From "Women Who Humiliated Monks", Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters, Grace Jill Schireson. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009
Sen-jo and Her Soul Are Separated
Sen-jo, also known as Seijo, the subject of Case 35 in the Mumonkan, seems to illustrate both the mother and the tea lady roles. Sen-jo is not a Zen practitioner -- or indeed even a real person. In fact, she is a character from a kind of Chinese ghost story. But her story, used in the context of a Zen koan, illustrates the extreme pressure that women experienced when they had to choose between their obligation to family members and their aspiration to self-realization through practice outside the home. This is a theme for many of the female practitioners who appear in the next section on women's Zen. While Sen-jo struggled between her father's choice of her husband and her own heart's desire, many female practitioners struggled between their desire to enter a Zen temple and their parents' demand that they enter married life. Sen-jo could either follow her heart and disappoint her family, or obey her family and betray her heart. Either way, the suffering would be overwhelming.
Sen-jo, the daughter of Chokan, was raised expecting that one day she would marry her cousin Oochu, with whom she had played since early childhood. So when Sen-jo's father, Chokan, announced that Sen-jo was to marry another, both were heartbroken. Oochu, unable to bear watching Sen-jo marry another, got a boat to leave the village. As he was departing, he saw a shadowy figure running alongside the shore. He was delighted to see that it was Sen-jo, who joined him in the boat. The two journeyed far away, where they were wed and had two children.
As time passed Sen-jo longed to see her homeland and be forgiven by her parents. Oochu took her back to their native village, and he left her in the boat while he met with her father to apologize for their disobedience.
Chokan, astonished, asked Oochu, "Which girl are you talking about?"
"Your daughter Sen-jo, Father," replied Oochu.
Chokan said, "My daughter Sen? Since the time you left [our village] she has been sick in bed and has been unable to speak."
The story is resolved when Sen-jo leaves the boat and meets the Sen-jo who had been sick in bed. The two parts of the self meet, merge, and become one person again. The teachings on this story illustrate how women represent the strongest side of emotions, devotion, and obligation. When a woman can face her own path directly she can become unified with her true purpose. Zen commentaries on this case suggest that we are fooled by separating ourselves into parts or separating our lives into parts. They use this woman's story, rather than that of a man, since women are more powerful symbols of emotion and obligation to others. Oochu seems to have walked away from the uncomfortable family machinations without difficulty, but leaving home was torment for Sen-jo, who felt the separation keenly. Only through the deepest practice, the story tells us, can we perceive our unified and true self in the midst of our own longings and relationships.
Gateless Gate Case 35: Two Souls (source: sacred-texts.com)
Case: "Seijo, the Chinese girl," observed Goso, "had two souls, one always sick at home and the other in the city, a married woman with two children. Which was the true soul?"
Mumon's comment: When one understands this, he will know it is possible to come out from one shell and enter another, as if one were stopping at a transient lodging house. But if he cannot understand, when his time comes and his four elements separate, he will be just like a crab dipped in boiling water, struggling with many hands and legs. In such a predicament he may say: "Mumon did not tell me where to go!" but it will be too late then.
The moon above the clouds is the same moon,
The mountains and rivers below are all different.
Each is happy in its unity and variety.
This is one, this is two.
wrrdgrrl: It would be easy to come down with some phrase like, "Don't sneak around in the shadows; step forward with certainty", blah, blah, blah. It's just not that easy sometimes.
Sen-jo is not unlike the poor meow-meow that Nansen deftly divided in Case 14. She is an example of a rending apart, a model of trying to serve both and serving none. This is what usually happens when one puts others' expectations before one's own. She is indeed a shadow figure, the darkness that hides behind when the sunlight is blocked.
Everyone can relate to the part about separate selves for work - school - online - social circles, etc. But the part that many people miss is the splitting of emotional labour. Emotional labour is not neatly divided when one splits and shifts between roles and personas. It's twice the work, and wholly unsustainable as a practice. I'll end my division-of-labour rant there, and move forward to Mumon's verse: "Unity and variety" -- "This is one, this is two." I find it difficult to merge the ideas of unity and variety, but the closest I can come is the image of a faceted jewel, whose spectrum changes with the movement of the sun and moon. On a cloudless night it might appear to be a rock. A few hours later, it may explode with an unexpected brilliance. Neither one expresses the thing itself, yet both are accurate representations.
Confused yet? Get in the boat!
Submitted December 29, 2019 at 03:49AM by wrrdgrrl https://ift.tt/2skjPul
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