Mumonkan, The Gateless Gate: Ryûtan Blows Out the Candle [Case 28]

Mumonkan Case 28: Ryûtan Blows Out the Candle

Tokusan asked Ryûtan about Zen far into the night.

At last Ryûtan said, "The night is late. Why don't you retire?"

Tokusan made his bows and lifted the blinds to withdraw, but he was met by darkness. Turning back to Ryûtan, he said, "It is dark outside."

Ryûtan lit a paper candle and handed it to him.

Tokusan was about to take it when Ryûtan blew it out.

At this, all of a sudden, Tokusan went through a deep experience and made bows.

Ryûtan said, "What sort of realization do you have?"

"From now on," said Tokusan, "I will not doubt the words of an old oshõ who is renowned everywhere under the sun."

The next day Ryûtan ascended the rostrum and said, "I see a fellow among you. His fangs are like the sword tree. His mouth is like a blood bowl.

Strike him with a stick, and he won't turn his head to look at you.

Someday or other, he will climb the highest of the peaks and establish our Way there."

Tokusan brought his notes on the Diamond Sutra to the front of the hall, pointed to them with a torch, and said, "Even though you have exhausted the abtruse doctrines, it is like placing a hair in a vast space. Even though you have learned all the secrets of the world, it is like a drop of water dripped on the great ocean."

And he burned all his notes.

Then, making bows, he took his leave of his teacher.

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Wandering Ronin commentary and questions: If you will, investigate the crucial action of the case above: Tokusan was about to take it when Ryûtan blew it out. It says so much with so little, and it can help you to leap clear of all things, or it can become as if a silver mountain that cannot be climbed. What do you choose? One can even view the case above as simply as a metaphor: Tokusan was apparently gathering worldly and scholarly knowledge about Zen, when Ryûtan took away his guiding light to help him to finally see what Zen points to. The master observes the direction of the student and the raft he uses to try to cross over, then takes it with a single powerful action.

Which brings me to my point: The candle was lit, and then blown out. Light and darkness, before and after, knowledge and seeing beyond knowledge; what is it? One can not say definitively that there is enlightenment any more than one can say that there is not; it all yet again falls into dualism. What is the mind after, and what is our own true direction? What is there to somehow overcome to reach the concept of 'enlightenment'? It seems like yet another thing to let fall. Not one, not two; throughout all heaven and earth, there is nothing sacred or profane until you make it so in your mind. If one clings to this concept of enlightenment, or anything else for that matter, then it becomes just as if another thing among the myriad things. Not holding on, not letting go.

Submitted January 23, 2019 at 12:04AM by WanderingRoninXIII http://bit.ly/2HqbRWZ