One day a monk asked Master [Qingyuan Xingsi ]: “What was Master Bodhidharma’s intention in coming to China from India?”
[Qingyuan ] said: “He just acted as he was.”
The monk said: “Would you tell me again what you just said right now in words that I can understand?”
[Qingyuan ] said: “Come here!”
The monk approached his master.
[Qingyuan ] said: “Remember this clearly!”
Gudo Wafu Nishijima , Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo; 301 Koan Stories, p. 17.
This story is taken from Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo; 301 Koan Stories. Dogen compiled this collection without commenting on the stories, and then used them as a source for his writings and talks. The translator of this collection also noted that Dogen had a different definition of the word “koan” than used in the tradition of Lin-chi. Quoting the translator on this topic:
Master Dogen used the word koan to mean Dharma or the Universe that we are living in, as in Shobogenzo Genjo-koan (The Realized Universe)…
In this, Case 10, the monk asked:
“What was Master Bodhidharma’s intention in coming to China from India?”
The question was a common one for the time. It’s a question befitting us when first sitting, wondering what this Zen business is all about, wondering what’s possible here for each of us. And that is, befitting us when first learning to sit, and also when first sitting today with minds full of tasks and plans.
It’s befitting also after sitting for a long time; if there is no separation, no delusion, and no end of delusion, why do we ring bells and place our hands in our lap? Again, true after years of Zen training, and true after days of quiet focus now.
Qingyuan replied, “He just acted as he was,” responding in the character of the question and as if he was talking about Bodhidharma. How do you take this reply? It’s offered in past tense, and we could conclude that it could be offered in reference to any past behavior of anyone. In that perspective it tells us nothing new or useful. So, let’s look again.
Qingyuan does not aggrandize nor minimize the Patriarch Bodhidharma, but what is he affirmatively saying?
The monk didn’t understand and thankfully, after Qingyuan’s reply, tried again.
“Would you tell me again what you just said right now in words that I can understand?”
In all sincerity and revealing his ignorance, I’ll paraphrase the monk as asking – “I don’t get it master. Please say it another way. I really want to understand!”
The story is in gendered language translated from T’ang dynasty China; we can reject it or feel rejected by it in 1,000 ways, and in each of those ways we are no different than this monk. You and I try again with each breath and each period. We try again in response to the Safeway checker asking, “Is that everything?” We try again when we are confused and taking in the angry yells of a loved one. Help me understand.
The monk is paying attention. Otherwise, he could say, “Whatever,” roll his eyes and check his Instagram. But he is paying attention, trying again.
Thankfully, Qingyuan once again responds:
“Come here!”
The monk asked about Bodhidharma coming from India to China generations before him, and in answer Qingyuan is speaking directly to the monk now. No longer about history or tradition, this is a statement from one individual to another. We are the monk, no longer listening to a story from T’ang dynasty China; Qingyuan tells you and me:
“Come here.”
Hearing this, the monk approached Qingyuan. Hearing this and not waiting until the next period, what is your response? The wind in the trees outside our windows makes a statement – “Come here.” My own cough calls to me, “come here.”
The monk asked about the historical Bodhidharma, and Qingyuan asked the monk to come here – where is Bodhidharma, and where is the monk?
Qingyuan’s final statement is this:
“Remember this clearly!”
What a beautiful and simple statement, and one easy to trip on. In “remembering,” we can carry away something already dead, or we can carry away the spark that still lives, bringing fire again here. Perhaps it helps to simplify the statement further. “This.”
Or simplifying further yet, without the words, and instead by just approaching.
In the Transmission of the Light koan collection, Shitou visits Qingyuan and was asked where he’d come from. Shitou said he’d come from Caoqi. The exchange continued in this way:
Qingyuan held up a whisk and said, “Is there this at Caoqi?” Shitou said, “Not only not at Caoqi—not even in India.”
Commenting on the case Keizan cautions us today:
Zen students of recent times fruitlessly run around in the midst of sound and form, searching in seeing and hearing. Even if they have memorized the words of the Buddha and the Zen masters and have formulated some way of understanding to cling to, … still they have realized nothing.
(Cleary, Transmission of the Light, p. 152)
Yet, even with his warning, Keizan went on to say this:
So, having thoroughly investigated and penetrated through, if you reach the point where the whole being is revealed alone, as Shitou did when he first arrived, you will realize the nonexistence of either Caoqi or India. Where can one come or go?
(Cleary, Transmission of the Light, p. 152)
There is great encouragement here; we need not run around searching, AND we thoroughly investigate. Please don’t take this as a riddle or nonsense intended to tire our minds. There is a distinction expressed that we need not seek. It is enough to see, hear, and recognize what is just this.
In an interview, Leonard Cohen said that sitting is “the real deep entertainment…Real profound and voluptuous and delicious entertainment. The real feast that is available within this activity…What else would I be doing?” (Iyer, Pico. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books) (p. 3). Simon & Schuster/ TED. Kindle Edition.)
What do you think – is this sitting running around or thoroughly investigating? Be careful that your answer doesn’t lead you to fall from one to the other.
In case nine Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo, the prime minister of China visits a temple and, seeing a portrait asks a question of a temple officer. From that point on, the story goes like this:
…The monk said: This is a picture of a reverend monk.
The Prime Minister said: I can see the picture, but where is the reverend monk?
None of the monks there could answer the question.
The Prime Minister said: Are there any men of Zazen in this temple?
The monk said: There is one monk who came to work at the temple recently. He seems like a man of Zazen.
The Prime Minister said: Could you bring him here so that I may ask him the question?
The monks immediately went to look for Master [Huang Po]. When he saw Master [Huang Po], the Prime Minister seemed glad and said: Just now I had a question, but none of the monks can answer it. I would like to ask you to answer in place of the others, and to give me one word which can change my life.
Master [Huang Po] said: Prime Minister, please ask me the same question.
The Prime Minister repeated his previous question.
The Master called out loudly: Prime Minister!
The Prime Minister responded.
The Master said: Where are you?
The Prime Minister was enlightened, just as if he had received a pearl from the knot in Gautama Buddha’s hair.
Gudo Wafu Nishijima , Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo; 301 Koan Stories, p. 15.
Huang Po is a T’ang dynasty Zen master and teacher of Lin-chi. In this story he has escaped his monastery, apparently to hide out as just another monk sweeping and cleaning a Zen temple. It turns out, something of what he had to offer was evident, such that he was called upon to answer the visiting Prime Minister’s question. As in the story of Qingyuan, Huang Po answers the question asked with immediacy.
“Where are you?” Don’t rush to figure out this question. Thomas Merton said:
“One of the strange laws of the contemplative life, is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.”
Iyer, Pico. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books) (p. 61). Simon & Schuster/ TED. Kindle Edition.
Coming back to Huang Po and the Prime Minister:
The Prime Minister said: I can see the picture, but where is the reverend monk?…
The Master called out loudly: Prime Minister!
The Prime Minister responded.
The Master said: Where are you?
Gudo Wafu Nishijima , Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo; 301 Koan Stories, p. 15.
The Prime Minister brings his own persistence and sincerity, unsatisfied with the temple officer’s answer and repeating his question.
I can imagine myself receiving the question from the Prime Minister and answering with all kinds of information – when it was painted, of whom, when he died. There may be a place for those answers reflecting a directness as well. I can also imagine responses like, “I don’t know,” or, “Did you look in the loo?” Huang Po went in a different direction, just as Qingyuan had. Both went straight towards the questioners, and calling for the questioners to look no further.
The Master called out loudly: Prime Minister!
The Prime Minister responded.
The Master said: Where are you?
We have the great gift of sitting through this day. As we do, we may wander through searching over there and back to investigating here. Come home to this breath, sit awash in the sound of 24th Ave. S, and walk this wood floor. How do you answer the question now – Where are you?