The Way of Zen - Alan Watts [50]
The Tao has nothing to do with discipline. If you say that it is attained by discipline, when the discipline is perfected it can again be lost (or, finishing the discipline turns out to be losing the Tao).… If you say that there is no discipline, this is to be the same as ordinary people.29 u
Hsing-ssu’s disciple Shih-t’ou (700–790), in the line of Soto Zen, was even more forthright:
My teaching which has come down from the ancient Buddhas is not dependent on meditation (dhyana) or on diligent application of any kind. When you attain the insight as attained by the Buddha, you realize that mind is Buddha and Buddha is mind, that mind, Buddha, sentient beings, bodhi and klesa are of one and the same substance while they vary in names.30
His interesting name “Stone-head” is attributed to the fact that he lived on top of a large rock near the monastery of Heng-chou.
With Ma-tsu’s disciple Nan-ch’üan (748–834) and his successor Chao-chou (778–897), the teaching of Zen became peculiarly lively and disturbing. The Wu-men kuan (14) tells how Nan-ch’üan interrupted a dispute among his monks as to the ownership of a cat by threatening to cleave the animal with his spade if none of the monks could say a “good word”–that is, give an immediate expression of his Zen. There was dead silence, so the master cut the cat in two. Later in the day Nan-ch’üan recounted the incident to Chao-chou, who at once put his shoes on his head and left the room. “If you had been here,” said Nan-ch’üan, “the cat would have been saved!”
Chao-chou is said to have had his awakening after the following incident with Nan-ch’üan:
Chao-chou asked, “What is the Tao?”
The master replied, “Your ordinary [i.e., natural] mind is the Tao.”
“How can one return into accord with it?”
“By intending to accord you immediately deviate.” v
“But without intention, how can one know the Tao?”
“The Tao,” said the master, “belongs neither to knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is false understanding; not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it’s like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong?”31
When Chao-chou was asked whether a dog has Buddha nature–which is certainly the usual Mahayana doctrine–he gave the one word “No!” (Wu,w Japanese, Mu).32 When a monk asked him for instruction he merely inquired whether he had eaten his gruel, and then added, “Go wash your bowl!”33 When asked about the spirit which remains when the body has decomposed, he remarked, “This morning it’s windy again.”34
Ma-tsu had another notable disciple in Po-chang (720–814), who is said to have organized the first purely Zen community of monks and to have laid down its regulations on the principle that “a day of no working is a day of no eating.” Since his time a strong emphasis on manual work and some degree of self-support has been characteristic of Zen communities. It might be remarked here that these are not exactly monasteries in the Western sense. They are rather training schools, from which one is free to depart at any time without censure. Some members remain monks for their whole lives; others become secular priests in charge of small temples; still others may return into lay life.35 To Po-chang is attributed the famous definition of Zen, “When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep.” He is said to have had his satori when Ma-tsu shouted at him and left him deaf for three days, and to have been in the habit of pointing out the Zen life to his disciples with the saying, “Don’t cling; don’t seek.” For when asked about seeking for the Buddha nature he answered, “It’s much like riding an ox in search of the ox.”
Po-chang’s student Huang-po (d. 850) is also of considerable importance in this period. Not only was he the teacher of the great Lin-chi, but he was also the author of the Ch’uan Hsin Fa Yao, or “Treatise on