to say that the first principle of the holy teaching is vast emptiness, nothing holy? "I don't know," Bodhidharma replied. Mutual disappointment.

The Tao-te ching says, "the one who speaks does not know, the one who knows does not speak." It's a little different, isn't it. Or maybe we can take that to the ultimate too. It seems to me that the true teacher is always on the alert for that level of expression that is not too far away from the truly modest.

A monk came to Kassan, you remember, and said, "What if one sweeps away the dust and sees the Buddha?" Kassan said, "You must brandish your sword." Yes. Cut it down a little.

A monk came to Unmon, and said, "What if one realises, that's it!" Unmon said, "Golden-haired lion." Just reading this without any previous exposure to Unmon, or to Zen literature, one might suppose that Unmon is praising the monk for realising, "that's it." But you'll look in vain throughout Unmon's vast opus for any example of praise. Is this likely to be the exception? Well, no, not bloody likely.

In his one appearance in our study, Suigan addressed his assembly and said, "All summer I have been preaching to this assembly. Tell me, do I still have my eyebrows?" It is said that preaching false Dharma causes the eyebrows to fall off. Suigan was a brother in the Dharma of Unmon, Chokei, Hofuku, Gensha and other luminaries, who were all disciples of Seppo. What a wonderful assembly that must have been. Well, the great ones all became teachers and Suigan was the youngest. He led the first training period and his brother monks, now teachers, Unmon, Chokei, Hofuku, came along to help out.

That was the occasion for him saying, "All summer I have been preaching to you brothers, tell me do I still have my eyebrows?" Hofuku said, "The robber is in a funk." The Zen master who steals everything away is called a robber. The robber is dithering but Engo, the compiler of the Blue Cliff Record , says Suigan is a clear jewel with no flaw.

I think of Tokusan also, Seppo's teacher. Kaku the attendant said, "Where have all the past Buddhas and ancestral teachers gone?" Tokusan said, "What did you say?" Kaku said, "I commanded an exceedingly fine racehorse to spring forth, but only a lame tortoise appeared." Tokusan said nothing. Next day when Tokusan emerged from his bath, Kaku served him tea. Tokusan gave his shoulder a gentle pat and Kaku said, "Oh, the old boss has noticed for the first time." Tokusan again said nothing. Conveniently deaf, deliberately not using skilful means, and yet presenting clearly the best possible response to Kaku's initial question.

I have told this story before about going with Anne and Taisan, who later became Eido Roshi, in 1957 from Ryutakuji to Kyoto. Taisan had been born and raised in Kyoto and his father had been a lay resource person, an accountant really, for Nanzenji, so Taisan had grown up admiring the administrator of Nanzenji from afar but had never met him. Those big temples in Kyoto have two roshis, one the administrator, the other the teacher. So we went to call on him. Here he was in his middle eighties and Taisan made raihai before him, saying, "It is a great honour at last to be in the presence of the distinguished Roshi." And the Roshi was sitting there, saying, "Come on....don't do that."

It's so interesting for me, going back to the occasional observances at Ryutakuji where I trained so long ago, forty-four years ago, to meet the monks with whom I trained. I think the last time was at the installation of Sochu Roshi as the abbot, some of them coming in the most gorgeous finery - silk and brocade robes, gorgeous colours - and some of them much more modest, Soshu Roshi himself in a very modest outfit, and Soen Roshi too, of course.

But ie this a matter of mere modesty, pretending to be unskilful, pretending to be deaf? Is it an act, or is it something really neurotic? The reason that many people are in prison is that they are convinced they are criminals. You can't get to then by appealing to a so-called "better-nature". I remember when I worked as a counsellor in a juvenile hall in San Bernadino in California, one of the squares in my chequered career, I very quickly found if I praised a kid, he would immediately mess up. But if I took a kid to task and gave him hell, two minutes later he was coming around and saying, hey, do you want to play a game of ping-pong? No, that's not the case here.

One of the things I had noticed at Ryutakuji and at Enkakaju before that was the confidence with which those monks comported themselves. I couldn't really understand that. I thought, "Aren't they being a little arrogant?" Well, for sure some were. Those were the ones who went on to become such successful priests in the hierarchy and to wear such beautiful robes. But they were proving something, weren't they? A true teacher is the one with nothing to prove, it seems to me. The truly mature Zen student has nothing to prove.

When Nansen was a young monk, he went to call on Hyakujo Nehan. Hyakujo Nehan's teacher was Nansen's brother in the dharma, but twenty-eight years older than he was, so more experienced. So Hyakujo Nehan asked him, "Is there a secret and supreme Dharma that has never been expounded for people by any of the holy ones from the past?" Nansen said, "Yes, there is." You see, really confident. What is this secret and supreme document that has never been expounded for the people?" And Nansen said, "It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not being," quoting indirectly from the Lotus Sutra, and that much of the case appears in the Mumonkan. But then in the Blue Cliff Record we have the rest of the story, Hyakujo Nehan saying, "Oh, you have expounded like that!" "How about you Achariya, how about you honoured priest?" Oh," said Hyakujo Nehan, "I am not a great Zen master, how should I know whether or not there's a secret and supreme Dharma that has never been expounded for people?" Nansen said, "I don't understand." Hyakujo Nehan said, " I have already expounded fully for you."

There are many stories of this kind. One is another about Joshu. A monk came to Joshu and said, "I have long heard about the great stone bridge of Joshu, but I have come and found only a simple log bridge." Joshu said, "You don't see the stone bridge, you only see the simple log bridge." Joshu lived in the town by that name, and just outside the town was, and still is an architectural wonder called the Bridge of Joshu. It had been built two-hundred or more years before Joshu's time, and still stands. And Joshu, in keeping with the custom of China and Chinese Buddhism, had been honoured with the name of his locality, the way we used to call Duke Kahanamoku, Mister Honolulu - we were very proud of him as an Olympic champion. So of course you see the metaphor here - I have long heard about the great stone bridge of Joshu but I have come and found a simple stone bridge, two logs bound together, a poor excuse for a bridge, this shrivelled-up old priest, a poor excuse for a Zen master, the monk was thinking. So Joshu said "You don't see the stone bridge you only see the simple log bridge." If he was speaking in Japanese, he would say, "Ah so....I see, is that so?"

I remember going to one of the early Roshi conferences. These were organised by Abe Masao Sensei, a great scholar of Zen Buddhism and they continued for about three years annually and then fell apart when the scandals broke in San Francisco first, then Los Angeles and New York. Anyway, on this occasion we had our conference at Bodhi Mandala which is Sasaki Roshi's centre in New Mexico, way up in the mountains, pretty cold at that time of the year, which I think was spring, and pretty rude too, not very elegant accommodations at all. And we had an evaluation meeting at the end, and one of the teachers, a man originally from Japan said, in Japanese, "Well, with this kind of service I don't think I'll come to another teacher's meeting." You know he used the Japanised English word, sabis, which means more than the English word "service", it means generally food, lodgings, and all the rest of it. Well, O.K. Nobody said much about that but he doesn't qualify here as one who is conveniently deaf and acts unskilfully.

Yamada Roshi used to say, there is nothing to distinguish the truly realised person from anybody else, and he himself realised that truth going to work every day on the train in his blue suit, white shirt and tie and trilby hat, completely indistinguishable from the hordes of other businessmen going to Tokyo to work. And one day when I came home from Tokyo, and was on the bus riding to our apartment, somebody tapped me on the shoulder one stop before mine, and I looked up and here it was, Yamada Roshi, who had been on the same train and on the same bus and I hadn't even noticed him and he was getting off at his stop. But he still appears in my dreams as my true teacher.

-Robert Aitken 1994

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[Last updated: 7 February 1998]

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KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING: NOTHING TO PROVE

Shoyoroku: Case 69

by

Robert Aitken, Roshi

This text addresses some of the most fundamental and delicate religious issues. Therefore, it should be read, quoted and analysed in a mindful way.

Originally published in MOON MIND CIRCLE, Summer 1994 pp.14-16.

Text digitized by Don Brown, Canberra Zen Group.

Copyright © by Robert Aitken and Sydney Zen Center

251 Young St., Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038, Australia.

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