The Way of Zen - Alan Watts [49]
His final instructions to his disciples contain an interesting clue to the later development of the mondo or “question-answer” method of teaching:
If, in questioning you, someone asks about being, answer with non-being. If he asks about non-being, answer with being. If he asks about the ordinary man, answer in terms of the sage. If he asks about the sage, answer in terms of the ordinary man. By this method of opposites mutually related there arises an understanding of the Middle Way. For every question that you are asked, respond in terms of its opposite. (10) q
Hui-neng died in 713, and with his death the institution of the Patriarchate ceased, for the genealogical tree of Zen put forth branches. Hui-neng’s tradition passed to five disciples: Huai-jang (d. 775), Ch’ing-yüan (d. 740), Shen-hui (668–770), Hsüan-chüeh (665–713), and Hui-chung (677–744).23 The spiritual descendants of Huai-jang and Hsing-ssu live on today as the two principal schools of Zen in Japan, the Rinzai and the Soto. In the two centuries following the death of Hui-neng the proliferation of lines of descent and schools of Zen is quite complex, and we need do no more than consider some of the more influential individuals.24
The writings and records of Hui-neng’s successors continue to be concerned with naturalness. On the principle that “the true mind is no-mind,” and that “our true nature is no (special) nature,” it is likewise stressed that the true practice of Zen is no practice, that is, the seeming paradox of being a Buddha without intending to be a Buddha. According to Shen-hui:
If one has this knowledge, it is contemplation [samadhi] without contemplating, wisdom [prajna] without wisdom, practice without practicing. (4. 193)
All cultivation of concentration is wrong-minded from the start. For how, by cultivating concentration, could one obtain concentration? (1. 117)
If we speak of working with the mind, does this working consist in activity or inactivity of the mind? If it is inactivity, we should be no different from vulgar fools. But if you say that it is activity, it is then in the realm of grasping, and we are bound up by the passions [klesa]. What way, then, should we have of gaining deliverance? The sravakas cultivate emptiness, dwell in emptiness, and are bound by it. They cultivate concentration, dwell in concentration, and are bound by it. They cultivate tranquillity, dwell in tranquillity, and are bound by it.… If working with the mind is to discipline one’s mind, how could this be called deliverance? (1. 118)25
In the same vein Hsüan-chüeh begins his celebrated poem, the Song of Realizing the Tao (Cheng-tao Ke):
See you not that easygoing Man of Tao, who has abandoned learning and does not strive [wu-wei]?
He neither avoids false thoughts nor seeks the true,
For ignorance is in reality the Buddha nature,
And this illusory, changeful, empty body is the Dharma body.26 r
The following story is told of Huai-jang, initiating into Zen his great successor Ma-tsu (d. 788), who was at the time practicing sitting meditation at the monastery of Ch’uan-fa.
“Your reverence,” asked Huai-jang, “what is the objective of sitting in meditation?”
“The objective,” answered Ma-tsu, “is to become a Buddha.”
Thereupon Huai-jang picked up a floor-tile and began to polish it on a rock.
“What are you doing, master?” asked Ma-tsu.
“I am polishing it for a mirror,” said Huai-jang.
“How could polishing a tile make a mirror?”
“How could sitting in meditation make a Buddha?”27 s
Ma-tsu was the first Zen master celebrated for “strange words and extraordinary behavior,” and is described as one who walked like a bull and glared like a tiger. When a monk asked him, “How do you get into harmony with the Tao?” Ma-tsu replied, “I am already out