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By Root 548 0

of the master-pupil relationship, Zen adds something of its own in the sense that it leaves the formation of the relationship entirely to the initiative of the pupil. The basic position of Zen is that it has nothing to say, nothing to teach. The truth of Buddhism is so self-evident, so obvious that it is, if anything, concealed by explaining it. Therefore the master does not “help” the student in any way, since helping would actually be hindering. On the contrary, he goes out of his way to put obstacles and barriers in the student’s path. Thus Wu-men’s comments on the various koan in the Wu-men kuan are intentionally misleading, the koan as a whole are called “wisteria vines” or “entanglements,” and particular groups “cunning barriers” (kikan) and “hard to penetrate” (nanto). This is like encouraging the growth of a hedge by pruning, for obviously the basic intention is to help, but the Zen student does not really know Zen unless he finds it out for himself. The Chinese proverb “What comes in through the gate is not family treasure” is understood in Zen to mean that what someone else tells you is not your own knowledge. Satori, as Wu-men explained, comes only after one has exhausted one’s thinking, only when one is convinced that the mind cannot grasp itself. In the words of another of Ikkyu’s doka:

A mind to search elsewhere

For the Buddha,

Is foolishness

In the very centre of foolishness.

For

My self of long ago,

In nature non-existent;

Nowhere to go when dead,

Nothing at all.9

The preliminary hosshin type of koan begins, therefore, to obstruct the student by sending him off in the direction exactly opposite to that in which he should look. Only it does it rather cleverly, so as to conceal the stratagem. Everyone knows that the Buddha nature is “within” oneself and is not to be sought outside, so that no student would be fooled by being told to seek it by going to India or by reading a certain sutra. On the contrary, he is told to look for it in himself! Worse still, he is encouraged to seek it with the whole energy of his being, never giving up his quest by day or night, whether actually in za-zen or whether working or eating. He is encouraged, in fact, to make a total fool of himself, to whirl round and round like a dog trying to catch up with its own tail.

Thus normal first koan are Hui-neng’s “Original Face,” Chao-chou’s “Wu,” or Hakuin’s “One Hand.” At the first sanzen interview, the roshi instructs the reluctantly accepted student to discover his “original face” or “aspect,” that is, his basic nature, as it was before his father and mother conceived him. He is told to return when he has discovered it, and to give some proof of discovery. In the meantime he is under no circumstance to discuss the problem with others or to seek their help. Joining the other monks in the sodo, the jikijitsu or “head monk” will probably instruct him in the rudiments of za-zen, showing him how to sit, and perhaps encouraging him to return to the roshi for sanzen as soon as possible, and to lose no opportunity for getting the proper view of his koan. Pondering the problem of his “original face,” he therefore tries and tries to imagine what he was before he was born, or, for that matter, what he now is at the very center of his being, what is the basic reality of his existence apart from his extension in time and space.

He soon discovers that the roshi has no patience whatever with philosophical or other wordy answers. For the roshi wants to be “shown.” He wants something concrete, some solid proof. The student therefore begins to produce such “specimens of reality” as lumps of rock, leaves and branches, shouts, gestures of the hands–anything and everything he can imagine. But all is resolutely rejected until the student, unable to imagine anything more, is brought to his wits’ end–at which point he is of course beginning to get on the right track. He “knows that he doesn’t know.”

When the beginning koan is Chao-chou’s “Wu,” the student is asked to find out why Chao-chou answered “Wu” or “None” to the question, “Does