Xiangyan’s Great Enlightenment
Zen master Zhixian of Mount Xiangyan [Xideng] was bright in nature. Being at the assembly of Guishan, he was well learned and had extensive memory.
Guishan one day said to Xiangyan, “Everything you say is what you’ve memorized from commentaries. Now I am going to ask you a question. When you were an infant—before you could even distinguish east from west—at that time, how was it?”
Xiangyan spoke and presented his understanding, explaining the principle, but could not get approval. He went through the texts he had collected and studied, but he could not find an answer that would satisfy the master.
Deeply grieved and in tears, he burned all his books and commentaries. Then he said to himself, “I will never understand Zen in this lifetime. I will become a hermit monastic and enter a mountain and practice.”
Thus he entered Mount Wudang and built a hut near the grave site of National Teacher Nanyang. One day while he was sweeping the path, a pebble struck a stalk of bamboo and made a cracking sound. At that moment he suddenly had a great enlightenment experience…
Kazuaki Tanahashi (Translator), John Daido Loori, The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Three Hundred Koans Hardcover, Case 17.
Please sit comfortably.
The crack of stone on bamboo is taken from Case 17 of Dogen’s 300 koans, translated by Kazuaki Tanashi. But we don’t have to look so far away for that crack! sound that echoes between hills and vibrates in our own diaphragms. We can find it here as well. Xiangyan’s story is one told often enough that it can become trite, but let’s not allow it that fate. Find yourself in it here on Samish Island.
The story starts with an introduction to Xiangyan as learned and having a good memory. His teacher Guishan asks him, how was it before he was potty trained, before he could speak, before hindrances of his own ideas that clouded what he saw and heard?
As I was writing this, my wife called me from her visit to our grandsons and told me that two-and-a-half-year-old Cooke has learned to tell jokes. With a smile, he looked at her, pointed to his shoes, and said, “Grandma’s shoes.” They both laughed and played with the silly idea of whose shoes were whose. Fascinated, I told this story to my brother, and he told me that an almost-three-year-old grand nephew of mine has learned to lie. It’s innocent stuff, of course – how did this toy get broken? “I don’t know; it wasn’t me,” came the response.
My nephew has loving parents and grandparents, and he’s barely fluent in speaking. Already he feels the need to hide, present a persona that is not him. It’s cute to see, but also wonderous – innocent deceit comes before the ability to make a plan or articulate a story. At two and three years old, there are already overlays to what we might perceive as reality.
Before hearing about this from my wife and brother I hadn’t recognized Guishan’s wisdom in asking Xiangyan to go back to infancy for his response. You and I have been formulating ideas about ourselves and our world for a long time – compassion is warranted for ourselves and each other for what we are doing here today.
We today are all learned in ways, and Guishan asks us too, how was it before we had language to form our elevator pitch for what we will do for a week of sesshin? For his part and in response, Xiangyan explained the principles and did not satisfy Guishan. Xiangyan read the sutras, and studied fine texts and we are told he still did not satisfy Guishan. Xiangyan himself was apparently not satisfied either; he wept, despaired of ever understanding, burned his books, no longer found support in sangha, and became a mountain hermit. The words of the story are sparse, but the hopelessness and shame are palpable.
Start here. We all have our moments when understanding is elusive, zazen is perfunctory, and we despair of understanding. I don’t know what brought Xiangyan to a place of practice to begin with, or what in his world was burning that drove him to it. He likely didn’t just sashay into the Zen center instead of the gelato shop. The world has always been burning, personally and collectively. The myth of the Buddha begins with the observable and universal turmoil of illness, and death, to which we can add the less observable tension among us, and fears of the Huns coming over the rise. Here on Samish Island, we practice with friends and ancestors in that very same world.
None of us choose turmoil and fear, but no matter – start here, at the headwaters from which zazen springs. Sesshin is an especially fortuitous place for these headwaters. We’re held by the schedule, and the simple activities we share in supporting ourselves and each other in sitting, cooking, eating, and sleeping. There is little to figure out, and any need for explanation is fleeting – the cleaning supplies are in that closet, or I’ll sweep the dining room after lunch. That leaves now to just sweep, just listen to words spoken. Take that freedom, no need to wait to release all else.
Without parsing, let the passages of sutras wash over you, like this one from the Heart Sutra:
Since there is nothing to attain, the Bodhisattva lives by Prajna Paramita,
with no hindrance in the mind; no hindrance and therefore no fear;
far beyond delusive thinking, right here is Nirvana.
Vanishingly little is needed from our discriminating minds today. We can burn the books without putting a match to our sutra books – let our concepts and conclusions about them dissolve into ash by our chanting and hearing. I’m not dismissing the words we chant each morning and evening. They are here for our benefit, but not to foster new concepts. Listen carefully and receive them as they are, calling us to release all concepts, and to foster the falling away of sweeping and not sweeping, and of listening and not listening.
Form and emptiness can take care of themselves without our stewardship. Without concept of one and many there is stone, there is stalk of bamboo, broom and path. There is this dance of 30 people sharing air and light.
“Crack!” of stone on bamboo on another day could be without knowledge of a stone, just “crack” – here. Receptivity is broken open with recognition of the “tock” sound inseparable from despair, broom, maker of broom, path, bamboo…all in one sweeping dance with the song of stone on bamboo.
Xiangyan didn’t have to listen better on that day. All he had to do was to hear. He didn’t have to extinguish turmoil; turmoil too, is pierced by the “tock” of stone and bamboo.
“Tock” pierces stone, bamboo, sweeper, broom, and despair. “Tock” echoes from mountains to the ocean. It isn’t that self is gone, but there is “tock” so penetrating that there is no concept of self, no concept of “crack!” to dilute the sound of stone on the hollow stalk of bamboo. There is no distinction of stone, stalk, or echoing hills. “Crack!”
The message of burning books is amplified in other stories, such as Gateless Barrier case 28, in which Diamond Sutra expert Te-shan visited Lung-t’an, leading to this passage:
Te-shan visited Lung-t’an and questioned him sincerely far into the night. It grew late and Lung-t’an said, “Why don’t you retire?” Te-shan made his bows and lifted the blinds to withdraw, but was met by darkness. Turning back he said, “It is dark outside.”
Lung-t’an lit a paper candle and handed it to Te-shan. Te-shan was about to take it when Lung-t’an blew it out. At this, Te-shan had sudden realization and made bows.
Aitken, Robert. The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan) (p. 220). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
Te-shan didn’t have to extinguish the light of discriminating mind, without the candle it was dark, and he lost distinctions of door, inside, and outside. Without a plan or design, hands together, his waist bent in a bow to Lung-t’an. The story continued in this way:
… The next day Lung-t’an took the high seat before his assembly and said, “I see a brave fellow among you monks. His fangs are like a sword-tree. His mouth is like a blood-bowl…”
Te-shan brought his notes on the Diamond Sutra before the Dharma Hall and held up a torch, saying, “Even though you have exhausted the abstruse doctrines, it is like placing a hair in vast space. Even though you have learned all the secrets of the world, it is like letting a single drop of water fall into an enormous valley.” And he burned up all his notes. Then, making his bows, he took leave of his teacher.
(ibid)
Fittingly, the fate of Te-shan did not turn on a word, but on the falling away of light. In the absence of the candle flame, what was left? Please don’t take that question as something to figure out. In fact, don’t take anything I say as something to figure out or understand. Rather than listening, trust yourself to hear, to receive sound and word, inflection and gesture. The discriminating mind can be dark.
In his verse for this case, Wu-Men welcomes the role of eyes and ears, word and sensation, without re-lighting the candle for us.
Seeing the face is better than hearing the name;
hearing the name is better than seeing the face.
He saved his nose,
but alas he lost his eyes.Aitken, Robert. The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan) (p. 222). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
I looked up a couple of translations on this case; in all of them Te-shan burned his notes and commentaries, and not the Diamond Sutra itself. And though he burned his own notes, he spoke in answer to Lung-t’an’s question as to what he realized, and he wrote the poem that I will read soon. Though he burned his previous notes, he still bows, speaks, and goes forward through the temple gates and into the vast world. Lung-t’an said Te-shan was a brave fellow, risking all that might befall him when he released the protective constructs we all build to keep us safe from what might happen, from being foolish, and from tripping on the risk we failed to plan for. He was brave again when bowing and speaking, willing to stand up and receive what comes back to bite him.
We practice together, not withdrawn but fully engaged. Being fully engaged risks everything with every breath. Let down completely and see, hear, breathe, and Mu. When we do so, we are naked and exposed, and we are free, unencumbered.
Returning to Dogen’s case 17, Xiangyan gives us a poem as well, expressing his understanding:
One crack and all knowledge has dissolved.
The struggle is over.
I follow the ancient Way, not lapsing into doubt.
Dignified bearing and conduct
that is beyond sound and form;
no trace remains of my passing.
Those who have mastered the Way
call this the unsurpassable activity
Kazuaki Tanahashi (Translator), John Daido Loori, The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Three Hundred Koans Hardcover, Case 17.
Letting all knowledge dissolve is how we follow the ancient Way. But Xingyuan didn’t dissolve anything – at the right time the crack! did.
This is not esoteric; you may have your own example of dissolving in daily life. I’m going to use a personal story from a composite of experiences with those I care about. It isn’t my intension to diminish the story of Xinyuan, but I also don’t want to leave Xinyuan as too grand either.
The story that comes to mind for me arises when I so clearly want to help relieve the suffering of someone I love. I offer suggestions of what they can do or should do – I may as well give directions on driving from here to Hawaii. Forcefulness and reason make it worse.
Letting all dissolve, I’m left only with what’s here and what’s possible, including the suffering that doesn’t abate, sadness, and ease in the love and companionship. Dissolve is a lovely word to use here; nothing disappears or is extinguished. To dissolve is to blend inextricably into solution such that what’s dissolved and the solution can not be distinguished as two. In the case of me and my loved one, on a good day, what dissolves is the fantasy that it was ever otherwise.
If it helps, remember your own story of letting go and open receptivity. By doing so, Te-shan’s story is your story, not in words, but in body and mind.
With intimate engagement in every shuffling sound and bird call, every breath and mu, knowledge dissolves. With intimate engagement, the struggle is over.
I’ll finish with a statement from Dogen:
When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharmas intimately. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark.
Dogen, Eihei. Dogen’s Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries, commentary by Nishiari Bokusan, (p. 57). Catapult. Kindle Edition.