Tag: zen

Kill the Buddha

Jeff

I gave this talk on November 8, 2024, during our Full Moon Zen sesshin. A recording follows the text (which is lightly edited).

Our koan for this sesshin is Linji’s famous line, “If you meet the Buddha on a road, kill him.”

If I had to pick just one koan or phrase to sum up all Zen teachings and their spirit, this just might be it. It certainly would be among my top few. 

This line isn’t a koan exactly. It doesn’t appear in any of our koan collections. We find it instead in The Record of Linji, a compilation of Linji’s talks. He said something more like, “If you meet the Buddha, slay the Buddha,” but the line sometimes is transformed and used informally as a koan.

Linji lived during the ninth century, the heyday of Zen in China. He’s credited with founding the Rinzai line of Zen. The Zen stream we’re in is mostly Soto-derived. Maezumi Roshi, who founded the White Plum Asanga (with Bernie Glassman), initially received transmission from his father, a prominent Soto teacher who did not practice with koans. But Maezumi also studied with and later received transmission from the lay Rinzai teacher Koryu Osaka, as well as Hakuun Yasatani, a Soto reformer who studied koans with his teacher, Harada Daiun Sogaku, who had taken up koan practice with Rinzai teachers. So our stream is unusual; we’re a bit of a mix. I think we can fairly claim Linji as our own.

You can imagine that Linji got some quizzical looks when he gave the talk that includes this line. For me, this line has resonances with some of the deepest, and, I think, most misunderstood wisdom in my birth tradition, Christianity. I’m talking about one of the most remote and, for some, most suspect corners of that tradition: its contemplative or mystical strain.

I’m conscious that we’re Zen practitioners, and that Zen is a non-theistic religious tradition, and that some of us have an uneasy relationship with theism, maybe even an aversion to it. But let me take a a very brief detour nonetheless, if you’ll permit me. I promise to return to Zen soon to make the connection I want to make. 

In the Christian tradition, the notion of idolatry arises in the Old Testament, in Jewish scripture, in the book of Exodus. Many of us are familiar with this story. Moses has an encounter with God, who gives him the Ten Commandments on stone tablets to bring to the Israelites as God’s covenant with them. The first commandment has been translated several ways but boils down to something like this: “I am God. You shall have no other God before me. Don’t make graven images of me. Don’t worship anything in my place.” 

When Moses returns to camp, he finds the Israelites partying and worshiping a golden calf. Moses has a fit. He smashes the tablets and the golden calf. Party over. Fortunately for the Israelites, they repent, and God replaces the stone tablets.

In Jewish tradition to this day, in this spirit, one doesn’t use the word God. When we see God in print, we might see an asterisk in the place of the “o” (G*d). Or we might hear the word Yahweh, but see it spelled without the vowels (YHWH). Yahweh translates to something like “I am” or “He that is.” Christian monks later translate Yahweh as Jehovah.

So, as we can see, there is this uneasiness with representation in Jewish tradition; with thingifying. There’s an emphasis on being. On ultimate reality as verb, not noun. As pure, vital, vibrating presence.

To my taste, the deepest thinking, the deepest feeling, the furthest and most insightfully seeing later Christian practitioners and teachers pick up this aversion to representation and push it even further. In the Middle Ages, for example, we get the great German mystic Meister Eckhart, who was very quotable. He was famous for saying things like, “Pray God that we may lose God for the sake of finding God.”

Alright, back to Zen, and to the soil out of which it grew. Soil that’s different in some ways and not so different in other ways. 

There always were local gods in India, in China, and in Japan. There still are, even to this day, in Japan, from which we’ve received the Zen tradition. Very local deities. In Japan, today people have Shinto weddings and Zen funerals, with a bit of Christianity mixed in along the way for some. The religious culture there is very syncretistic. But long before Buddhism arrived, and long afterwards, people have perceived gods everywhere in Japan. 

So, it’s fair to ask if Buddhism made a clean break from the theism that was pervasive in India when it arose and that was pervasive in the places Buddhism traveled over time. Not exactly. The strong monotheism that developed in the Western world in antiquity won’t contend with Buddhism for some time, but we don’t exactly see Buddhism dispatching with all hints of forms of theism before that encounter, in my view. 

If we focus solely on what the historical Buddha seems to have taught, it’s probably fair to say there was a clean break from the forms of theism present in his time. He didn’t so much reject theism, as dodge it. He seemed to say, not unlike Meister Eckhart, “Don’t get so twisted up about ideas like god.” 

But those who follow the founder of a tradition have a way of messing it up, as we see time and again. There are gods and proto gods in early Buddhism, and even Zen, I’m inclined to say. Look at this beautiful tapestry above us with its many Buddhas, and its Bodhisattvas who seem to have divine qualities. Think about our meal chants. We chant about mythical Buddhas before the historical Buddha, Buddhas yet to appear, and Bodhisattvas who are larger than life. 

But I do think most of the old Zen teachers we remember, and most present ones too, are offering us something different. Most Zen teachers throughout space and time double down on the notion that there really is no need for a reified concept of the ultimate. 

And in our koan, “If you meet the Buddha on a road, kill him,” we’re clearly being told to smash our idols. I mean really smash them. Smash them by not even positing the existence of something we could idolize. Zen doesn’t offer us a lot of fodder for that. 

But if we look—and we humans don’t have to look too hard—we can find (or concoct) ideas in Zen to thingify and fixate on. Take the Absolute and the relative, for instance. Some theists drawn to Zen might even draw parallels to God and Jesus as the Absolute manifest in and as the relative. 

But we shouldn’t read too much into or hold too tightly to these metaphors. I’d say to any theist interested or not interested in Zen, “Whatever God is to you, I sure hope God is not an idea.” 

None of these metaphors, none of these ideas, none of these concepts that the Buddha didn’t want us to get twisted up about can resolve the mystery. A mystery the resolution of which is as plain as the nose on your face. Is the nose on your face. 

The mystery doesn’t need resolving, thank you. The mystery is resolved here and now. 

We mistake so much for the ultimate, including the idea of the ultimate. That tendency can be so subtle and insidious. 

Teachings and teachers can become idols, for sure. Hopefully, any good teacher will recognize this and deflect it.

We can have our political saviors and our political devils. Some of us might want to kill those devils. But the devil is just another idol. It’s a kind of anti-God idol. 

Relationships, I think, are a domain in which we often idolize. We often expect too much of those with whom we’re intimate. It’s a kind of category error. I think one reason we can get so, so incredibly frustrated with intimate partners is that we’re idolizing them, even as they drive us mad, and we criticize them. We want them to serve a godlike function for us. To ultimately ground us, to be our salvation, to be our paradise. 

Even more subtly I can make myself an idol, good and/or bad, God and/or devil. That’s what our self-sense inevitably is, I suppose. Our self-sense, or ego or whatever you want to call it, is a facsimile of our being. It’s a partial representation of it. It’s a construct that’s useful, and with which we can become at ease if we don’t hold it too tightly. If we don’t inflate it or deflate it. If we’re humble.

(By the way, my favorite definition of humility is from a Carmelite monk who said it’s not thinking little of yourself but thinking of yourself very little.)

When we kill the Buddha, when we kill all idols, it’s only then that we’re truly able to realize ourselves as Buddha, and all others as Buddha. Killing the Buddha opens that possibility for us. It just comes storming in. 

The deepest meaning of the holy truths cannot be contained or represented. It can’t be embodied in or as just one thing, because the deepest meaning of the holy truths is nothing less than everything. Just as it’s manifesting right now. 

Another way to translate Linji’s expression “Kill the Buddha”—to translate all the teachings is—this is it. Full stop. 

We’re grounded in everything, all at once, all the time. We must discover that ground. We must discover the self as that ground. 

The bad news is there’s nothing discreet we can hold onto. The good news is there’s no risk of falling. 

Just don’t try too hard to define everything; to contain it. Let it be. Let it be you. When we do our three bows, we’re honoring the three treasures. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. 

Let’s honor the three treasures. Let’s honor ourselves; let’s honor everybody else; let’s honor everything. Let’s just not idolize things.

So, if you meet the Buddha on a road, extend a hand. Offer him a place to rest his weary frame. A meal, a cup of tea. Pour one for yourself, as well. Sit down and enjoy his company. Offer him the pleasure of your company.

Te-shan’s Empty Bowls: A Reflection on Vulnerability

Jeff

I gave this talk on October 31, 2024. A recording follows the text (which is lightly edited).

A big theme for me this year has been vulnerability. That theme has been very present to me personally, and there a lot of people in my life, including many of you, for whom I sense it’s been a theme, as well. 

As many of you know, I had a big surgery earlier in the year to correct a problem that caused a big medical emergency last fall; a close call. After that surgery, I learned that three good friends about my age all had terminal cancer. As of last Friday, they’ve all died. Vicky, I know, recently has lost people close to her. People here have family members and other loved ones who are struggling in one way or another. 

We’ve seen wars. We’ve seen hurricanes and flooding. Somehow vulnerability just seems like a big theme this year. 

So recently my mind was wandering, and I found myself thinking about koans in which vulnerability is a theme. The one I’m going to read and say a few words about tonight is the first one that came to mind. At sunrise sit last week I spoke about another one, but this one is the very first one I thought of. 

It helps before one hears this koan to know a little bit about the characters in it, so let me tell you a little bit about them. I’m going to say more about each of them after I read the koan. 

The first character is Te-shan. He is a famous Zen teacher; famous in China at the time, famous throughout history to this day. He’s, say, about 80 years old in this koan. He was the head of a major monastery in China. This is the early ninth century, which historians generally think of as the peak of ancient Chinese civilization. It’s the heyday of Zen in China.

The other two characters are two of his senior students. Hsüeh-feng, is maybe about half Te-shan’s age. He’s 40, let’s say. And his Dharma brother Yen-t’ou, the head monk, is maybe a little bit older. They’re both senior students in this monastery. They’re not yet transmitted teachers, but they’ve been in the monastery a long time and they have a lot of responsibilities, no doubt. So, you’ll hear their names, and I’ll say a little bit more about each of them after I read the koan.

This is Case 13 in The Gateless Gate. It’s called Te-shan: Bowls in Hand:

Te-shan one day descended to the dining hall bowls in hand. Hsüeh-feng asked him, “Where are you going with your bowls in hand, Old Teacher? The bell has not rung and the drum has not sounded. Te-shan turned and went back to his room.” 

Actually, that’s just the first part of the koan, and it was all I was thinking about when I was thinking about this koan in relation to vulnerability. I’d forgotten about what comes next. When I read the whole thing, I realized I got even more than I bargained for on this theme. So here’s where the koan goes from there:

Hsüeh-feng brought up the matter with Yen-t’ou, his Dharma brother. Yen-t’ou said, “Te-shan, great as he is, does not yet know the last word.” 

Hearing about this, Te-shan sent for Yen-t’ou and asked, “Do you not approve of this old monk?” Yen-t’ou whispered his meaning. Te-shan said nothing further. 

Next day, when Te-shan took the high seat before his assembly, his presentation was very different from usual. Yen-t’ou came to the front of the hall, rubbing his hands and laughing loudly, saying, “How delightful! How delightful! Our old boss has got hold of the last word. From now on no one under heaven can outdo him.”

So let me say a bit more about each of these characters. Te-shan, as a young man, had been an expert on and renowned for his insight into the Diamond Sutra. He went around preaching about the Diamond Sutra as a young man. Impressing people; going to see teacher after teacher, trying to impress them with his knowledge of the sutras generally and this sutra in particular.

One day he came across a wise old woman who wasn’t so impressed and essentially told him, “So what? I don’t think the real Dharma—the real thing—is in these words on this page. I can’t even read.” Te-shan was shaken by this and, to his credit, he took her words and her insight to heart. He went deeper.

Te-shan matured and eventually became a teacher. He looked for some new way to teach the Dharma. We know Te-shan ultimately became famous for not teaching with words and not teaching with silence either, but instead, holding up his teacher stick as his teaching. He sometimes whacked his students with his stick, in good Punch-and-Judy form. Let’s hope it was more of a gentle tap!

I think it’s fair to say that Te-shan’s holding up his stick is an expression of the middle way. To borrow some words Jay introduced to us a couple weeks ago, his teaching was both apophatic and cataphatic. It’s at once the via positiva and the via negative. It’s neither extreme. Te-shan wants people to realize that this is it. It’s all right here; simply right here. 

And it’s probably also fair to say that stick is a bit of a prop for Te-shan. When, we ought to ask, does his stick become a prop? Maybe in that phase of his life, the stick is being weaponized a bit as a symbol of strength. Is it still masking a bit of vulnerability? Is it more a shield than a weapon? Hold that thought for just a minute.

So what about Hsüeh-feng? Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but think, Hsüeh-feng’s reaction to his old teacher coming down to dinner at the wrong time, bowls in hand, is a little bit scolding or a little bit prideful. In fact, I can’t help but see his raising the matter with his Dhrama brother Yen-t’ou as maybe a little bit of tattling. 

What is Hsüeh-feng clinging to? Maybe his role in the monastery. Maybe his status. Maybe his perfection of the forms. And, if so, might these things be masking vulnerability—the kind of things we sometimes cling to as a false projection of strength, that mask the deeper reality of our vulnerability.

What to say about his Dharma brother Yen-t’ou? I think Yen-t’ou comes across pretty well in this koan. Yen-t’ou is very important to Xuefang, actually. I think it’s fair to say Yen-t’ou becomes Hsüeh-feng’s main teacher.

There’s a story about Yen-t’ou from another koan that I’ll just mention briefly. The culmination of that koan relates back to Fran’s talk yesterday morning. Those of you who heard it will recognize a metaphor she used. In this other koan Hsüeh-feng is lamentiong to Yen-t’ou that, “My heart is not yet at peace. My mind is not yet at peace.” Yen-t’ou says, “Well, tell me about your experience. Tell me what you’ve experienced on this path.”

Hsüeh-feng tells Yen-t’ou about a realization of emptiness he had; a kensho moment. He tells him about another moment of insight he had. He’s reporting these profoundly moving experiences we associate with enlightenment, realization, insight, but he’s still saying they didn’t set his heart to rest. In fact, he says he went to their teacher at some point and asked whether he would ever experience what the ancestors experienced.

What did Te-shan do? He hit Hsüeh-feng with his stick and said, “It’s as if you’re a bucket whose bottom suddenly dropped out!” (That’s the metaphor Fran used in her talk yesterday.)

At this point in their exchange, Yen-t’ou says, “Don’t you know that what enters from the gate cannot be the treasure of the house? If you want to propagate the great teaching, it must flow point by point from within your own breast to cover heaven and earth. Only then will it be the action of someone with spiritual power, only when it comes from inside you.” 

Pow! With this, Hsüeh-feng had a great realization, true realization, deep and lasting realization. 

Here we see Hsüeh-feng had been clinging to kensho experiences. Flashes of insight as a source of strength or representation of his strength; of the spiritual power he’s seeking. I think Xeufeng is also looking for eternal knowledge and clinging to supposed certainties as he imagines he is finding them. 

Now, here’s where our original koan really gets playful: What’s this bit about the last word, and what did Yen-t’ou whisper to Te-shan? After Hsüeh-feng tattles on Te-shan, you can imagine him flying into a tizzy when Yen-t’ou says, “Te-shan, great as he is, doesn’t yet know the last word.”

“What! There’s a last word! There’s a secret I don’t yet know?” Te-shan thought he knew it all already, a bit like the young Te-shan with his command of the Diamond Sutra.

So, when Te-shan came down and asked Yen-t’ou whether he still approved of his old teacher, what did Yen-t’ou whisper to Te-shan? I imagine he whispered, “Oh, my old friend, you are more than okay.” I imagine Yen-t’ou thinking to himself as he said this, “You are more than okay, even as your mind slips away; even as dementia takes over.” 

Then I imagine Yen-t’ou whispering to Te-shan, “Hey, let’s have some fun with Hsüeh-feng. Tomorrow when you show up in the Dharma hall, stride right in like a peacock! Speak loudly, boldly! Let them know you really do know the last word after all!” 

Whatever false strength Te-shan might have been projecting earlier in life with his impressive knowledge of the Diamond Sutra or by whacking students with his stick, it’s all been stripped away as we meet him here. He’s vulnerable. Fully exposed.

How does all this end? Well, Yen-t’ou, precocious spiritual powerhouse that he was, dies a couple of decades later without any Dharma heirs. There’s no line from Yen-t’ou. Hsüeh-feng, plodding as he seems to be in this koan, keeps at it. He takes it all to heart. He lets his heart break open. He becomes vulnerable. The vulnerable anchor of two of the five main houses of Zen that continue to this very day.

We find our strength in vulnerability.

Two Perspectives

Jeff

I gave this talk on August 27, 2024, during our Full Moon Zen sesshin. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 1 in The Blue Cliff Record:

Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty, without holiness.” The Emperor said, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know.” The Emperor did not understand. After this Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtse River and came to the king­dom of Wei.

Later the Emperor brought this up to Master Chih and asked him about it. Master Chih asked, “Does your majesty know who this man is?” The Emperor said, “I don’t know.” Master Chih said, “He is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha Mind Seal.” The Emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite (Bodhidharma to re­ turn). Master Chih told him, “Your majesty, don’t say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn’t re­ turn.”

This koan focuses us on two perspectives we see time and again in Zen teachings. We have several names for them, like the relative and the Absolute or the lower truth and the higher truth. In this koan, Emperor Wu represents one perspective and Bodhidharma represents the other. It’s obvious which is which.

When the emperor asks Bodhidharma for the essence of the holy teaching, the adjective “holy” implies that teachings and all else can be divided into the categories sacred and profane, or mundane. This is the relative perspective.

When Bodhidharma replies, “nothing holy,” he is contesting this division. This is the Absolute perspective.

They’re also channeling these different perspectives when each speaks the seemingly identical phrase, “I don’t know.” There’s relative not knowing and Absolute not knowing.

This koan seems to portray the emperor and Bodhidharma as reversing roles. The penniless, unkempt and unshaven, wandering hermit is the sage. The emperor is the fool; the court jester. The koan almost seems to demand that we read it this way.

But is this the only or best reading of it?

The pioneering French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who died over a century ago, said, “[t]he sacred and profane [i.e., mundane] are always and everywhere conceived by the human intellect as separate . . . as two worlds with nothing in common. . .. They are different in kind.” Most of us would have little difficulty sorting what we value, and our values, into “mundane” and “sacred” categories. Most of us sense intuitively that things in these categories don’t mix naturally. 

Your wedding ring is a mundane item from my perspective, worth only its weight in precious metal and stone, and vice versa. I certainly could put more money to use, as could you. Shall we exchange our rings and then cash them in? That’s a trade neither of us is likely to make.

Contemporary researchers have confirmed Durkheim’s insight. We all make distinctions between mundane items and commitments, on the one hand, and sacred items and commitments about which we feel strong moral conviction, on the other hand. Our sacred values are less subject to change, threats to them evoke strong emotions, and the conviction they inspire can inspire us to take great risks and make costly sacrifices.

Each of us has our deep convictions and commitments. First principles we consider holy truths. I have mine, and I bet you do, too. If you don’t yet know what they are, you haven’t yet had an encounter that would reveal them.

When we come to Zen and are exposed to the two truths teaching, we not only may have our eyes opened to the Absolute perspective; our ears may hear it as a call to abide there, as Bodhidharma seems to do. It’s the higher truth after all, isn’t it? 

I certainly was stranded there for a time. And I thought the higher truth demanded a consistently yielding orientation. I acquired a new “should do,” which was letting go of my convictions and commitments whenever they conflicted with others’ needs, convictions, and commitments. I could give you numerous examples.

But I ultimately discovered this approach didn’t produce much of genuine value to anyone. Truth was, I still had my own deeply felt needs, convictions, and commitments. Like the buffalo who tries to pass through a window frame in another famous koan (Case 38 in The Gateless Gate), it seems I had a tail that kept getting stuck and wouldn’t let me pass completely to where I thought I was supposed to go; to the supposed other side.

Understood this way, the Absolute became a hiding place. I wasn’t truly showing up.

Genuine moral dilemmas arise when two goods collide. Two truths. Two rights. A choice between something we know to be right and something we know to be wrong isn’t a genuine moral dilemma.

Likewise, genuine conflict arises when two or more people meet as they truly are, and when they discover genuine differences. Sometimes yielding can be a sensible and appropriate thing to do. We must choose our battles, as they say.

But inhabiting the Absolute perspective doesn’t imply retreat to a realm of idealized abstraction, in which all distinctions are leveled. The real higher truth loves and embraces and enlivens the relative, including our own deeply felt needs, convictions, and commitments. Both yours and mine.

From the authentic Absolute perspective, we loosen our grip on them somewhat. We gain some perspective on the relative perspective, and this can help us be more open to and accommodating of others’ needs, convictions, and commitments. But we’re not asked to deny our own completely. We neither let our truths completely rule us—have us and have their way with us—nor imagine we can or should cast them away.

Here’s the first principle of the holy teaching, as best I can discern and express it: Nonduality must include duality to be nondual.

To put that more straightforwardly as some contemplatives from other traditions would:

“Though we don’t know it yet, we are all sons and daughters of God.” That’s the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart.

“The god wants to know itself in you.” That’s the Romantic poet Rilke.

Or, in Zen lingo, “The `all’ is none other than sentient beings and living beings. Thus, all are Buddha nature.” That’s Dogen.