Blue Cliff Record Case Forty-Four: Heshan Beats the Drum
Leland Shields, April 12, 2026
[Heshan] said, “Cultivating study is called listening, ending study is called nearness; going beyond these two is really going beyond.”
A [practitioner] came up and asked, “What is real going beyond?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
The [practitioner] then asked, “What is absolute truth?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
[The practitioner] then asked, “I do not question ‘mind itself is Buddha’—what about ‘not mind, not Buddha’?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
Then [the practitioner] asked, “When transcendent people come, how do you deal with them?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
Translation Thomas Cleary, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record; Zen Comments by Hakuin and Tenkie, p. 144.
Heshan Wuyin lived in China from 884 to 960. Starting around 880, looting of the capitol city by the Huang Chao rebellion weakened the Tang dynasty such that it lost control of local governance. Military governments and warlords competed for power leading to chaos in the north; the south of China did a little better, fracturing into ten independent and more stable regimes. Heshan lived and taught in the south. As human as us all, he lived his own circumstances.
As in every koan, we can find our way to join in the dialogue and events. The inherent challenge of it is immediately apparent in the first line:
Cultivating study is called listening; ending study is called nearness; going beyond these two is really going beyond.
Nelson Foster translated it this way:
Heshan, cited a passage, saying, “Cultivation through learning is called ‘hearing.’ To be done with learning is called ‘nearness.’ To go beyond both of these is called ‘truly going beyond.'”
Each version of these sets up distinctions and then points to something outside of the distinctions. And each tells the story of our own minds as we bring ourselves to the practice of Zen. In the first clause, we study the basics, we sit with straight backs, chest open to breathing freely. We hear the instructions, as if from outside. Each time we sit down, or engage in zazen in any setting, we may study ourselves – I’m tired today; what is tired zazen as I do this activity?
In the second clause, rather than studying, we employ the techniques we’ve learned and engage intimately with breath, with a koan, and with who hears. It’s no longer about any teaching or study, it’s not about our evaluation of our mind state or skill, we live breath, muuuu, and who hears. Letting all instruction fall away, we breathe, and we sit without cultivation of anything more.
The third clause, in reference to the two previous clauses, tells us that there is going beyond both, emphasizing that there is “truly” going beyond.” Is this the assertion of two things, or three, or something else?
It’s no wonder that a practitioner comes forward to ask Heshan about the distinction that he’s offered – what is meant by “real going beyond?” And so the dialogue begins. It’s a fair question – Heshan, are you saying there is going beyond, and then there is really going beyond? I suspect all of us in this room would be suspicious of an answer that outlined different characteristics of going beyond, and those of really going beyond. Pursuing that line of thought would seem a lot like studying and call for a whiteboard presentation.
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
In Nelson Foster’s translation it is:
Heshan replied, “Freely beating a drum.”
No whiteboard to be found here.
I’m intrigued by the differences between these two translations. In his own translation and commentary, Sekida wrote that the Chinese characters underneath this are “getaku,” with “ge” meaning “understand,” “ta” meaning “beat,” and “ku” meaning drum. Sekida continued,
When you are beating a drum in positive samadhi, you are truly beating the drum; you are exercising Buddha Nature, and that is not too difficult to do. The difficulty lies in keeping it up moment after moment through life.
In Japanese Zen tradition, large taiko drums are used in Buddhist temples as the voice of the Buddha, played with a pattern like the growing and receding of a thunderstorm. Taiko drums are played to signal transitions for ceremonies and retreats. I did sesshin at one temple that used a Taiko drum to signal teisho, and another equally dramatically signaled lunch. You can hear a less dramatic sample of one here. I’ve seen references that confirmed drums were similarly used for transitions in Chinese temples at the time of Heshan, but in the context of the koan, I wonder if the drum was a signal then, but simply beaten in a rhythm possible for any of us to play, as it still is in some temples. It doesn’t take much understanding to beat a drum; struck with a stick, the sound arises easily. Understanding how to be a percussionist might be a different story, but given a drum, you and know how to get a sound from it.
I know Nelson to be precise in his translations, using sources that offer meaning in the Chinese of the times of these stories. At one of the temples in which I spent some time, Taiko drum was horizontally-mounted at head level, and the person playing it was quite good at it, using not his hands, not his arms, but his whole body as he alternately beat the skin with the sticks that he held, and rotated his body as he ran the sticks over the large black iron tacks on the side of the drum that attached the skin to the wood. There is no doubt in my mind that he played freely.
The practitioner asked Heshan, “What is real going beyond?” Heshan didn’t teach, explain, or answer the question; he responded freely for the benefit of the practitioner then and for me and you now, showing us the spirit within these old stories that is here for us. When a koan is given to us either formally or by the circumstances of our lives, we have a response that is in accord for all this. A response is immediate, addressing this step and trusting we can find another response when seeing what comes next. An “answer,” on the other hand, would be conclusive, fixed. In responding freely, there are no rules, just as it is folly say by default, “I’m fine, or “I’m hot,” or “I’m cold.”
The dialogue continues with the practitioner asking more questions:
The [practitioner] then asked, “What is absolute truth?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
[The practitioner] then asked, “I do not question ‘mind itself is Buddha’—what about ‘not mind, not Buddha’?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
Then [the practitioner ]asked, “When transcendent people come, how do you deal with them?”
[Heshan] said, “Knowing how to beat a drum.”
The practitioner continues to question – what is the truth, what about what is beyond truth, and how does Heshan work with people after enlightenment? Heshan’s response each time is, “Knowing how to beat a drum.” In her book, A Fire Runs Through All Things, Susan Murphy offered a passage relevant to our koan today:
Zazen is focused investigation of the mysterious nature of the self as it grows gradually transparent to what is, not by directing oneself toward something special, rather by just (just!) noticing and gently abandoning all alternatives to unadorned being, sitting, and breathing. It begins in sitting and grounding the mind in the bare fact of body and breath.
Susan Murphy, A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis (p. 33). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
I was treated to examples of this by a three and a one-plus-year old this past week, who both deftly demonstrated unadorned presentations and easy grounding in the bare fact. When the three-year-old first met his new baby sister in the hospital, he asked a non-stop stream of questions. Where is your funny hat? – He’d seen the baby wearing a cap with a bow on top in photos. Mommy, why do you have so many crackers? – looking at the tray table next to her hospital bed. Can I have socks like yours, mommy? – seeing the blue non-slip socks given to her by the hospital. Can I bring a pair home for my brother? When the new baby came home wearing onesie pajamas with feet, the one-plus-year-old asked, “Where are your toes?” Maybe 10 minutes after lovingly and protectively greeting the baby, both were done and resumed loudly running around the house.
In these exchanges, nothing was assumed, everything was fresh, simple, and responsive to this moment. Of course, toddlers are also impulsive, sometimes selfish, often irrepressible, and can put themselves at risk of harm in endless ways that you and I would easily avoid based on what we’ve learned about the dangers of the world. Being a child is not the answer. Being an adult is not the answer.
Returning to Heshan – he is not denying the viewpoints we meet along the Way, he is staying with the bare fact. Staying with the bare fact is not a suggestion that we each get a drum, or that Heshan will beat a drum tomorrow. He is demonstrating his own steadfastness in staying with the bare fact, undistracted by the next question.
In our own zazen we can do the same as Heshan and toddlers. It is easy to have appealing thoughts about Zen, zazen, and our progress in opening to the world. Without effort, ideas are formulated about the falling away of ideas and identity. Without effort, our focus on the falling away of categories distracts us such that we may form categories about this experience. No matter the nature of my focus, or the category of experience – beat the drum, breathe the breath, chant this word, laugh, and cry.
There are other recorded exchanges with Heshan and questioners which carry the same spirit without the repetition line by line, yet always coming back to the bare fact. Quoting the recorded stories of Heshan once again:
Question: “The precious, jeweled palace-temple has four corners, one of which is always bare. What is that bare corner?”
The master raised his hand and said, “You can strike me,” and then asked further, “Have you understood?
“No,” replied the [practitioner].
“‘Do you know how to hit me?” asked the master.
Records of the Transmission of the Lamp: Volume 4: The Shitou Line. (Books 14-17),
Translated by Randolph S. Whitfield, Kindle Edition, 2017. https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/heshan.html
The practitioner simply saying “no” was their unadorned reply, which opened the way to another exchange, and another chance for them to see what Heshan offered.
We also find this in the record of Heshan:
Question: “What was the meaning of Yangshan thrusting the hoe [into the ground]?” (Book of Serenity, case 15.)
“You ask me,” said the master.
“When Xuansha kicked over the hoe, what was happening?”
“I ask you,” said the master.
“Still unable to make out the true line – what is the actual understanding of this?”
“The head is big, the tail small,” replied the master.
Ibid
Releasing into the bare fact these are not riddles– just you ask me; I ask you. At the same time, Heshan is inviting us to a simplicity that can turn worlds upside down.
Meeting the bare fact requires that we show up bare ourselves, unguarded and arms open to receive that which comes – that which is coming anyway. The bite of cold wind, warm sun on the skin, death of a beloved one, birth of a beloved one, failure and success, suffering close and far.
Children are fortunate who can spend time in innocence before recognizing their vulnerability. In innocence there is no need to adorn, nor to constrain our freedom. In Zazen we find a place of openness within vulnerability, as real and tender as the vulnerability is. If not comparing this here to some better and imagined reality in a given moment, I may be able to recognize and respond to the bare fact of this difficult world, with love, and heartache, loss and awe. When not parrying what arises, it’s possible to recognize that we are indeed a part of all.
Stories don’t offer a “how” to let go. That’s up to you and me to release the grip of our natural fear and our wish to avoid the barbs we’ve felt before and would prefer to avoid now. It is the bracing against the unavoidable that binds our own hearts and minds.
Rumi wrote
You are not a drop in the ocean; you are an ocean in the drop.
Rumi (source unconfirmed)
Beat the drum, breathe breath, and there is no ocean, no drop, and no not ocean and no not drop. That brings us back to where we started- Heshan’s first statement of the Blue Cliff Record case forty-four:
[Heshan] said, “Cultivating study is called listening, ending study is called nearness; going beyond these two is really going beyond.”
I’ll end with the story in Blue Cliff Records case 43:
Donghshan’s Cold and Heat
A monk asked Dongshan, “When cold and heat visit us, how should we avoid them?”
Dongshan said, “Why not go where there is neither cold nor heat?”
The monk asked, “Where is there neither cold nor heat?”
Dongshan said, “When it is cold, the cold kills you. When it is hot, the heat kills you.”
Aitken-Foster translation