Zen @ MindSay

When I arrived home I looked up the story of Bodhidharma and Huiko in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, the slender anthology of Zen stories and Zen koans compiled by Paul Reps. There the two stories of the teacher Bodhidharma and his disciple Huiko are combined into one. The postulant Huiko stands in the snow and offers his arm, his turmoil, and his question to the teacher Bodhidharma. But in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones the story is followed by this comment from the medieval monk Mumon:

 

“Bodhidharma remained years in China and had only one disciple and that one lost his arm and was deformed,” says Mumon.

 

“Alas," Momon concludes, "ever since he has had brainless disciples!”

We all sat silently reflecting upon what had so far transpired. I was fascinated. To me it seemed all so interesting! A full minute of silence went by, maybe more, yet no one appeared visibly uneasy. We regulars in the sangha had all grown comfortable with such silences. It had become part of our practice. I again raised my hands in gassho.

The master acknowledged me.

“Nonin,” I said, my voice thick and unsteady with entreaty, “you would not want Joe to cut off his arm as evidence of his commitment. If Joe cut off his arm and brought it to you as an offering you would be aghast. I know you! You’d say, Joe, what have you done, you moron! How stupid!”

The master listened calmly to my scenario. He seemed unimpressed. He remained silent for several seconds before he responded.

“No,” the master replied contemplatively, “I don’t know how I would respond.”

The master and I looked over at Joe sitting directly across our semicircle from me. Joe returned our gaze, blankly, and then looked down at his hands resting in his lap in the mudra.

Joe remained silent.

“You mean cut off his arm as a metaphor,” I said. “As metaphor it makes sense.”

The master thought about this.

“Kyoki cut off her arm,” he said. Kyoki was the master’s first and so far only dharma heir.

“Metaphorically you mean,” I said.

“Kyoki cut off her arm!” the master repeated.

It was clear that this was the master’s final statement on the matter. I understood that the master would make no concession to metaphor.

I was silent.

We all were. We all understood that Kyoki had given up her life, that is, the way she had previously lived, to study with the master. In that sense, yes, she had given everything, I could acknowledge. But all of us who were present knew that she had not cut off her arm. From his cushion the master gazed out over our small assembly to see if there were more questions.

There were none.

I didn't press the matter. The master was immovable, adamant, stubborn, defiant, in the mode I would call borderline insulting. One more question and the master, I felt sure, would call it or me or both stupid.

Had Kyoki cut off her arm?

No, not if my language meant anything at all. But perhaps the master intended to break the language or somehow to demonstrate its limits.

I was hung up.

Kyoki had given up everything for the teaching, yes, she had. Had she cut off her arm?

No.

It was all so interesting. I wanted to ask the master about the medieval Christian monks who had castrated themselves for God but the time wasn't right.

The Dharma Talk was over.

The master placed his palms in gassho, I struck the big rin, the keisu—gatsu!—and we all recited the simple eko and the four Vows of the Bodhisattva. In front of the main altar the master offered three full prostrations as we watched. I rang the inkin and we all bowed in shashu and I rang the inkin and we all bowed once more as the master left the room.

We brushed grit and the hair of the Temple cat and dog from our zabutons and we fluffed our zafus and stacked both mats and cushions neatly in their assigned spot in the corner of the Buddha Hall. The shoten had prepared the pastry, tea, and coffee which waited for us now in the kitchen. As we strolled to the rolls and doughnuts Joe pulled me gently to the side. He grinned and, feigning confidentiality, his eyes twinkled.

“Why did you have to choose my arm as your example?”

We laughed.

Over our pastry and beverages we made small talk of Christmas and Christian prejudice and in general of holy days and their observance.

That afternoon I received an email from Esther.

"I admit I was too chicken to speak up after the way the master responded to you,” Esther wrote. “Neither did I understand how cutting off an arm proved that the monk had the right stuff to study under the teacher. Huiko, though, certainly did get his attention! But the master never did explain in what way Kyoki had cut off her arm yet the master also said that the cutting off of her arm was not symbolic."

In my three years at the temple I had heard more than a few people say that because they felt intimidated by the master they had not said or not asked what they had wanted to say or ask. More than once the master had let me know that he himself knew this was true. Yet the master seemed to interpret their intimidation as a sign of weakness on their part; and it seemed to me that often the master’s response to such weakness was increased contempt. When I got home from the Temple I sat down at my computer and recorded my thoughts of what had just transpired.

Had Kyoki cut off her arm?

No!

A thousand times no!

But still I had learned, as I always did, from the master’s answers.

Every Tuesday I served as doan at evening zazen and every Tuesday night we ended zazen by chanting the Fukanzazengi, the Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen. Near the beginning of the text is this passage:

“Therefore put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward.”

Then—just a few lines further on—this:

“Put aside all involvements and suspend all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness. Stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views.”

The master turned to me.

“You should examine your understanding of the word crazy,” the master said. “What is crazy to you is not crazy to me.”

I felt slightly insulted.

If anyone understood the relativity of the concept of “crazy” it was me! Just five months earlier in his Dharma Study the master had called anyone who wanted to die "crazy," "mentally ill," and "deluded." Only after a quarrel had the master reluctantly conceded that a very small number of people—“a drop in the bucket,” he said—did want to die; and the master had added that most people who do attempt to take their own lives—“the vast majority”—simply seek attention.

To me this sounded like slander.

My father took his own life; and every quarter I had in my classes half a dozen to a dozen students who wrote that they had attempted to end their own lives or wanted to. They felt unloved, angry, alienated, depressed, confused, lost, empty, and sad. They were desperate to understand life and be free of their suffering and pain.

To them life did not make sense.

Was this desperation not the same as that of Huiko? To what teacher could they appeal? Were their suicides somehow different from Huiko’s cutting off his arm? Were they and their gestures crazy and Huiko and his gesture sane? Did not all arise from despair? If the master were right and the attempts of my students to end their own lives were only pleas for attention, how did their situations differ from the plight of Huiko? Were they not all calling out in desperation?

“I don’t understand! It hurts! I will do anything for an end to this torment! Please, help me!”

I wondered.

The previous quarter six of my students had confessed they were cutters. In the privacy of their bedrooms and bathrooms they used razor blades, pocket knives, and even paperclips to tear a hole and make themselves bleed. The physical pain, they wrote, seemed easier to bear than the mental pain.

Could not the same be said of Bodhidharma’s disciple? To receive the teaching Huiko had offered his severed arm to his teacher.

My students, ignorant of the Way and contemptuous of the whole idea of such a teacher, offered their blood to the void. Willing to throw their lives away to end their pain they tried to hurt and to kill themselves.

In just a few words, in a single sentence, clumsily I had tried to make this analogy for the master. He didn’t understand. To the master it seemed an irrelevant digression.

He looked annoyed.

“What does suicide have to do with Huiko?” the master demanded. “Explain what you mean!”

The master glared at me.

The vehemence of his response startled me. I stammered and had to restart my sentence two or three times.

“They’re lost, confused, suffering, in pain, and they act out of desperation,” I said. “They all seek help and understanding.”

The master listened.

He seemed neither to approve nor to disapprove of my analogy and the master returned to the topic of the commitment and sacrifice of Huiko. Now the master seemed to imply that his own students, too, should be willing to give an arm for the teaching. I was certain that the master meant this only metaphorically.

But while I considered my words and searched for the right ones, Martin raised his hands in gassho.

The master nodded.

“Yes?”

“I am glad that Huiko did cut off his arm for the teaching,” Martin said, “because, if he had not, Bodhidharma would not have accepted Huiko as his student; Huiko would not have received the teaching; the teaching would not have been transmitted through the lineage to Dogen, and to Katagiri, and to you, my teacher; and I would not be here now with the teaching that has meant and still does mean so much to me.”

Martin waited as the master considered his response. His words sharp with irony and even, I thought, contempt, the master replied.

“Those are very pretty words,” said the master, “and I’m sure they sound quite beautiful and nice to many people but I do not think you have even the slightest idea of what you have said or what those words really mean.”

Oof!

We all looked at Martin.

Martin sat calmly.

We waited.

Martin appeared unfazed.

Do you know what you getting for Christmas?  I do.

I am getting a Creative Zen 8 gig black.

How do I know?  I am the one who bought it.  It's what I wanted and I knew where to get it.

First I got an iPod Nano 4gig.  This thing is extremely sexy, made of metal, very tiny.  It sound good, and the videos are spectacular!  The problem is you HAVE to use iTunes to get stuff on (and not off) the unit.  iTunes sucks when you already have the music you want to put on.  It may be great if you are constantly buying stuff from iTunes store.

Next I got a 30 gig Microsoft Zune.  This was ok,  but it was even worst than the iPod.  Hard to get stuff on or off.  But, it had an FM radio and wireless (?) - never used it (or would use it).

So, I did some more research and settled on the Creative Zen.  Hope "it" works out.

rip
zip
repeat 126 times