Yun Men's Every Day is a Good Day

Blue Cliff Record: Case VI

Yun Men said, "I don't ask you about before the fifteenth day;¹ try to say something about after the fifteenth day."²

Yun Men himself answered for everyone, "Every day is a good day."³

NOTES

^1. Half south of the river, half north of the river. We don't keep old calendar dates here.

^2. Inevitably it will go from dawn to sunset; just don't say that the next day is the sixteenth. Days and months seem to flow by.

^3. He's gathered it up. Though the frog jumps, he can't get out of the basket. Whose house has no bright moon and pure wind? But do you know it? The sea god knows its value, he doesn't know its price.

I include the notes this time. I really like it when Yuanwu says "Though the frog jumps, he can't get out of the basket." That's insight.

I am not going to talk much about "Every day is a good day," because I think it is self-explanatory (pun intended). Instead, I would like to discuss and look into the way Yunmen answers a question.

In the commentary, Yuanwu gives a poem made by someone who who was observing Yunmen at a palace gathering discussing the Dharma:

Cultivation of the great wisdom-only that is Ch'an;/Silence, not clamor, is in order for the Ch'an school./Ten thousand kinds of clever talk -how can they be as good as reality?/They lose to Yun Men's total not speaking.

Why do they lose to Yunmen's "not speaking"? Yuanwu points us in the direction of Muzhou, Yunmen's teacher:

Yun Men first called on Mu Chou. Mu Chou spun devices that turned like lightning [utterly useless], so it was difficult to approach and linger.

...

In Yun Men's usual dealings with people, he would often use the methods of Mu Chou; though it was hard to approach him, he had the hammer and tongs, to pull out nails and wrench out pegs. Hsueh Tou said of him, "I like the fresh devices of Shao Yang [referencing Yunmen]; he spent his life pulling out nails and pegs for people."

So Muzhou said things that couldn't be grasped, and Yunmen had the one word Zen where interpretation fails. Here is an example:

BCR Case 8

At the end of the summer retreat Ts'ui Yen said to the community, "All summer long I've been talking to you, brothers; look and see if my eyebrows are still there."

M Pao Fu said, "The thief's heart is cowardly."

Ch'ang Ch'ing said, "Grown."

Yun Men said, "A barrier."

What is anyone supposed to make of "A barrier"? What are you saying?! Speak clearly!

"A barrier" actively resists interpretation. This is why Yuanwu continuously pushes us away from trying to give a doctrinal interpretation of "everyday is a good day." We can get a general understanding of what Yunmen is saying, but we can never peg it down exactly. The fact is, one is forced to make up one's own mind. No explanation or commentary is coming.

In ordinary situations, even, Yun Men would still revile people. When he uttered a phrase, it was like an iron spike.

That is to say, we can get ourselves caught. Yunmen's style is familiar to all of us, whether we know it or not. Yuanwu points to it when they say "Killing others is not as good as killing yourself. As soon as you make a principle, you fall into a pit." We either allow our understanding to be pegged down, or we learn to remove iron spikes. Yunmen teaches us how; Yuanwu says:

Yun Men set down a question to instruct his community, "I don't ask you about before the fifteenth day; try to say something about after l the fifteenth day." He cuts off the thousand distinctions, and doesn't let either ordinary or holy pass. He himself answered for everyone, "Every day is a good day." The words "before the fifteenth day" already cut off the thousand distinctions; the words "after the fifteenth day" also cut off the thousand distinctions.

...

People coming after him merely followed his words to produce interpretations; but what relevance has this? Yun Men established a protean [having a varied nature or ability to assume different forms] style; he surely had a way to benefit people. Having spoken some words, he then answered himself in everyone's behalf: "Every day is a good day." These words pervade past and present, from before until after, and settle everything at once.

Not the sixteenth. Not an esoteric teaching that requires intense scholarship. Not much of anything at all. Just "every day is a good day." To quote from Yunmen's sayings:

What you must do is step back and figure out your own standpoint: what logic is there to it?

There really is nothing at all to give you to understand, or to give you to wonder about, because each of you has your own business. When the great function appears, it does not take any effort on your part; now you are no different from the Zen masters and buddhas. It’s just that your roots of faith are shallow and thin, while your bad habits are dense and thick.

Verse

He throws away one,/Picks up seven./Above, below, and in the four directions, there is no comparison./Placidly walking along, he treads down the sound of the flowing stream;/His relaxed gaze descries the tracks of flying birds./The grasses grow thick,/The mists overhang./'Round Subhuti's cliff, the flowers make a mess;/I snap my fingers;" how lamentable is Shunyata!/Don't make a move!/If you move, thirty blows!

Today is an auspicious day to be discussing this. We've got Deshan burning their sutras and blasting the Buddhas. Why all this hate for scripture? Because it can not help anyone understand "every day is a good day." This is what Xuedou says.

Don't make a move!/If you move, thirty blows!

Where is the wind coming from? How firmly are your own feet planted? If you came here to teach me, and can't say "every day is a good day", thirty blows is too kind.

Yuanwu says:

When the king of gods is shaking the earth and raining down flowers, at this point where else will you go to hide?

...

Though you be clean and naked, bare and purified, totally without fault or worry, this is still not the ultimate. In the end though, what is? Look carefully at this quote; "I snap my fingers; how lamentable is Shunyata!" The Sanskrit word "Shunyata" in our language means the spirit of emptiness. Empty space is her body; she has no physical body to be conscious of contact. When the Buddha's brilliance shines forth, then she manifests her body. When you get to be like Shunyata, then Hsueh Tou will rightly snap his fingers in lament.

Again Hsueh Tou says, "Don't make a move!" What's it like when you move? (Like) sleeping with your eyes open under the bright sun in the blue sky.

If you are fooled by teachers and scripture, that is fine. In Zen, there is room to turn around. But if you are caught by Yunmen's "every day is a good day", then you are truly wandering.

Submitted September 07, 2020 at 06:04PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/3lWIZ96