Blue Cliff Record 37 Panshan’s Three Worlds – No Dharma
Panshan gave words of instruction saying, “In the three worlds there is no Dharma. Where shall we search for the mind?”
(translation: Aitken- Foster)
We are settling into the sesshin schedule, the ritual, and zazen. What better place to be on this day, than here with Panshan.
In his translation of the koan, Nelson Foster added a note, saying that in Buddhism, there are several meanings to the phrase, “The three worlds”: the worlds of delusion – greed, anger, and ignorance; past, present, and future; and the world of desire, the world of form, and the formless world.
Broadly taking these three meanings of “The Three Worlds,” we could take Panshan as saying there is no dharma in the worlds of greed, anger, ignorance, past, present, future, desire, form and formlessness.
Now where do we search for the mind today?
Panshan is not rejecting or escaping the three worlds either. I’m reminded of Bodhidharma saying this:
Beyond greed, anger, and delusion there is no other buddha-nature. The sutras say, “Buddhas have only become buddhas while living with the three poisons and nourishing themselves on the pure Dharma.” The three poisons are greed, anger, and delusion.
Bodhidharma. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma (p. 55). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
Thomas Cleary’s translation of this koan of Panshan in Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record beautifully and succinctly amplifies this encompassing view of Panshan’s words:
Banzan [Panshan, Ch.] said, “There are no things in the world—where would you seek the mind?”
Cleary, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, p. 118)
It is regrettably easy to get lost in the simple words, “There are no things in the world,” and to get lost in our propensity to immediately dispute them – obviously there are things in the world. Every one of our senses prove this at all times – I see you, hear my own voice, and touch the lectern. I was home and am here now, proving past and present. I desire greater understanding of form and formlessness. On top of that, Bodhidharma tells us that the Way includes living with the three worlds – three poisons – and something he called the “pure dharma,” the undivided dharma.
In the moment we engage in this dispute we are seeking the mind within these words, within these worlds. Where would you seek the mind?
Xuedou, the compiler of The Blue Cliff Record, added this introduction to the case:
When the action is like lightning, it is futile to stand there thinking; when thunder booms in the sky, it is too late to cover your ears. To fly the red banner of victory overhead and whirl twin swords behind the ears, you need discernment of eye and familiarity of hand. Some lower their heads and stand there thinking, trying to figure conceptually; they don’t realize they are seeing innumerable ghosts in front of their skulls. Now tell me, without getting trapped in the conceptual faculty, without getting stuck in gain and loss, if something is brought up to awaken you, how do you respond?
Cleary, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, p. 118)
When reading The Blue Cliff Record, we encounter the introduction before the case; perhaps it was unfair of me to give you the case first. If I had started with the introduction, you may have known that thunder was coming, but then again, thunder is always coming; thunder is always here. It comes without warning enough to cover our ears, and still that resounding CRACK may not electrify our spines and echo in our chests. Assessing how far away the lighting was, figuring it out one way or another, we perceive the thunder is something we hear, rather than something we are. And so Xuedou offers us a question of his own:
Now tell me, without getting trapped in the conceptual faculty, without getting stuck in gain and loss, if something is brought up to awaken you, how do you respond?
Cleary, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, p. 118)
In the beauty of sesshin we are in a context in which we have no responsibility or obligation to figure anything out. Every one of us already knows what to do, including those new to this practice. Forgetting the words of a chant, missing a cue to bow, leaders missing a bell – we are free. None of this requires evaluation of gain and loss. Free. Everything, everything, everything is brought up so we see what we see and hear what we hear. Free.
Clappers CRACK! How do you respond?
If we were here to practice spontaneous laughter, it would be obvious that rehearsing to laugh spontaneously would be ridiculous. When engaged, attentive, something is said that surprises us out of our presumption of what we’re hearing, and laughter ensues on its own. It would be ridiculous as well to recognize that we enjoyed the laughter and choose to again laugh spontaneously. So, where is it you would seek laughter?
On the lovely day I was first working on this talk, my wife and I took a walk in the arboretum. We ran into an old colleague of hers and we were introduced to the colleague’s husband. An hour later my wife asked what the name of the husband was; before saying anything out loud, I had a series of thoughts: I have no idea, then, “Nick”… that’s not right. I have no idea. And then, “I know, it was ‘Neil.’” It struck me that the process of recalling the name reminded me of the koan. In this case, how do I find the memory that is either there already, or not there? Either way, where do I seek memory?
Recalling “Neil” took attention, but not effort as I generally think of it. What I did was repeatedly make myself available to the name. The thought, “I have no idea,” was giving up, which was followed by my again making myself available to the name. Eventually the name was there (or so I believe), and I couldn’t say where it was or came from. Where do we seek memory?
Where would you seek awe? Going to a mountain overlook and prompting yourself that this is awe, is a distraction. Peer over the edge, and into the craggy Cascade peaks; let them have their way with you. When looking, we miss the point; When seeing, we are here. When listening, we miss the point; when hearing we are present. Remembering yesterday’s embrace is not an embrace, but it is the feeling of fondness now. Fearing tomorrow’s disaster is not a disaster, but is fear, now. The wind blows east, the wind blows west, and all includes the taste of a sweet ripe peach, and embarrassment about something someone just said. With an undivided mind, wind blows east, and wind blows west.
I just used stories of laughter, seeking memory, and the experience of awe – There is nothing particularly unusual about any of them and each are available to all of us as at times of undivided mind when concepts are unnecessary. Each of these examples work when we’re right here. Our ancestors did not say, and I am not saying that we shouldn’t think. We are saying that to see directly, concepts are unnecessary and often clouding. Sure, sometimes we do need to think, but rarely, and especially rarely during retreat. Come back to the mind of laughter, and of surprise.
Let go.
Coming back to Panshan, Hakuin’s commentary, he is effusive in his about Xuedou’s introduction. The passage I’m about to read is only a part of what Hakuin had to say:
(When reading this next quote out loud, indicate the italicized text as Hakuin quoting Xuedou.)
This case is excellent, so [Xuedou] versifies it with appreciation. At a glance, it seems like it is hardly worth three cents, but this introduction is better than the whole Buddhist canon. [Hakuin quoting Xuedou] When action is like lightning—The action of teaching masters dealing with seekers is swift even when their eyes are asleep, not showing any gaps or seams, not readily tipping their hands. It is futile to stand there thinking—Students mull over intellectual interpretations and subjective conceptualizations. When thunder booms in the sky—A single saying from a teaching master can take away someone’s root of life, taking away “Buddha” and taking away “enlightenment.” It is too late to cover your ears—On account of the immediacy of the moment, there’s no time. Without getting trapped in the conceptual faculty—Mind, intellect, consciousness, and feelings all inactivated. Without getting stuck in gain and loss—Not getting hung up on right and wrong and gain and loss like “this is Buddha,” “this is the ordinary mortal.”
Xuedou’s introduction is “better than the whole of the Buddhist canon”; together with Hakuin’s comments we have the gift of teaching and the gift of how we are. Hakuin references the potential within the teaching masters’ immediate actions and sayings. Hearing this, be open to the exuberant shouts of the neighborhood children, and the tingling of a foot asleep as teaching master. Without getting trapped in the conceptual faculty, listen to the teaching master present at all times. To support this oral format, I’ll repeat the last part of Hakuin’s words:
Without getting trapped in the conceptual faculty—Mind, intellect, consciousness, and feelings all inactivated. Without getting stuck in gain and loss—Not getting hung up on right and wrong and gain and loss like “this is Buddha,” “this is the ordinary mortal.”
Hakuin cautions us not to get trapped in concepts, not to get stuck in this and that. We can naturally get trapped in wondering how we avoid getting stuck. Here too there is nothing to figure out because you already know what to do and you’re here doing it. Muuu…breath…who hears? There is nothing to figure out – you’re already doing it. Every breath is the immediate. The immediate is every breath. Every mu is thunder -whether scary-loud or quiet. All of this is the ordinary mortal.
[pronounced Mice+ter] Meister Eckhart’s writing is different in his use of the word, “God,” but seems to carry the same mind of Zen. See if you find his words address a mind before the idea of mind, and a simplicity that allows us to encounter all we meet with a pure mind, an undivided mind:
You should love God mindlessly, that is, so that your soul is without mind and [free] from all mental activities, for as long as your soul is operating like a mind, so long does it have images and representations. But as long as it has images, it has intermediaries, and as long as it has intermediaries, it has neither oneness nor simplicity. And therefore your soul should be bare of all mind and should stay there without mind.
Fox, Matthew. Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart (p. 183). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition.
In another sermon, Eckart said,
God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.
James Clark and John V. Skinner, Meister Eckhart: Selected Treatises and Sermons Translated from Latin and German with an Introduction and Notes (London: Faber & Faber, Ltd., 1958).
Nothing added is hand and glove with seeing what we see, feeling what we feel. I don’t know what Latin or German word the translator rendered as “subtraction”, but I am cautious that it can be taken as active in a way that leaves something to subtract, and someone to do the subtraction. Subtracting even that, we’re left with the ground beneath us and ceiling above us. We subtract by release, by opening a hand to let whatever is held to drop.
Buddhist, Zen, and Christian traditions all come back to the fact that there is nowhere to seek the mind, that we can avoid being trapped by our own conceptual faculties, and that we should be bare of mind and stay without mind.
No need to wait a moment: engage, engage, engage.
I’ll end with Xuedou’s verse for the case:
There is nothing in the triple world;
Where can mind be found?
The white clouds form a canopy;
The flowing spring makes a lute—
One tune, two tunes; no one understands.
When the rain has passed, the autumn water is deep in the evening pond(Aitken – Foster translation)