The Way of Zen - Alan Watts [64]
In the landscape of spring there is neither high nor low;
The flowering branches grow naturally, some long, some short.i
When Ts’ui-wei was asked about the meaning of Buddhism, he answered: “Wait until there is no one around, and I will tell you.” Some time later the monk approached him again, saying: “There is nobody here now. Please answer me.” Ts’ui-wei led him out into the garden and went over to the bamboo grove, saying nothing. Still the monk did not understand, so at last Ts’ui-wei said: “Here is a tall bamboo; there is a short one!”12 Or, as another Zenrin verse puts it:
A long thing is the long Body of Buddha;
A short thing is the short Body of Buddha.j
What is therefore to be gained from Zen is called wu-shih (Japanese, buji) or “nothing special,” for as the Buddha says in the Vajracchedika:
I obtained not the least thing from unexcelled, complete awakening, and for this very reason it is called “unexcelled, complete awakening.” (22)
The expression wu-shih also has the sense of the perfectly natural and unaffected, in which there is no “fuss” or “business.” The attainment of satori is often suggested by the old Chinese poem:
Mount Lu in misty rain; the River Che at high tide.
When I had not been there, no rest from the pain of longing!
I went there and returned.… It was nothing special:
Mount Lu in misty rain; the River Che at high tide.
According to the famous saying of Ch’ing-yüan:
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.13 k
The difficulty of Zen is, of course, to shift one’s attention from the abstract to the concrete, from the symbolic self to one’s true nature. So long as we merely talk about it, so long as we turn over ideas in our minds about “symbol” and “reality,” or keep repeating, “I am not my idea of myself,” this is still mere abstractíon. Zen created the method (upaya) of “direct pointing” in order to escape from this vicious circle, in order to thrust the real immediately to our notice. When reading a difficult book it is of no help to think, “I should concentrate,” for one thinks about concentration instead of what the book has to say. Likewise, in studying or practicing Zen it is of no help to think about Zen. To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to “stink of Zen.”
For this reason the masters talk about Zen as little as possible, and throw its concrete reality straight at us. This reality is the “suchness” (tathata) of our natural, nonverbal world. If we see this just as it is, there is nothing good, nothing bad, nothing inherently long or short, nothing subjective and nothing objective. There is no symbolic self to be forgotten, and no need for any idea of a concrete reality to be remembered.
A monk asked Chao-chou, “For what reason did the First Patriarch come from the West?” (This is a formal question, asking for the central point of Bodhidharma’s teaching, i.e., of Zen itself.)
Chao-chou answered: “The cypress tree in the yard.”
“Aren’t you trying,” said the monk, “to demonstrate it by means of an objective reality?”
“I am not!” retorted the master.
“For what reason, then, did the First Patriarch come from the West?”
“The cypress tree in the yard!”14
Notice how Chao-chou whips the monk out of his conceptualization about the answer. When T’ung-shan was asked, “What is the Buddha?” he answered, “Three pounds of flax!” Upon this Yüan-wu comments:
Various answers have been given by different masters to the question, “What is the Buddha?” … None, however, can excel T’ung-shan’s “three pounds (chin) of flax” as regards its irrationality which cuts off all passage of speculation. Some comment that T’ung-shan was weighing flax at the moment, hence the answer.