So I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and figured I'd share it, since I was asked about it in a discussion with u/SoundOfEars
Zen Masters often talk about "having a mind like wood or stone". Here are a couple examples:
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When mind and mental conditions are like earth, wood, or stone, moment after moment, like saving your head were it ablaze, also like the great scent-bearing elephant crossing a river, cutting off the flow as he passes, causing there to be no doubt or error, this person neither heaven nor hell can contain.
-Baizhang
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Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.
-Huangbo
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Okie dokie. So very "Wumenguan" in a literal sense. But what about being wood is relevant? The question formed as I was meandering through these three cases:
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Part 1: Knock on Wood and it Makes No Sound
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TotETT 127
Master Huaitang said to an assembly,
If you knock on space and make a sound, who can discern the note?
If you knock on wood but it makes no sound, it's a waste of effort to lend an ear.
It is not the phenomena before your eyes; don't create all sorts of attitudes. Occurrence and disappearance do not know each other; herein there is no back or front.
Where the king of elephants strides, foxes and rabbits leave no tracks.
When the moon reflected in the water appears, the wind and clouds are naturally distinct.
When you get here, the universe cannot contain you, heaven and earth do not know your name. A thousand sages stand down - who dares come forth and speak?
Good people, this requires that you sweep away your previous concept of life, your actions and doings, understanding and not understanding.
Better you should go back to the mountains always whistling a single note deep in the mist.
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TotETT 23
Master Dinghui Xin asked a monk, "How do the adepts of the South evaluate the National Teacher Zhong's saying about inanimate objects expounding the Dharma?"
The monk said, "Everyone says it refers to the interchange of functions of the six senses."
Xin said, "In the Teachings it says 'There are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind' - what is there to interchange functions?"
The monk tried to think of something to say; Xin hit him right across the back.
Dharma master Sheng said, "Knock on space, and it makes a sound; knock on wood and there's no sound."
Yunmen knocked at the air with his staff and said, "Aye yay yay." He also knocked on a board and said, "Does it make a sound?"
A monk said, "It makes a sound."
Yunmen said, "You worldling!" He knocked the board again and said, "What do you call 'sound'?"
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TotETT 205
Master Guanghui Lian said to an assembly,
When the Chan imperative goes into effect, the tracks of humans and divinities disappear; when a pathway is opened up, we temporarily talk of complications. Why so? In the interval of an urge to deliberate, you've already lost your life.
I do not shrink from the criticisms of others - I go into mud and water for your sake. Doesn't anyone understand? For the moment, let me try to convey a message. [silence] Look, look - everyone's living in the world of bedevilment!
[then he held up his staff and said] Speak quickly! Speak quickly!
[the group hesitated; he then shouted a shout]
A monk asked, "What is a true human with no position like?"
He said, "Wood above, iron below."
The monk said, "Then the fault is in being."
The master said, "The judge tosses down his pen."
The monk bowed. Lian said, "Haul him out!"
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So, we have wood that, when knocked on, makes no sound. What is wood? Wood is above, iron below. I was getting a very "first case GG" vibe, and started blocking externals. Then I realized that thoughts are included in "externals". Then I realized I had gone wrong.
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Part 2: Where We Go Right and Wrong (Which is Wrong, Right?
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If you recognize things and consider that seeing, this is like holding tiles and pebbles; what do you want to hold on to them for? If you say you don’t see, then how are you different from wood or stone? That is why seeing and not seeing both have their fault.
-Baizhang
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So I had been blocking the flow, like a musky elephant in the river. This is just expending effort holding up the Buddha's teachings, like setting out on an adventure with a bag full of rocks and a board on my shoulder. I'd forgotten what Foyan said:
I am not telling you to sit on a bench with your eyes closed, rigidly suppressing body and mind, like earth or wood. That will never have any usefulness, even in a million years.
The effort to emulate wood and stone, being exhausting, and being unable to deny reality and existence (lobotomy anyone) was not going to work in understanding Huangbo's directive.
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Part 3: Solutions!
...most students of Zen cling to all sorts of sounds and forms. Why do they not copy me by letting each thought go as though it were nothing, or as though it were a piece of rotten wood, a stone, or the cold ashes of a dead fire?
-Huangbo
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Here we have Huangbo switch it up. Rather than try to be wood and stone, just recognize the nature of a lot of reality; tasteless garbage. I appreciated, one time, reading Thich Nhat Hanh saying that this world sucks, and a lot of it is just plain poisonous. Whether to fix it or run away from it is a study for another day, and whether that has anything to do with Zen is debatable, but we can see some of what Huangbo was getting at. Apparently Thich thought a lot of experiences this world has to offer is akin to eating cold ashes. He also didn't appear satisfied with living in Yunmen's rathole.
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TotETT 525
Master Luopu said to an assembly,
At the last word you reach the unbreakable barrier; cutting off the essential bridge, you don't let ordinary or holy through. Usually I tell you people that even if the whole world is merry, I alone do not agree. Why? It is like a miraculous turtle with a chart on its back carries the omen of its own destruction; when a phoenix caught in a golden net aims for the sky, how can it hope to succeed? You simply must understand the aim outside doctrine; don't take rules from words. Therefore if the potential of a stone man were like you, it could sing songs of the south; if you are like a stone man, you can chime in to songs of snow.
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Luopu, carrying on this discussion, points to the cutting off of ordinary and holy as highlighted Guanghui Lian's case above. Why is this given center stage? Well, the turtle knows the world is going to end, so building up a treasury is obviously more cold ashes, and that golden net blocks off the birds path. Luopu says the wooden mind allows liberation and song. Yaoshan approaches this by talking about cutting off less ideal mental situations, with the sword of being like wood or stone:
The ancestral teachers only taught preservation; if greed or hostility arise, it is imperative to ward them off and not let them touch you. If you want to know how to do this, you must bear up like dead wood or stone. There really are no ramifications to attain. Even so, you still must see for yourself. Don't eliminate speech entirely. I am not speaking these words to you to reveal the unspoken. That originally has no features such as ears or eyes.
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Baizhang carries us through in detail [my commentary]:
Question: How can one attain a mind which is like wood or stone in the presence of all situations?
The master said,
All various things have never of themselves spoken of emptiness; nor do they themselves speak of form, and they do not speak of right, wrong, defilement, or purity. Nor is there mind which binds and fetters people; it is just because people themselves give rise to vain and arbitrary attachments and that they create so many kinds of understanding, produce so many kinds of opinion, and give rise to so many various loves and fears.
[More cutting off non existent heavens and hells, ordinaries and holies]
Just understand that the many things do not originate of themselves; all of them come into existence from one’s own single mental impulse of imagination mistakenly clinging to appearances. If you know that mind and objects fundamentally do not contact each other, you will be set free on the spot. Each of the various things is in a state of quiescence right where it is; this very place is the site of enlightenment.
[Look at the cold ashes, but don't force yourself to eat them]
Inherent nature cannot be named; originally it is not mundane, nor is it holy; it is neither defiled nor pure. Also it is neither empty nor existent, and it is neither good nor bad. When it is involved with impure things, it is called the two vehicles of divinity and humanity. When the mind of purity and impurity is ended, it does not dwell in bondage, nor does it dwell in liberation; it has no mindfulness of doing, nondoing, bondage or liberation - then, though it is within birth and death, that mind is free; ultimately it does not comingle with all the vanities, the empty illusions, sensual passions, the mortal clusters and the elements of existence, life and death, or the sense media. Transcendent and without abode, nothing at all constrains it; it goes and comes through birth and death as through an open door.
When someone who is studying the Way comes in contact with various kinds of pain or pleasure, with things agreeable or disagreeable, his mind is not wearied; he does not think at all of fame, profit, clothing or food. He does not long for the benefits of merit and virtue; he is not hindered or obstructed by the various things of the world. Nothing is dear to him, nothing lovely; he is equanimous through pain and pleasure.
Simple clothing to keep off the cold, coarse food to sustain life; by unbending and intent, as though stupid, as though deaf and mute - then you will have some fulfillment. If in your mind you widely study knowledge and interpretation, seeking merit and seeking knowledge, all this is birth and death - it is of no benefit in respect to inner reality. On the contrary, blown up and down by the winds of understanding, you will return to the sea of birth and death.
A Buddha is one who does not seek; seek this and you turn away. The principle is the principle of nonseeking; seek it and you lose it. If you cling to nonseeking, this is still the same as seeking; if you cling to nondoing, this is the same again as doing. Therefore the Diamond Cutter Scripture says, "Do not grasp truth, do not grasp untruth, and do not grasp that which is not untrue." It also says, "The truth which those who realize thusness find has no reality or unreality."
[Why a Buddha doesn't seek, see below]
If you are able to spend your whole life with a mind like wood or stone, then you will not be buoyed up and submerged by the mortal clusters, the elements of conscious existence, the media of sense, the five desires and eight winds. Then the cause of birth and death is cut off, and you are free to go or stay, unhindered by any causes or effects of doing; you will not be constrained by any indulgence. At that time to make a cause of causeless bondage, to share concerns as a benefactor, to respond to all creatures with an unattached heart, to open all fetters with unhindered wisdom - this is called giving medicine according to the disease.
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So why doesn't a Buddha seek? They don't need to. Dongshan asks and answers his own question:
Who presumes to harmonize without falling into being or nonbeing?
A wooden horse neighs in fire.
No need to cut off or add, there is enough pressing to fill the attention, and if there isn't, just remain quiescent, as Huangbo advises. Anything I am willing to eat that tastes like rotten wood must be important, at which point I can follow Huangbo's advice and make "whatever slight response is suited to each occasion."
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Part 4: Why?
If it isn't obvious, here are the last two lines of Langya Jiao's verse:
A farmer moves a foundation stone,
And under the stone he finds gold.
Submitted March 17, 2021 at 06:56PM by The_Mahdoubt https://ift.tt/38Nt8Vi
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