A Single Eye (26 page)

Rob said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” came the scraggly reply led by the old-timers. The words seemed to echo as new students realized they were expected to respond aloud.

Rob's head bobbed diffidently in response and when he spoke it was in a low, easy tone.

“This is the first of our sesshin talks. Maureen will be giving the one tomorrow, and Barry later on. The purpose of a lecture is to help us get through the hard work of Zen practice. You've been here three days now, and I don't have to tell you how hard it is getting up hours before dawn, in the cold, waiting in line in the bathhouse, waiting for your food—food you didn't choose—sitting on your zafu hour after hour after hour, until you run out of story lines in your mind and you have to face silence. We all ask ourselves—and other people definitely ask us—‘Are you crazy? Why did you seek out this practice? Why settle on something so foreign?' Not only is Zen Buddhism from Japan, by way of China, by way of India, but its basic teaching is beyond words.

“Roshi asked me to speak on the tale of the Sixth Patriarch, which is one of those stories that came from China to Japan to America, and here to this obscure monastery in California. Here's the story: The
Fifth
Patriarch was the head of a large monastery in ancient China. He was an important man. The monastery included a school for young monks, pretty much like a strict boarding school. You can picture it. The Fifth Patriarch was getting old, and he realized he had to choose a successor from among these student-monks of his. So he set them a test. Anyone who figured he had grasped what life really is—traditionally that's called enlightenment—could write a poem to show his understanding. Poetry was a valued art, and monks were given training in it.”

Rob paused, letting his eyes close a moment, giving all of us time to see the Chinese monastery in our minds. I was just relieved he believed it was Roshi, and not me, who had chosen the topic. Rob shifted forward.

“The test put the monks on the spot. Not only were they being asked to stand up in front of all their friends and fellow students and say I'm the best one, but they were going to have to read out their poems in public. So, as soon as the Fifth Patriarch left, the students batted the prospect back and forth among themselves. ‘You do it!' ‘No, you, you're always saying how smart you are!' ‘
I'm
not reading my poem in front of all you guys!' You can just imagine these boys. Finally, they all agreed that the best student would stick his neck out first. He was the senior monk; his name was Shen-hsui. Everyone had assumed all along that he would succeed the Fifth Patriarch.

“But, Shen-hsui wasn't about to read his poem in public in front of all the monks. Shen-hsui knew that even though he had done his best, worked hard, studied hard, he hadn't made the final leap of understanding. But he
was
the best student, the senior monk. So what could he do? No matter what he did he was likely to be humiliated. You have to feel sorry for the guy.”

I stared at Rob. Rob feeling sorry for anyone hadn't struck me as possible. Nor had it crossed my mind he could be so congenial a speaker. Around the zendo people were leaning toward him, smiling in the way of children at story hour. It was hard to believe this affable guy was the tyrant who yanked me out of the truck. I had sure assigned him the right topic.

“For Shen-hsui,” Rob said, “the poem was the equivalent to taking the SAT or the state bar exam, except that only one person was going to pass. So he slaved over that poem. Finally, when it was as perfect as he could make it, he still didn't have the nerve to read it aloud in front of everyone. Instead, he crept out in the middle of the night and wrote his poem on the wall where the Fifth Patriarch would spot it first thing in the morning. Then, if the Fifth Patriarch approved of it, he would step forward and say it was his. If not, he could slink away unnoticed.

“So morning comes. By this time the other monks have spotted the poem. They figure it's Shen-hsui's. There's been a buzz throughout the monastery. Everyone's hanging around the wall waiting for the Fifth Patriarch to come by. They're discussing the poem; they're thinking it's pretty right-on.

“Suddenly, someone sees the Fifth Patriarch, an old man, walking slowly down the path, probably leaning on a stick. The tension mounts. The Fifth Patriarch stops. He reads:

                    
The body is like the Bodhi tree

                    
The mind a clear mirror standing

                    
Clean the mirror without ceasing

                    
So not one speck of dust obscures it.

“The Fifth Patriarch considers. The tension is almost unbearable.”

Rob raised a hand, palm out. “I have to tell you now a couple things. This poem has been translated many times and my ‘poem' is my paraphrasing. For those of you who are new, the Bodhi tree is the tree the Buddha sat under while he meditated and became enlightened. It was almost like an outer skin, protecting him while he sat there.”

Rob paused, looking slowly around the room, deliberately letting the tension build. Maybe it was his courtroom experience, but he was a good storyteller, as the eager expressions on faces across from me attested.

“The students watched the Fifth Patriarch consider this poem that had already impressed them. Finally, the Fifth Patriarch signaled for incense and lit a stick in front of the poem. And everyone figured Shen-hsui had succeeded. He was in! Things were as they should be, as everyone expected all along. Off they went to celebrate.

“But, the Fifth Patriarch held Shen-hsui back. He told him that they both knew Shen-hsui was a very good student; he'd worked hard, but he still hadn't
seen
, he wasn't enlightened. He told Shen-hsui to keep at it, to try again.

“Meanwhile, the rest of the monks, Shen-hsui's friends, figured he'd succeeded. What's poor Shen-hsui going to tell them? You
really
have to feel sorry for this guy!

Rob paused again; this time his striking blue eyes remained open, but his gaze went opaque, and I wondered what he was thinking about Shen-hsui. Rob exhaled deeply.

“And that would seem to be the end of it. But . . . along came another monk, not an educated student like Shen-hsui but an illiterate kitchen helper, really the lowest of the grunts in the monastery. No one expected anything from this guy, except to scrub the pots out. But earlier, in fact, he had heard one of the sutras, the scripture poems, and he had become enlightened. And now when he heard Shen-hsui's poem, he knew it was wrong.

“So he got a friend to write another poem—his poem—on the same wall, next to Shen-hsui's:

                    
The body is not a bodhi tree

                    
There is no mirror standing

                    
Fundamentally nothing ‘is'

                    
So what is there for dust to cling to?

Small gasps came from around the zendo, even though the tale was familiar. Rob smiled.

“Exactly. Even in my paraphrasing, you heard the certainty in this pot-scrubber's poem, the arrogance.

“And so, when the Fifth Patriarch read the poem, he anointed the pot scrubber his successor, the Sixth Patriarch.”

Rob leaned down, picked up the teacup at the corner of his mat, and sipped slowly, as if to let the point settle in. But the tension from the story persisted and the payoff had been inadequate to relieve it. Rain splatted on the closed windows, the air seemed close, and the incense smoke thick. I remembered my momentary panic when Rob had demanded a topic. But this one hadn't come from nowhere. There had been some reason it had been in my mind.

Rob tilted the cup to his mouth, but the tea was already gone. He pretended to drink and replaced the cup.

“There are many points in this parable. The one most valuable for us, in the beginning of a long sesshin is not the obvious one, the Sixth Patriarch's show of his sudden understanding, but the more subtle one which is the Fifth Patriarch's treatment of Shen-hsui.

“What the Fifth Patriarch said to Shen-hsui was that he had not made that leap to understanding
yet
. But that all the work he had done was an essential base from which his leap would be made. That's why the Fifth Patriarch encouraged him to keep trying. Maybe—probably—if no one else had come along he would have succeeded. We'll never know, and that's not important. What is important for us is to understand that all the waiting in line, the taking tiny half-steps in kinhin, the sitting on the cushion without moving, the letting go of thoughts and coming back to silence, doing it over and over and over and over again; this is what we do, so that when a flash of understanding comes we are capable of seeing it.”

He sat back, reached for his cup, reconsidered, and drew his hand back.

When it became apparent that Rob was through speaking, Maureen raised her hand. Rob jerked toward her, as if he hadn't planned on entertaining questions. He glanced at his watch. I knew the schedule; it was too soon to cut off discussion.

He nodded.

Why
had
I given him this topic? Something had happened before I stepped out of Roshi's cabin and smacked into Rob.

Maureen leaned forward, almost off her cushion. She had a black shawl pulled tight around her shoulders but her hands poked out the bottom. Rather than resting in the mudra—right hand on left, thumbs very lightly touching—they were braced as she spoke.

“Like you said, there are a lot of ways to look at his tale. There's poor Shen-hsui, the guy who's so busy following the rules he has no room left for inspiration.”

Rob's lips started to curl, but he caught himself before they could reveal anything.

“But,” Maureen continued, “there's also the Fifth Patriarch, the roshi. What this tale makes clear is that the roshi is the total authority. He knows his students; he cares about them. But in the end, he makes his choice for the dharma. In the end, friendship, loyalty, investment—I mean of time—don't matter.”

Her voice did not drop to indicate the end of her sentence. She merely ceased speaking, leaving her words dangling, and to those of us who knew, dangling from the pronouncement was: no investment, of time or all Rob's money, would get him Leo's job when Leo was gone.
You're the rejected poem, don't you get it? What do you have to say about that?
she was tacitly demanding.

Still looking at Maureen, Rob stiffened. He opened his mouth, but Amber cut him off.

“But the whole point is that it's the pot scrubber who gets it, right? He, like,
sees
. He's the one the old roshi chose to take his place. Because he gets it. Like Aeneas, right?”

The room had seemed silent before, but now it was dead quiet. No swish of fabric, no hiss of breath; even the wind outside was silent. Amber's demand hung as in a void.

“Aeneas was an exceptional student,” Rob said, in a dismissive monotone.

I shot a glance at Amber, expecting to see shoulders hunched in fury. But she didn't look angry at all; her whole expression was eager, expectant.

“Rob,” Gabe said, in a languid tone that was so out of character I did a double take. “Was there a reason—?”

But Rob must have realized he was about to be sandbagged. He signaled the bell-ringer that the question period was over. The woman struck the gong while Gabe was still speaking, and the post-lecture chant cut off Gabe's final word midway.

Gabe raised his voice, but only those of us straining could have made out the rest of his question: “Was there a reason
you left off the end of the tale of the Sixth Patriarch
?”

The end of the tale was: After the Fifth Patriarch read the pot-scrubber's poem, he called the lowly monk to him in secret, and anointed him his successor. But he warned the pot scrubber not to mention his succession. In fact, he sent the pot scrubber away that very night, to travel in distant lands for twenty years, because had he stayed in their monastery the other monks would have killed him.

Now I remembered why the Sixth Patriarch had been on my mind yesterday. The book was open to it on Roshi's floor. As he began this sesshin dedicated to Aeneas, this was what Roshi had been pondering.

I followed Rob out of the zendo, onto the tiny porch through which the roshi enters and leaves, as was my job. Rob slid his feet into his boots, and kept moving. I couldn't bring myself to follow. Like Maureen said, there were a lot of interpretations of the tale of the Sixth Patriarch, but one struck home: the old Fifth Patriarch sent the Aeneas-like monk away, and he kept the senior student in the monastery where he could guide him, and, to make sure he didn't kill his rival when he returned.

The rain had almost stopped. Pale slits of blue sliced the sky and were squeezed away by big-momma clouds. Buddhist precepts of nonviolence aside, if Shen-hsui realized he was merely a placeholder for the anointed one, wouldn't he have been wise to kill the old roshi and take over before the upstart returned? To protect traditional Buddhism from upstarts, he would have said.