A monk asked Chih Men, “How is it when the lotus flower has not yet emerged from the water?”
Chih Men said, “A Lotus flower.”
The monk said, “What about after it has emerged from the
water?”
Men said, “Lotus leaves.”
(Translation) Thomas Cleary, Blue Cliff Record, p. 139.
The story of an unnamed monk asking two questions of Chi Men comes to us from ancient China in the concise language that was the style of Zen then and now. This exchange is not so foreign or far away, though. It is ours this weekend as we wonder what it is we’re doing here, at this retreat. A lotus flower is used in our canon to represent enlightenment, so the monk could be asking, “How is it different before we awaken to see what we see, and after we awaken and we see what we see?” Or perhaps the monk was asking for help in seeing what is just here to be seen with fresh eyes.
The monk asked, “Can you show me the altar flowers?”
And right there is the rub. The altar flowers are here to see. But there aren’t any altar flowers – there is a sweep of green and color, there is form and transparency, soft growth and hard surfaces.
Back when I was doing engineering work, friends would ask me to inspect homes before they put in purchase offers. I’d go through the houses top to bottom, making real estate agents nervous with my patter, describing what I saw about the crack in the foundation, the mineral deposits at plumbing joints, and evidence of a water stain in the corner of this bedroom. When done, my friends would then ask, “Well, what do you think of the house, do you like it?”
I had to say, “I don’t know.” Inspecting a house, I brought broad focus so I could register what was out of place, things that were “wrong.” I hadn’t registered anything aesthetically and would have to walk through again to offer those impressions.
There was no right or wrong about seeing aesthetically, and there was no right or wrong about seeing things technically. There was one house and one vision. And then there was one house and one vision. One vision has its place, now. And then another vision has its place, now. Right now, there is only one vision. Do you see the altar flowers?
A monk asked Chih Men, “How is it when the lotus flower has
not yet emerged from the water?” Chih Men said, “A Lotus
flower.”
The mineral deposits are on the plumbing, whether recognized or not. The eastern windows are there, whether sun floods in or not. Recognition does not change what is, and yet here we are, spending a whole weekend sitting, walking, and chanting.
The monk said, “What about after it has emerged from the
water?”
Men said, “Lotus leaves.”
Chi Men could have repeated, “A lotus flower,” but he didn’t, at least not on this particular day and to this particular monk. There are lotus flowers, and there are lotus leaves, with no argument about or between them. When asked about the lotus flower before emerging from the water, Chi Men made no distinction, saying simply, “lotus flower.” I suspect this response was jarring to the monk who brought expectation of something in the direction of, “not yet.” I suspect the monk was pulled up short again by the second response of “lotus leaves,” now expecting the answer he got from his first question.
There is a footnote to the final line about lotus leaves, saying:
Yu Chou (up north) is still alright: the worst suffering is south of the River. Two heads, three faces. He kills everyone on earth with laughter.
If the non-emerged lotus flower is simply, lotus flower and if after emergence, lotus leaves, then distinctions of emerged and non-emerged collapse. In the footnote to the last line, denial of distinctions collapses. And here we are – with inhumane actions near and far, dangerous summer heat to the south. Here we are with acts of love and kindness near and far, and ospreys, tanagers, and hummingbirds share the skies of the North Cascades.
All of this is within the conversation of Chih Men and the monk, and within the sound of the city bus, and inseparable from heaven and earth.
In the book, Zen Master Yunmen: His Life and Essential Sayings, Yunmen quoted this saying:
All sounds are the Buddha’s voice; all shapes are the Buddha’s form.
Yunmen then added his own response:
The Master picked up the fly whisk and said, “What is this? If you say it is a fly-whisk, you won’t even understand the Chan of a granny from a three-house hick town.”
App, Urs. Zen Master Yunmen: His Life and Essential Sayings (p. 191). Shambhala. Kindle Edition. 164, 555b18–20
Do you think Yunmen would be satisfied if one of the assembly said it is not a fly whisk? Or if one of the assembly said it is Buddha? Whether it is or is not a fly whisk is not central here. When you can see it beyond is and is not, we sometimes call it Buddha…and when that mires us in what is and is not Buddha, we call it not Buddha.
We sit these many hours to quiet the mind of is-and-is-not, and so we can see the flowers on the altar beyond any concept of flower, altar, seeing, and one who sees. Just this.
So, tell me, is the lotus flower before and after it emerges from the water the same or different?
In our sutra books, we have “Verse of the Faith Mind” that begins this way:
The supreme way is not difficult
if only you do not choose.
When there is neither love nor hate,
all is open and clear.
If there is the slightest distinction,
it is the distance between heaven and earth.
If you wish to see it revealed,
let go of preference and aversion.
The conflict between like and dislike
is a disease of the mind.
When this deep truth is not understood,
you try to still your thoughts in vain. . .Attributed to Jianzhi Sengcan [Chien-Chih Seng-ts’an] d. 606.
What does this mean – “if only you do not choose?” If taken literally, we wouldn’t vote, or care who wins an election. We could be friends with anyone who comes along, be a lover to anyone who comes along, and yet never commit to picking a meal off a menu or saying “I do” in a marriage ceremony. We know this doesn’t make sense – Chien-Chih is saying something else.
Monarch butterflies breed in the northern United States and Canada, then migrate to central Mexico in the winter. It’s hard to imagine these delicate creatures can make the journey; they are so light and subject to the wind, and I’ve never seen a butterfly fly in a straight line. But they do migrate, joining together in clouds, flapping and gliding in straight lines 80 miles a day, riding thermals and adapting to wind,
What is “choosing” for a monarch butterfly as northern temperatures cool in the fall? Is it a choice to stay or a choice to go? Or is it a butterfly being a butterfly?
Returning to “Verse of the Faith Mind”:
When there is neither love nor hate,
all is open and clear.
It would be easy to love being open and clear as much preferred over shut down and confused. I can only imagine a monarch butterfly being clear when joining the cloud for the journey south, and yet neither loving nor hating.
But the real question is how you and I can set aside doubt and breathe this breath. The choice was already made, and we’re here. Listening now without love or hate, your ears hear without extra effort. Your mind parses words without loving and hating. There is no one to love and nothing to hate when flower is flower, and sound is sound.
Chih Men invites you and me to open here without loving or hating, without clear and unclear, without preference, without loving and hating preference for this, and without loving and hating the inconvenience of dislike for that. There is no space for preference in “Yumm”! There is no one left to hate in “Ouch”!
Taking the next lines of “Verse of the Faith Mind”:
If there is the slightest distinction,
it is the distance between heaven and earth.
The language is poetic, in grand terms of heaven and earth which can so easily distract us from the immediacy of what’s being said – come back to the simple message: If there is a distinction however small – distinction between what and what? – the distance is vast – distance between what and what? There is no way to figure out answers to these questions.
If you wish to see it revealed,
let go of preference and aversion.
The conflict between like and dislike
is a disease of the mind.
When this deep truth is not understood,
you try to still your thoughts in vain.
Let questions and answers heaven and earth fall away. Chien-Chih isn’t trying to be mysterious or to baffle us so we can drop concepts. He’s pointing to something here as we speak and advising to let go of preference and aversion. Unless we do, efforts to still our thoughts are wasted.
Hear the sounds surrounding us – pleasant and unpleasant. There is no effort required in hearing. That is the spirit called for here. No need to try and breathe. Just breathe. The diaphragm expands as simply as a butterfly migrates south. The diaphragm contracts in it’s own time, just as a butterfly migrates north. One cloud of butterflies. One breath breathed together.
Returning to Yunmen, in another of his recorded sayings we find this:
The Master once said, “[Actions of Chan masters such as] snapping fingers, chuckling, raising eyebrows, winking eyes, picking up a mallet, holding up a whisk, and sometimes [drawing] a circle: these are nothing but people-catchers.48 What one calls Buddha Dharma has never yet been expressed in words. If it had, that would have been no more than dropping shit and spraying piss.”49
App, Urs. Zen Master Yunmen: His Life and Essential Sayings (p. 197). Shambhala. Kindle Edition. 175; 556a24–26
We can’t help but notice that Yunmen used words to say that Buddha Dharma has never been expressed in words. Pay attention to words, to no words, to gestures, whisks, and slaps by these old worthies. The swallow of a friend on the next cushion and stiffness in your own leg point to exactly the same place. All of them are clear expressions beyond discussion of yes and no.