An Introduction for Zennists #5: The Marrow of the Sages

Hullabaloo and howdy-doo, fellow Zennists! As before and always, I’m ZoB 👋

Foyan decided to take it easy on me this time and keep the lecture to a manageable size. We aren’t getting paid by the word after all, as Foyan is about to point out.

Instant Zen #5, The Marrow of the Sages: 🔗

“My livelihood is the marrow of all the sages; there is not a moment when I am not explaining it to you, but you are unwilling to take it up. So it turns out, on the contrary, to be my deception. But look here—where is it that I am not explaining for you? . . .”

Bone and marrow are prevalent images used by Zen masters. There’s the ever-famous Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which I don’t recommend. Then there’s zenmarrow.com, which I can’t recommend highly enough. These are among scores of other examples making the reference, but what are the bones and marrow of Zen?

Sayings of Joshu #81: 🔗

[Zhaozhou] also said: "[Bodhidharma] said, 'Those who are outside attain the skin. Those who are inside attain the bones.' Tell me, the one who is even more inside, what does he gain?"

A monk asked, "Would it not be reasonable to say that he gains the marrow?"

[Zhaozhou] said, "Just get to the skin. At my place I am not concerned about the marrow."

The monk asked, "What is the marrow?"

[Zhaozhou] said, "In this way you will not even get to the skin."

Sayings of Joshu #80: 🔗

[Zhaozhou] preached to the people. He said: "Kasho transmitted it to Anan. Tell me who [Bodhidharma] transmitted it to."

A monk asked, "What if we say that the second patriarch, [Huike], attained the marrow [essence] of [Bodhidharma]?"

[Zhaozhou] said, "Don't abuse the second patriarch."

This trope is said to go all the way back to the start of Zen. Zhaozhou seems to take issue with the monks’ interest in getting to the “core” of Zen. This makes Foyan’s next passage even more interesting.

“. . . Professional Zennists say I do not teach people to think, I do not teach people to understand, I do not teach people to discuss stories, I do not cite past and present examples; they suppose we are idling away the time here, and think that if they had spent the time elsewhere they would have understood a few model case stories and heard some writings. If you want to discuss stories, cite past and present, then please go somewhere else; here I have only one-flavor Zen, which I therefore call the marrow of all sages . . .”

Here Foyan says we can get to the marrow, but as he pointed out before, this is outside of cases and scriptures, which are also not what he wants to lecture on.

“. . . Now let me ask you something. Why do you pay respects to an icon of wisdom? Does the icon acknowledge you when you pay respects? Does it agree with you? . . .”

Early Buddhist artists were reluctant to make physical depictions of the Buddha. This may have been because of an edict from either the Buddha himself or one of his successors, which may have later changed from the influence between cultures along the silk road. Today you find statues of the Buddha everywhere from temples to the humble homes of hippies.

“. . . If you say it acknowledges you, it is a clay icon—how can it give any acknowledgment? If you say it agrees, can you agree? Since you are incapable of acknowledgment or agreement, why do you pay respects? Is it social convention? Is it producing goodness from seeing a representation?

If you say it is social duty, how can there be social convention among renunciants? How can they produce good by seeing representations?

Do you pay respects as a consequence of going along with the crowd? If so, what is the logic in that? . . .”

Sayings of Joshu # 187: 🔗

Joshu preached to the people. He said, "A metal [statue of] Buddha melts in the furnace. A wooden Buddha is consumed by fire. A clay Buddha dissolves in water. A true Buddha dwells within.

The statue is not the Buddha. Our cases, commentaries, pointers, and verses all can be said to be as such, icons of wisdom. If they do not contain the core of Zen, does one pay respects to them because of social convention? If so, what good does that do anyone?

“. . . Here you must understand each point clearly. Have you not read how the great teacher Changsha one day turned around and saw the icon of wisdom, whereupon he suddenly realized the ultimate and said, "Turning around, I suddenly see the original body. The original body is not a perception or a reality; if you consider the original being to be the same as the real being, you will suffer hardship forever." Do you understand the logic of this?”

Blue Cliff Record #47: 🔗

A monk asked Yun Men, "What is the Body of Reality?" Men said, "Six do not take it in."

In Buddhist philosophy, the six sensing activities are seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and thinking. Reality is outside of all these, and yet knowing this is not transcendence to something higher. It’s boring into the bone and getting down to the marrow.

Blue Cliff Record #39: 🔗

A monk asked Yun Men, "What is the Pure Body of Reality?"

Yun Men said, "A flowering hedge."

The monk asked, "What is it like when one goes on in just such a way? "

Yun Men said, "A golden-haired lion." . . .

. . . TRANSLATORS' NOTES

The Golden-haired Lion is used in the Hua Yen school to symbolize the cosmos as the mutual interpenetration of the universal and the particular . . . The Lion's whole body is reflected in each and every hair: thus there is an infinity of infinities within the whole, with each particular hair reflected in and reflecting the others ad infinitum. In a general way the Golden-haired Lion represents reality . . .

Blue Cliff Record #82: 🔗

A monk asked Ta Lung, "The physical body rots away: what is the hard and fast body of reality?"

Lung said, "The mountain flowers bloom like brocade, the valley streams are brimming blue as indigo."

Summary:

• The core of Zen is not contained in all the books written about it.
• When one holds something in reverence, this also gets away from the core of it.
• Zen masters are always “explaining it” in a way that can be understood, but this is outside of sense experience.

Suggested discussions:

1. What does Foyan mean by, “but you are unwilling to take it up”?
2. If “the marrow of the sages” cannot be found in words, why is so much written and said about Zen?
3. If it’s also not in sense experience and things aren’t to be idolized, why did Changsha understand when he turned and saw the idol?

Submitted June 25, 2022 at 03:29AM by ZenOfBass https://ift.tt/3gvNc5R