The Clam Monk lived in no fixed place.
After he was acknowledged by Dongshan, he blended in with the populace along the Min River. He used to follow the river bank gathering clams to eat. At night he would sleep in the paper money offerings at White Horse Shrine. The local residents called him the Clam Monk.
Master Huayan Jing heard of him and wanted to determine if he was real or fake; he buried himself in the paper money ahead of time, and when the Clam Monk came back to settle late that night he grabbed him and asked, "What is the meaning of the founding teacher's coming from the West?"
The Clam Monk immediately replied, "The bowl on the wine stand in front of the spirit."
There's a lot of family traditions shown off in this case: acknowledgement, surprise testing, reference to Bodhidharma. It also draws attention to the fact that folks uninterested in Zen try to get the general weirdness of certain Zen Masters to rub off on them.
You could lecture on it for days, really.
Here's what I would suggest is most noteworthy for a novice to consider:
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Zen Masters don't defer to other Zen Masters to assess someone's understanding.
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The testing doesn't involve repeating trivia or doctrinal teachings.
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The Clam Monk is a total weirdo--living in garbage, eating garbage--but that isn't what is remarked upon by Zen Masters as important. In cultures that have little to no literacy in Zen texts, particularly religious cultures, that 'weirdness' is what they confuse for enlightenment...and then try and imitate that. See: All the paintings of this guy.
What points do you have to add that I missed?
Submitted May 06, 2021 at 07:15AM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/2QWsvDi
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