Foyan on studying cases

A recent post got me to think about the relationship between Zen cases and enlightenment. Does reading and understanding a lot of Zen cases lead to enlightenment? Does enlightenment make you instantly understand all cases? (I say the answer is "no" to both.) I found a few Foyan quotes that may shine some light on "studying cases."

In the chapter "Real Zen", Foyan tells us a story where someone got enlightened by reading a case:

When Huaitang started to study Zen, he first saw Yunfeng Yue. For three years, he could not understand what Yunfeng was talking about. He also studied with Zen Master Nan, and after two years still did not under­ stand. Then he went to spend a summer retreat in a cloister. In Transmission of the Lamp, he read the story where someone asked Duofu, “What is the bamboo grove of Duofu?” He replied, “One cane, two canes slanted.” At this, Huaitang finally opened up and awakened.

Of course, many people read this case about Duofu now and do not get enlightened. It's like Xiangyan getting enlightened by hearing rubble hit bamboo. People don't go and throw rubble at bamboo, attempting to get enlightened. Replicating the circumstances of someone else's enlightenment doesn't help.

Zen Masters wrote so much commentary and verses for cases, that it's undeniable that they valued them highly. In the intro to the Wumenguan, Wumen says:

Because I received requests to benefit others, I proceeded to go to the ancients’ public cases to make tiles to knock on their gates and, by following the opportunities, to guide these learned persons.

He says that public cases are tiles to knock on the gates of the ancients. So it seems like Wumen at least thought these cases to be useful: After all it's much easier to break open a gate with a tile than with your bare hands. But making intellectual interpretations for a lot of cases doesn't get us anywhere. Throwing a lot of small pebbles at the gate doesn't open it. But one good throw with a large brick and it may crash through, like it did for Huaitang.

In the chapter "Principle and Phenomena", Foyan tells us that theoretical interpretations of cases are useless:

I have seen many who cannot follow principle; when they take it up, they turn it upside down at once. They make useless theoretical interpretations of the sayings and model cases of the ancients, their different challenges, records of seasonal addresses, and the modalities of their individual schools, considering this to be Zen study. How miserable! Study of the path is not like this.

Study of the path is not like this, but what is it like? In the chapter "Instant Enlightenment", Foyan tells us about his experience studying cases:

One day he [Elder Fu] recited a story to me: Zhaozhou showed some fire to a student and said, "Don't call it fire. What is it?" I wondered deeply at this: obviously it is fire—why not call it fire?I contemplated this for three years, always reflecting, "How dare I use the feelings and perceptions of an ordinary man to ask about the realization of sages?"

He contemplated this single Zhaozhou case for three years. I take his question that he asked himself to mean: "How can I, with my unenlightened mind, understand Zhaozhou with his enlightened mind?" His studying seems to take the form of close self examination. He investigates the short comings he believes to see in his own mind. I think that is an important hint on how people should deal with Zen cases. Superficial theoretical interpretations don't get us anywhere. We need to take them personally and see them as a starting point to investigate ourselves. I think there can be no method for this kind of investigation: You can't tell someone "First you gotta ask yourself X, then you'll have insight Y, then you continue by taking a close look at Z", that just won't work.

We should also note that it isn't mentioned that Foyan got enlightened while doing this investigation. About his own enlightenment, he just says that he attained understanding at the fireside.

In "Keys of Zen Mind", he says:

This is not a matter of longtime practice; it does not depend on cultivation. That is because it is something that is already there. Worldly people, who do not recognize it, call it roaming aimlessly. That is why it is said, “ Only by experiential realiza­tion do you know it is unfathomable.” People who study the path clearly know there is such a thing; why do they fail to get the message, and go on doubting? It is because their faith is not complete enough and their doubt is not deep enough. Only with depth and completeness, be it faith or doubt, is it really Zen; if you are incapable of introspection like this, you will eventually get lost in confusion and lose the thread, wearing out and stumbling halfway along the road. But if you can look into yourself, there is no one else.

Foyan says that Zen is not a matter of longtime practice and that it is not a matter of cultivation. Make sense, since "investigation" is about examining something that is already there, not about cultivation. He is talking about faith and doubt. Maybe it could be said that this "investigation" is putting doubt into practice. Later in the same chapter, he continues:

When people pro­ceed on the path because they are confused and do not know their own minds, they come to mountain forests to see teachers, imagining that there is a special “way” that can make people comfortable, not realizing that the best exercise is to look back and study your previous confusion.

I'd say that the cases are a starting point for us to look back and study our own confusion.

Let's make this post a bit more controversial: Is this "look back and study your previous confusion" a kind of meditation? Is it a practice? I say no to both. It's not what we commonly understand the word "meditation" to mean. It's self examination, not controlling the mind or exercising the mind in a certain way (some modern meditation manuals compare meditation to physical exercise of which you do repetitions). And because it isn't repetitive, it's also not a practice in that sense. It's not practicing to be a certain way or use your mind a certain way, it's closely looking at what's there. But I think, we could maybe say that it is putting Zen into practice, the practical side of Zen (as opposed to mere theoretical study).

Submitted May 16, 2023 at 03:04PM by moinmoinyo https://ift.tt/5eW4zR7