Thanks as usual to zenmarrow.com
The Trick
Courtesy of Foyan:
Once there was a disciplinarian monk who had kept the precepts all his life. As he was walking one night, he stepped on something that squished, which he imagined to be a frog, a mother frog laden with eggs. Mortified at the thought of having killed a pregnant frog, when the monk went to sleep that night he dreamed that hundreds of frogs came to him demanding his life. He was utterly terrified.
Come morning, the monk went to look for the frog he had squashed, and found that it had only been an overripe eggplant. At that moment, the monk's perplexities abruptly ceased; realizing there is nothing concrete in the world, for the first time he was really able to apply it practically in life.
Now I ask you, when he stepped on it by night, was it a frog or an eggplant? If it was a frog, yet when he looked at dawn it was an eggplant; if it was an eggplant, yet there were frogs demanding his life the night before. Can you decide? I'll try to decide for you:
...of course he will. I occasionally talk to people and they bring up moments in life that they feel tremendous guilt about. Some people dismiss the eggplant story because they don't know what it's like to live with a precept your whole life; but there are lots of examples from modern times of people who feel terrible guilt about something. We have to accept the eggplant monk feels guilt on that level.
The monk feels this terrible guilt, and we go to him and tell him it was an eggplant. This is a trick; if the monk falls for it, the guilt he feels vanishes. I have played this sort of trick on people myself. For example, the last favor of a dying parent asked of a child... what if the child feels guilt over granting such a favor? What if it isn't a favor, but a great last gesture of filial piety? Presto, it's an eggplant. That's some trick.
The Betrayal
Courtesy of the Record of Tung-shan (Dongshan, Soto Extrodinaire)
,,,Ch'u said, "Such aggressiveness will not do."
"You haven't even answered what you were asked, so how can you say that such aggressiveness will not do?" said the Master.
Ch'u did not respond. The Master said, "The Buddha and the Path are both nothing more than names. Why don't you quote some teaching?"
"What would a teaching say?" asked Ch'u.
"When you've gotten the meaning, forget the words," said the Master.
"By still depending on teachings, you sicken your mind," said Ch'u.
"But how great is the sickness of the one who talks about the realm of the Buddha and the realm of the Path?" said the Master.
Again Ch'u did not reply. The next day he suddenly passed away. At that time the Master came to be known as "one who questions head monks to death."
How is this not a betrayal? Dongshan made the leader of a Zen community look like a fool and ultimately disrupted the entire community. Was it worth it? Wasn't Dongshan responsible for destroying that community? How is that not a betrayal?
I have betrayed people in this same way: all other promises, obligations, duties, set aside in order to get at someone.
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Welcome! ewk comment: It occurred to me while I was meditative that these two Cases were related in some odd way... maybe it's this?
Dongshan [before he was enlightened] questioned Yün-chü, "An icchantika is someone who commits the five heinous sins. How can such a one be filial?"
"Only in so doing does he become filial," replied Yün-chü.
If so, is Foyan's deciding for you just him doing his filial duty?
Submitted September 14, 2021 at 07:55AM by ewk https://ift.tt/3AlRyRu
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