From "Women Who Humiliated Monks", Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters, Grace Jill Schireson. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009
Shiji: A Brief Visitor Who Unsettled Juzhi
Recounted in the teaching record of the monk Jinhua Juzhi (Japanese: "One Finger Gutei"), we find the story of the mysterious nun Shiji (ca. 900). Shiji, whose name means "reality," played a pivotal role in Juzhi's training through her brief visit to his hermitage. Strong, silent, and thoroughly penetrating, she is a classic iron maiden: invulnerable, without need of relationship, and completely self-confident.
When Juzhi [was living in a hermitage] in eastern China a nun named Shiji came to his hut. When she got there, she went straight in; without taking off her hat, she walked around his meditation seat thrice, holding her staff. "If you can speak," she said, "I'll take off my hat." She questioned him three times, but Juzhi had no reply. Then as she was leaving, Juzhi said, "It's late -- would you stay the night?" The nun said, "If you can speak, I'll stay." Again Juzhi had no reply. The nun then walked out. Juzhi said sorrowfully, "Though I'm in the body of a man, I lack the spirit of a man." After this he determined to clarify this matter.1
1. Cleary, Blue Cliff Record, 110.
This nun tested her understanding by challenging Zen monks (and perhaps nuns) she encountered in remote hermitages. Juzhi, tongue-tied, could not bring forth a word of Zen. He was a man and his challenger was a woman, but he could not show true Zen he-man spirit, which she could. Trounced by a woman --- how disturbing! But Juzhi was honest with himself about his deficiencies, and he was fair-minded. He was willing to learn from this visiting nun whom he saw as his Dharma senior.
wrrdgrrl: Why was Juzhi so tongue tied? Further, is his "spirit of a man" really a gendered quality? What's he really talking about when he says "spirit"?
Edited to add the song that came to me as I was reading this story: No reply at all.
Submitted November 07, 2019 at 01:09AM by wrrdgrrl https://ift.tt/2quMFGK
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