Blue Cliff Record Case 35: [Manjusri] “Three Three”
[Manjusri] asked [Wu Cho], “Have you come from near or far?”
“From the South,” replied [Wu Cho] (the south of China).
“How is southern Buddhism being maintained?” asked [Manjusri].
[Wu Cho] replied, “In this corrupt age of the dharma, priests are venerating the precepts a little.”
[Manjusri]asked, “How many are there?”
“Three hundred here, five hundred there,” replied [Wu Cho]. How is Buddhism being maintained here?”
[Manjusri]said, “Ordinary people and saints live together. Dragons and snakes are mixed.”
“How many are there?” asked [Wu Cho].
[Manjusri] said, “Front three three, back three three.”
(Translation by Yamada Koun and Robert Aitken)
Take the koan as is – the conversation can stand alone without context. Two people meet for the first time and start getting to know a little about each other. As in any conversation, the words exchanged are in the foreground, while the reason they are both there, the motivation for having the conversation at all, is in the background. Apparently, Wu Cho has made some effort so he could sit before Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and to see what arises. Otherwise, why travel across China? I’ll read the story again; please take in what Manjusri and Wu Cho are expressing.
[Manjusri] asked [Wu Cho], “Have you come from near or far?”
“From the South,” replied [Wu Cho].
“How is southern Buddhism being maintained?” asked [Manjusri].
[Wu Cho] replied, “In this corrupt age of the dharma, priests are venerating the precepts a little.”
[Manjusri] asked, “How many are there?”
“Three hundred here, five hundred there,” replied [Wu Cho]. How is Buddhism being maintained here?”
[Manjusri] said, “Ordinary people and saints live together. Dragons and snakes are mixed.”
“How many are there?” asked [Wu Cho].
[Manjusri] said, “Front three three, back three three.”
(Ibid)
The translator includes this note about Wu Cho calling the period in which he lived as “the corrupt age of the dharma”:
…there are said to be Three Ages after the life of Shakyamuni. The first 500 years is called, “The Age of the True Dharma.” The second 500 years is called, “The age of Imitative Dharma,” and the time after that is called, “The Corrupt Age of the Dharma.”
Wu Cho was not pleased with the practice of Buddhism in the south, offering the damning praise that the precepts were being followed “a little.” Is this observation about the sangha he left? Take the question for yourself:
How is Zen being practiced in Seattle?
How is Zen being practiced at Three Treasures Sangha?
How is Zen being practiced by the one sitting on your cushion?
There is one answer to each of these that avoids falling into heaven and hell. But to start us off, if your first response is disparaging to yourself, be very cautious; we are all here to find our way.
There are also answers to these questions that engage the mind of curiosity – are there distractions that dilute our practice in modern Seattle? Am I committed and disciplined as befitting the gravity of the great matter? There is room for each of these responses, and one response that is zazen. Which did Manjusri point to when he said this?
[Manjusri] said, “Ordinary people and saints live together. Dragons and snakes are mixed.”
Perhaps Wu Cho perceived himself closer to the saint and his sangha more toward the ordinary. When I read Manjusri’s reply, I don’t find myself drawn to engage in those distinctions and take Manjusri’s implication to be otherwise – but you can see for yourself what you take to be his meaning. Bring that back to the questions I asked a moment ago.
How is Zen being practiced by the one sitting on your cushion?
You know what to do when the bell rings, you know what to do as you listen now. The answer to the question doesn’t require praise or doubt, or tabulating days of sitting. There is also something in Manjusri’s ordinary people and saints living together that doesn’t require words like “Zen,” “zazen,” “practice,” or “saints.” Manjusri’s phrase can be more accessible if we instead say, “Shlubs, and whatever ideal I hold of the Zen practitioner I and you should be, are sitting together on my cushion.” These ordinary people and saints live together more intimately than side-by-side.
There is a story in Judeo-Christian tradition of a time God spoke to an angel and to Satan. He asked the angel to go to earth and find an evil person, and he asked Satan to go to earth to find a good person. The angel came back and reported finding no one who is wholly evil; Satan came back and said he found no one wholly good. Each could have said there was a rich world of people, and each was wholly human. But why stop there? There is a rich world of animals, insects, stones, and rivers, each wholly as they are – dragons and snakes, ordinary and saints. And again, wholly as they are now, snakes and dragons, saints and ordinary. All are dissolved in solution together.
In his commentary on The Blue Cliff Record, Yuan Wu extends the story of Manjusri’s meeting with Wu Cho beyond what is given in the koan itself, adding this account of what happened next:
…Then they drank tea; Manjusri held up a crystal bowl and asked, “Do they also have this in the South?” Cho said, “No. “Manjusri said, “What do they usually use to drink tea?” Cho was speechless. After all he took his leave and departed.
(Cleary, p. 217-218)
Manjusri holds it up for all to see, and Wu Cho has another chance to join Manjusri, this time by sharing a cup of tea. I admire Wu Cho for his courage in showing up in front of Manjusri, and staying for tea after the first exchange. Wu Cho is me and is you, each time we lift a cup and take a sip of tea, and with each inspiration and expiration of our lungs.
At any moment of our days, there can be a reason to figure something out, to prepare and plan for something important. Is it necessary to follow the urge to do so – is it helpful? Of course it is some of the time, but our default seems to be to figure and plan. We can also act in accord without figuring and planning. In the previous sentence I did not add a modifier to define acting in accord as being with this or that. The modifier of this or that brings us back to activities of the mind which does not necessarily help us respond from heart-mind. When yawning, we don’t need to know what that yawn is in accordance with.
Manjusri held up a crystal bowl and asked, “Do they also have this in the South?
Thank you for your generosity, Manjusri, giving us another chance to see the crystal bowl as crystal bowl, and to taste the tea as it is. When making tea, we heat water, pour it in a cup, add tea leaves, and let it steep. Each step is an age of the dharma. Do they steep tea in the south?
You can answer Manjusri’s question without ever having visited the south of China. Todays story with Manjusri, and yesterday’s story about Panshan and where do we seek the mind, come from across the world but are our questions. How do we directly see what’s in front of us? How do we use our own eyes and minds – to be utterly simple? The underlying message is that we already are.
Also in the commentary to this case, Yuan Wu quoted another case:
Have you not seen how Ti Tsang of Cheng Chou asked a monk, “Where have you just come from?” The monk said, “The South.” Tsang said, “How is Buddhism there?” The monk said, “There is much deliberation.” Tsang said, “How can that compare with us here sowing fields and having a lot of rice to eat?” Now tell me, is this the same as Manjusri’s answer, or is it different?
(Cleary, p. 217-218)
By saying “There is much deliberation.” the unnamed monk appears to disparage those in the south, as did Wu Cho. In saying so, ironically the monk is deliberating about the practice and manifestation of the Way in the south. Once again, you and I are this unnamed monk – who of us is unfamiliar with deliberating about deliberating?
Though none of us are rice farmers, Ti Tsang is speaking to you and me. It would be a mistake to take Ti Tsang only literally, either by relating it to the ways we work for food on the table, or that he is just speaking of food. This is the same dance we know too well; I fully trust you know it when working for your sustenance and lost in the lifeless deliberation of the daily tasks and schedules. Especially when down on sleep or behind on all we’re doing, we can apply ourselves to get it done, to check it off. We can do the same during a period of zazen, engaging while tracking the time until we can bow, rise, and stretch this body.
Tsang’s community is applying itself to planting rice and already has plenty of rice to eat. Engage intimately in sowing this inhale, and reaping this exhale and is vitality, and there are no comparisons to be made.
Manjusri answered with ordinary people and saints, snakes and dragons, “three three.” We can’t miss that his response is given in contrast to the newsy conversation of Wu Cho. Tsang starts out in a very similar exchange with an unnamed monk, also from the south, but Tsang’s responses are quotidian- sowing fields. and rice to eat. Manjusri showed up as Manjusri in that meeting with Wu Cho. Tsang showed up as Tsang in his meeting with the monk. The teachers of old had their ways to speak, and ways to invite recognition in people seeking them out. Autumn in Seattle has its ways as well, and so do each of the condiments in my refrigerator.
In Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, Hakuin has this to say about the case:
Right now, seeing and hearing are not obscured—Leaving all that aside for the moment, right now in seeing and hearing, ten suns shine at once, filling the ears, filling the eyes. Sound and form are unadulterated reality—When you don’t get trapped in sound and form, it is purest gold. Not obscured and unadulterated reality refer to direct seeing and direct hearing; not knowing this state is called pollution in the spirit religion of Shinto.
Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, PDF p. 127
Hakuin’s words are direct and in plain language, though cast poetically to evoke the intensity of direct seeing – by his reference to “ten suns at once” – and reference to the ordinary – in his words “sound and form are unadulterated reality.” Take this as encouragement; in every moment we are invited to see and hear, leaving aside deliberation and distinction – including leaving aside the distinction of leaving anything aside. There is nothing left, but there is abundant sound and color. Perception of the abundance is the fragrance that takes us out our doors and onto the path.
Taking Manjusri’s “The ordinary and the holy live together,” Hakuin expanded on the response, saying, “The false and the true are one suchness, the real and the illusory are one monolith; there is no boundary between them.” In this passage we have Manjusri’s way to paint a picture of words, then Hakuin uses his own words as well. Take these words as encouragement also, though they can’t replace your own.
Returning to the koan story, Wu cho asks how many ordinary people and saints are there practicing in these parts of the north where he and Manjusri are meeting. One answer would be to count the people here, the TTS membership, Buddhist practitioners in Seattle, but where do you draw the line of those on the Way to include in the count and not? I love Hakuin’s line about this.
If you want to know this, refer to the number of last night’s stars, and the number of this morning’s raindrops.
It is so easy to take these old stories as mystical, though their intent is to frame what we see and hear in way we can receive it anew.
Somehow Hakuin learned that Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, took the disguise of an old man for Mu Cho. It seems fitting to me that Manjusri appeared as an old man in that we have other fanciful stories of Zen adepts being surprised when encountering a person assumed to be of lower rank, then recognizing wisdom. This is useful on its face; what if I listened to all I meet as Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom? What if I recognized everyone and everything is my teacher?
Looking one more time at these koan stories of Manjusri and Ti Tsang – both start with casual conversation, but the participants are looking for more. It’s not that Zen asks us to be on the lookout for things being more than ordinary, it is enough just to engage intimately with all that happens to be. It doesn’t matter when we notice – it can be after Manjusri’s tenth question that the tea bowl breaks through; it’s never too late to rest here.
Manjusri holds up a crystal tea bowl and we can see a crystal tea bowl unobscured, and we can see crystal tea bowl obscured by an idea of crystal tea bowl; both unobscured and obscured live together, inextricably mixed. Hakuin describes one as pure gold. More ideas of tea bowls, north, south, gold and tin are of no assistance. Looking for gold is of no assistance. Ice is cold, water is wet, wind blows, and earth is solid.