Category Archives: Eastern Teachers

Teachers primarily of Japanese, Chinese, Korean cultures

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rohatsu highlights 4: the unnamed buddhas

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Elder Ting asked Lin-chi,
“Master, what is the great meaning of Buddha’s teachings?”
Lin-chi came down from his seat, slapped Ting and pushed him away.
Ting was stunned and stood motionless.
A monk nearby said, “Ting, why do you not bow?”
At the moment Ting bowed, he awakened.

Enkyo roshi told this story and I expected the direction to be something about being one with the bow.  Or maybe that asking impertinent questions only gets you smacked by Old Guys. Or something about the Noble Trueness of being Lin-chi which is license to behave with disconstraint.  Instead she said, “Isn’t it interesting to see all the unnamed buddhas in our lives who speak up and bring us to our practice.”  (That’s not verbatim; remember I’m still in Rohatsu fog.)  The point was that Elder Ting would not have crossed to the other shore without the gentle nudge of the anonymous bodhisattva on the sidelines.  I would add that Elder Ting also would not have awakened if his own body had not responded out of a deep training that now made it instinctive to surrender the ego.

I’ve come to love this story for all its many layers of humility and humanness.  I imagine Elder Ting practising diligently every morning.  He gets up in the dark to brush off the mats, prepare the altar, and arrange the flowers placed there the night before and now slightly wilting from the cold.  His robes fall to the floor from the bones of his shoulders, hanging disconsolate from age and weather.  He is a man proud of his efforts and his years of digging into the dharma; and yet, there is something that eludes him.  There in the candle wick that catches from the ember he holds to it, there in the incense tip that flames then settles into a glow.  It eludes him.  He sweeps his arms out and closes the palms together in gassho.  He drops to his knees and prostrates, fully embracing the earth under him.  Over and over, making no assumptions that his age or accumulated wisdom release him from this act of humility.  Somewhere in this flow, he believes, is the essence of the teachings.  And yet, it eludes him.  Moment after moment, day after day, year after year, he practises, believing that this great meaning of the Buddha’s teachings will reveal itself.  I wonder if he didn’t begin to feel a dryness in the repeated actions, if that doesn’t underlie the question he posed to Master Linchi, “What is the great meaning of the Buddha’s teachings?”

This is just my take on it and, much of it, my projection into the creature, Ting.  I can empathize fully with the sting of Lin-chi’s slap.  Been there, got it, sold the rights to that story.  But I never noticed the miracle that happened right after.

Elder Ting is standing there stunned.  How could this be?  I can imagine (projecting again): After all I’ve practised?  After all I’ve done?  After what I’ve accomplished?  WTF!  (I’m wondering about the Chinese characters for WTF.)  This a door knob moment.  This is a take-my-marbles-home moment.  But before he can exhale into that retreat, the unnamed buddha speaks up.  He moves into the pivotal space between the in- and out-breath.  “Why don’t you bow, Elder Ting?”  Yes.  Why don’t you simply do what you have been practising all along lo these many years?  Your mind has recoiled but your body has not.  It knows what is needed to meet this moment authentically.

Is it Elder Ting who bows?

Is it the universe of invisible and unnamed buddhas he embodied in that moment?

It occurs to me that I didn’t get here alone.  Caught in the sting of Lin-chi’s slap, I tend to forget that.  With the generosity of all the unnamed buddhas, I return to practice.

Thank you, all you unnamed and invisible buddhas, for practising,

Genju

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rohatsu highlights 1: fire

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This year, the ramp up to Santa Season feels very different.  Last year, at this time we were on our way to the beach in North Carolina and had just battled our way through a double storm system that shut down Pennsylvania and Virginia; I seem to recall much whinging from one squirrel blogger about being snowed in with yeti.  I’m grateful for the quiet this year.  Things have proceeded apace with little drama and a delightful amount of dharma.  That is, if you don’t count a momentary fire in the kitchen when the gluten-free bread baking in breadmaker decided to ignite.  I was on a conference call so missed all the drama but idea of my kitchen in flames did connect with what I shared with my group about my intentions with respect to entering the Chaplaincy program.

In the first talk of Rohatsu (which is online on the Upaya website), Roshi Joan described the experiences of Guishan Lingyou when he was the head cook at Baizhang’s monastery.  When Guishan was attending the abbott, Baizhang, he was asked to poke around in the fireplace to see if there was anything there.  Guishan said, “It’s dead.”  Baizhang went over and dug into the ashes and drew out an ember.  “Isn’t this fire?” he asked.  Guishan awoke.  (See also Enlightenment Unfolds by Kaz Tanahashi for a terrific exploration of this story.)

For many of us, practice is a fragile spark, easily put out by the tugs and pulls of our life and our desires of that life.  And I don’t mean just spiritual practice, though I don’t believe there is a difference between spiritual and “other” practice.  Without the right fuel, we die.  Unfortunately, we think fuel means that perfect relationship, job, friend, what-have-you.  I know I came to a point in my path where all that had failed me, and failed me continuously enough that I couldn’t remain deluded (though I still try my best to remain so).  I also could only see the ashes and, like Guishan, made an assumption.  “It’s dead.”  That friendship, that marriage, that career, that opportunity gone.  All dead.

Still deluded, what I wanted more than anything was for someone, something to ignite my life.  Bring on that passion, open up my heart, see right into the depths of Me and make it all right anyway.  These events were the Baizhangs of my life showing me how to dig deeper.  But they only hold up the ember.  The ember is not a flame.  It is the potential of everything.  It is this ember that I carried into the Chaplaincy program.  It is this ember that will catch when time, causes and conditions embrace.  Baizhang said, “When the time comes, delusion immediately turns into enlightenment and forgetting turns into remembering.  If we contemplate buddha-nature, we realize that buddha-nature is ours.  It doesn’t come from somewhere else.”

I am reminded of the chant before a dharma talk:

The dharma is vast and subtle.
We now have a chance to hear it, study it, and practice it.
We vow to realize its true meaning.

This is the ember.  This is my intention as a chaplaincy candidate.  The theme of sesshin was “Buddhas and all the buddhas” and Sensei Kaz distinguished between upper case Buddha and lower case buddhas.  I think the same can be said for Chaplains and all the chaplains.  Chaplaincy is not something that interests me.  But chaplaincy… now that is the flame.

Thank you for practising,

Genju