I once accompanied a group of Vietnamese Zen Buddhists to visit Zen monasteries in China. The group was composed of many abbots, abbesses, and lay people, mostly of Vietnamese descent, who had come from around the world to take part in the tour. One evening we met with the abbot of a famous Chinese Zen monastery for a short visit.
Having just returned from a trip out of town, the abbot had taken an hour out of his very busy and exhausting schedule to meet us. He could have made small talk and sent us on our way, but instead he sought to connect to this important group of Zen worthies by speaking directly to the heart of the matter, by talking about an important Zen insight to these long-time practitioners. I think he surprised the group, or at least he surprised me, by stating openly that Zen did not subscribe to Marxist “dialectical materialist” philosophy. He also said that contrary to widespread belief, Zen also did not subscribe to the opposite philosophical idea, the philosophy of the mind called “idealism” in traditional Western philosophy. Instead, he said, Zen is based on the perception that the nature of the mind cannot be known in any philosophical way. The way that Zen views things is “not material, not mind, things not separate, things not united. Not one, not two.” Awakening, the abbot said, was of a place beyond all such categories, in fact liberated from such categories, and it might come about suddenly. The abbot went on to explain that the methods Mazu and others sometimes employed, like blows and shouts, must be understood in context. “Such methods can't just be taken up randomly,” the abbot said. “You can't just take some ignorant person and hit them or shout at them and expect anything to come of it. People subject to this sort of behavior must be ready for it, perhaps through long meditation and study. They must be prepared for this experience for it to have any meaning.”
Another aspect of the antinomian idea relates to how Zen masters treated sentient life. I know of two old stories where Zen teachers are said to have intentionally killed other beings. In one story a Zen master kills a snake in the garden. But the most famous such story is about Mazu's disciple Nanquan, and in my view the incident involved was not “antinomian ” at all, but a purposeful teaching about a vitally important Zen principle, taught with an extreme example of violating the precept against taking life. That story is entitled “Nanquan Kills the Cat,” and is recorded in Zen records as follows:
The monks of the temple were arguing about a cat. Nanquan picked it up and, brandishing a knife, said to the monks, “Say the appropriate word, and you'll save the cat. If you don't say it, the cat gets cut in two!”
The monks were silent. Nanquan cut the cat in two.
Later, Zhaozhou returned from outside the temple, and Nanquan told him what had happened. Zhaozhou then removed his sandals, placed them on his head, and left.
Nanquan called after him, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved!”
First of all, this classic Zen story could be considered exhibit A for demonstrating how Zen's down-to-earth and personal stories often appear, on their face, utterly stupid and illogical. Taken alone and out of context, such stories seem totally bizarre. But in the proper context, when they are personalized for the reader or listener, their meaning becomes clear, and their wisdom is conveyed.
We don't know for certain whether this incident actually occurred or was created later to make a point. Certainly if it describes a real event, it is an especially astonishing story. Nanquan, a great Zen master, appears to willfully kill an innocent sentient being because his students couldn't say an “appropriate word.” What the hell could this mean?
Simply put, matters of life and death depend on our ability and willingness to acknowledge and speak the truth. Whether we're talking about ninth-century China or our twenty-first-century world, life-and-death matters require that we see the truth for what it is and then speak immediately and truthfully about what we see. This might be called the social aspect of Bodhidharma's “observing.”
When Nanquan's student Zhaozhou, the same Zhaozhou famous for the
mu koan
previously mentioned, placed his sandals on his head and walked out of the room, he really demonstrated transcendent understanding. But how?
Zhaozhou's action had two essential aspects. On the one hand, he “went out,” demonstrating that it is the one who stands outside the wheel of birth and death, the one who in both a symbolic and literal sense goes outâthat is, “leaves home”âwho can best speak the “appropriate word.” When the Great Lie is promulgated, it's the one who has not accepted its definitions, the one who isn't invested in the lie, who can speak clearly and with authority to expose it. Zhaozhou also put his sandals on his head. This just reinforces the previous point, for it is the one who is not in a defined position, someone whose shoes are not
positioned where the world has defined them as appropriate, who can and must speak the word required to save life.
All Zen
koans
teach about something very close to us. They are personal. This story, like all Zen stories, is about something so close we tend to overlook it. Buddhist monks are home-leavers and, at least in the ancient world if not the modern world, their views commanded some respect simply because people knew they didn't speak from a position of personal self-interest.
Nanquan's age, like all ages, was in a critical political way not so different from ours. Who is it, then and now, who will speak the appropriate word and save the cat?
16. Youmin Temple
YOUMIN TEMPLE, jammed between buildings in the central part of Nanchang City, is all but deserted. In years past several monks lived and practiced here, but it seems that as country monasteries have opened, many monks have left the noisy environment of the city to practice in the quiet of the mountains. But I enjoy visiting here because it retains all the traditional three halls I've previously described. At the back end of the temple complex, a large Dharma Hall remains standing. Unlike other halls, inside there are no big statues of Buddha or other figures, just some works of calligraphy and art on display and a place where people can sit and hear lectures from a teacher.
I've mentioned that such halls were “signless,” without statues of Buddhas and the like. But there was, strictly speaking, one sign of the Dharma that could be seen there. The old Zen master who spoke to the monks would wear his formal robe. The robe, a patchwork of squares traditionally said to represent fields of rice or grain, was an important symbol that monks wore to signify the Dharma. However, it should be noticed that even in this example the robe represented the signlessness of the teaching. It did not reveal some arcane symbolism but was simply a representation of ordinary life, made up of a patchwork that represented the checkered fields where farmers work their crops. In Zen Buddhism, just that ordinary signless place, shown in the assembled patchwork of the Buddha's robe, is taken as the ultimate “signless” symbol, worn by someone who has left the rest of us behind.
17. The Trip to Baizhang Temple
AROUND ELEVEN O'CLOCK in the morning, the Nanchang central bus station is concealed behind a mass of people. The taxi driver motions me toward where there must be a ticket office, but I can't see it in the churning crowd. Weaving and dodging, I squeeze my gear between buses, bicycles, and every other manner of motorized and nonmotorized vehicles that are all pinched into the street. I look for the entrance to the bus station, but, failing to see it, I simply push in the direction of some buses I see parked behind an iron fence. I pass through a gate into the bus yard and realize I've just gone through an exit gate and so now must walk through the parked buses to get to the doors of the main terminal building. Reaching there, I see that I've entered the main station without buying a ticket or passing through security. I pause to buy a bottle of water from a vendor and ask her where the ticket office is. She motions toward the area outside of the security X-ray machine, so I pass the security checkpoint going the wrong direction into the ticket-selling area. There I find five ticket-selling windows, but four are empty, and the one window manned with a ticket seller has a very long line. The line ends at a small stack of luggage and bags, which seems to indicate that someone is holding their place in line with these objects. I stand behind them, and within moments some people walk in front of me and take a position in line in front of the bags. I mutter something in Chinese about “not understanding proper etiquette” and move close behind the newcomers so that no more people can crowd in front of me. After some time, I reach the front of the line and ask for a ticket to the country town of Fengxin (pronounced
Fung-sin
). I buy my ticket, and the woman behind the window says I should “go outside and down the street” to catch the bus. Her talk is garbled by the bad microphone-speaker setup, but I dutifully go outside into the street again and ask some attendants at a taxi stand where the bus will arrive. They motion
toward a nearby bus stop. Then I see a bus whose front sign says it is going to Fengxin, but it's apparently already departed, and my ticket says my bus doesn't leave for another half hour. The bus in the street doesn't look too promising anyway. It's stuffed with people and covered with a thick layer of dust and grime. I watch the bus attempt to run the blockade of vehicles in front of the station. It's having a hard time. After about ten minutes it finally clears the area. In the meantime I'm subjected to a passenger bus that's just arrived from the countryside that has a man unloading live pigs from inside bags in the luggage compartment under the passengers. Some of the pigs, sensing they've arrived at their doom, are squealing inside the bags. A few have escaped from their bags but are groggy and confused, apparently from the heat of their ride next to the bus engine. I recite a mantra for their benefit and retreat in the crowd to a place next to a noodle restaurant and snack stand. After I've stood there a few minutes, one of the locals ventures a “hello” in English, and I say hello back. Before long, I'm surrounded by a crowd of people all delighted to chat with a foreigner that speaks Chinese. Laughing and joking with them takes my mind off the pigs. When one of them asks where I'm going, I say Fengxin, and he motions to a bus stop farther down the street. Soon I manage to break away from the crowd by threatening to take everyone's picture. They scatter, and I walk to the other bus stop. But there I don't see anything to indicate that my bus will arrive. As the departure time on my ticket draws close, I figure something is wrong. No intercity buses have stopped at this bus stop. With only a couple of minutes to go, I return to the “exit” where I went in before and go toward the buses. There's an attendant there and I show him my ticket and ask where my bus will load. He points me to a place on the far side of the bus parking lot, and I realize for the first time that there's a second bus terminal there, down the street and close to where I was standing outside at the bus stop. I suddenly realize that the bus stop I'm supposed to go to is in that second terminal, not on the street, and so I hurry across the wide parking lot toward that terminal. My bus will leave any second. Frantically I read the destination on every bus parked along the boarding area. There it is! A bus to Fengxin! I dash over to the bus and the bus conductor, seeing me coming, yells to me to get aboard and grabs my ticket out of my hand, saying, “I'll get it punched for you.” Naturally I haven't gone into the second station
properly either, haven't gone through security, and haven't gone through the line where you get your ticket punched before you board the bus. I fall panting into an empty seat at the rear of the bus. Seconds later the ticket conductor rushes down the aisle toward me, my punched ticket in her outstretched hand. The door closes. The bus lurches, then crosses the wide parking lot toward the exit. The road leaving the bus station passes a flower store over which a sign inexplicably reads DESPOT FLOWERS in both English and Chinese (a gift for your favorite despot?). We bounce into the confusing and tightly jammed chaos of the main street. Another trip into the Chinese countryside successfully begins.
Three times previously I've tried to go to Baizhang Temple, and each time I was forced to turn back due to road construction. It's been two years since my last attempt, and I'm hopeful the roads are fully passable now. Twenty minutes out of Nanchang City, the bus crosses the Gan River and heads west on a four-lane highway. Some previous trips in this area have caused me to dread this stretch of road. Two lanes run each direction, east and west, and although there is a divider between lanes going in opposite directions, it is only intermittent, apparently so cars can turn across the other lanes to exit the highway. The trouble is that it is common for drivers impatient with the progress in their own lanes to pass completely into the two lanes going in the opposite direction and go headlong toward oncoming traffic whenever they think they can get away with it. Then the divider appears again, and they are stranded going the wrong direction, and everyone is forced to squeeze together to avoid head-on collisions at high speed. I'm pretty used to China's wild highways. Now I hardly notice things that once seemed shocking and still scare the daylights out of other foreigners. But I've never gotten used to this particular stretch of road, the Zen Country Highway of Death.
The highway is also a nightmare because pedestrians, animals, and nonmotorized vehicles clutter its edges and are all but impossible to see in the darkness of the night or late evening. Once, as I traveled here at night in a small van with a group from the United States, we were shocked to see a small child, maybe four or five years old, walking next to the divider in the center of the lanes while cars raced by in each direction. We were in the left lane, closest to the child, and we yelled at our driver to stop. He refused. There was absolutely no way to stop
without causing a pileup. One of the members of our group claimed she saw someone who was probably accompanying the child, but I didn't see that.