A Book Club Book Report on Burning Books (and Other Relevant Topics)
The history of the huatou is meandering, suffering many of the same issues the word Chan has since the foundational Masters taught. Ding-hwa Hsieh discusses the way certain phrases from cases were used to focus students on key issues in koan study in her 1993 paper. Students had already begun to approach koan study as reflection; debating history, references, and categories. Dahui used these head-phrases in his teaching to avoid this, undermining the Zen pretenders who learned the correct verbiage to pass themselves off as teachers. Within a few generations, huatou were instead being used as a form of taking-up the phrase to clear away thoughts and engirding mind, as is seen in the modern usage of repeating the character wu 無 in perpetuity.
To grasp Dahui's concern with Zhaozhou's dog case, the term "gongfu" must be understood. Gongfu can be translated as "cultivation," or the expenditure of time and energy in working. Learning to do proper gongfu, learning to differentiate gongfu energy from awakening energy, and understanding that gongfu is a barrier to realization, are all integral concepts that guide how Dahui recommends head-phrases and uses them to teach.
Dahui's instructions for proper gongfu application are to (1.1.1); turn mind towards the gate; use clear, factual thinking to rid oneself of defilements; make oneself spontaneously refreshed moment to moment, without hesitation, and; disentangle from continuity and resentment that traps thinking and recreates faults. These skills and outcomes give the adept the ability to manage defilements, not getting spun around by “gate-pivots" that turn away from or towards oneself, culminating in "great liberation (2.2.1)." When using head-phrases in daily life and inescapable routines, the spotlight of mind is not turned towards, or caught by, anything, and therefore "everything is 'ready-made'." It is not a matter of pursuing stillness or avoiding distraction. Attempting to use gongfu to seize realization Dahui calls “caressing the sky" with one's hands—a vicious cycle of expending energy to no purpose (1.5.5). Rather, "...in the midst of blazing arising-extinguishing, abruptly—in one bound—jump clear...if the mind of samsara is smashed—stillness will come of its own accord (1.4.5)."
This "one bound" is neither rushed nor slack (2.6.1); rushing is misapplying effort to grasp enlightenment—"concentrating mind" leads to restlessness; slack is "quelling delusive thought," leading to mental inactivity and lethargy (2.15.2). Rather, maintain focus on a "single point" (the phrase), after which, with a "click" and a "snort," you will awaken (1.1.6).
The outcome of applying this form of cultivation is a continual emptying of mind, fostering clarity, and resolving situations that demand attention (2.21.1). This fulfills Layman Pang's adage, "Empty the existent, don't reify the non-existent;" the first half drops that which is delusion, addressing those things that can not be ignored and setting them aside; the second being the cultivation inherent in this mind-emptying technique—resorting to gongfu energy, limiting awakening energy—in the form of working with a phrase that clears out the self-replicating edifice of delusive thinking; not "careful self-monitering," or taking on an extra head of a disciplinarian narrative, further branching delusive thinking, but handily managing inescapable routines as they manifest in the form of the "noisiness" of life—not discrimination, but a spotlight (1.5.4). In "noisiness," when the six senses are perturbed, is when gongfu energy needs to be applied—especially when creating the additional cacophony of preferring stillness, and attempting to silence incoming data (1.1.7). “Just exhaust ‘common’ delusive thought" (1.2.4), rather than trying "to brush away the sense fields," which Dahui argues is logically impossible—essentially nihilism (2.5.1).
With this new habit, the nature of gongfu energy and awakening energy starts to become apparent in their function. Dahui says, "an instance of saving on the expenditure of [gongfu] energy is none other than the state of gaining [awakening] energy...If you resort to even a hairsbreadth of willpower to prop up [the phrase], that will certainly be a perverse dharma, not the buddhadharma (2.5.3)!" The six senses present themselves, inescapably—there is no other being. There are those who would call themselves Zen "practioners," attempting to take up this method as a "clearing-out," a purifying process, perhaps in the form of something like zazen or repeating the character wu 無, believing that the calm they feel is an indication that what they are doing is the same as what Zen Masters did—Dahui assures us, over-and-over again, it is not.
This attempt at perpetual expenditure of gongfu energy in an effort to reach out and grasp awakening is a misunderstanding; rather, when gongfu is correctly applied in the midst of life's noisiness, it creates a turning back towards the care-free, liberated individual that comes naturally, without cultivation. The barrier to this is reaching for it or other things to fulfill its state.
In lieu, Dahui reminds us that, "there is nothing that is excessive and nothing that does not measure up. This is precisely the state of fusion with the Way (1.10.1)." This is a realm seperate from the notion of "defilements" and "fulfilling the buddharma." Rather than seeking, the task of the phrase is to elucidate the processing of pursuit or rejection. The phrase overcomes the hurdle of running towards or away, dissipating energy and spinning around, the enemy of the "nothing-to-do" Zen Master. In fact, Dahui praises this state, telling one individual, "The fact that your 'twiddling around' is lively like a fish waving its tail is precisely because you’re one who has attained self-realization. Gratifying! Very gratifying (2.18.1)!"
Dahui is teaching an expedient means, giving us the short and subtle method that can't be replicated or sold as formula for attaining enlightenment—ultimately, all of it is misapplication. In the letters, Dahui is dealing with unenlightened lay people who have lost themselves on a "seeking-track," rather than realizing they occupy the ground of human experience. The expenditure of gongfu energy can address these gates, but before the tail is through the lattice, awakening energy must become apparent. Therefore, proper gongfu is the elimination of cultivation; care-free and boundless in movement, responding as things arise, and utilizing the natural awakening energy of someone who has finished doing everything required. Dahui calls this getting "to the end of things," saying, "I just believe that this matter can’t be transmitted and can’t be learned (1.2.1)." All that is necessary is for someone (2.2.3):
to have confidence on his own, give assent on his own, see on his own, awaken on his own. If you just latch onto what other people have to say [and don’t bother to see on your own], I fear [it will be taken that the buddhas and patriarchs] have deceived people.
As for head-phrases themselves, Dahui expresses his fear that the teaching is almost extinct—that so few monks have "broken through [the phrase] of a dog’s having no buddha-nature" 2.23.2. The study of gongfu outlined the principles and outcomes of head-phrase study, but not the application. Today, seekers are told that repeating the sound wu 無 over and over again will give them a breakthrough. Understanding Dahui undermines this mischaracterization.
Above all others, Dahui called the correct phrase "thinking of nothing at all;" abiding, clear, wide-awake (1.1.2), whereby "one uniformly annihilates all affirmation/negation," including the phrase itself. Thinking of nothing at all is "enough." In practice, "enough" is using wisdom to wash away defilement, thereby refreshing oneself, cutting off "the mind of continuity," which cuts off future faults (1.1.1). When defilements, such as thoughts of gain or loss, arise, "without applying energy to shove them away, merely...do a smooth-flowing 'pivot' to the [phrase]" (1.6.1). Dahui says this will save you from expenditure of "gongfu energy," making space for "awakening energy."
When Dahui is assigning wu 無, he is not referring to the character itself, but to wu 無 as a stand in for the entire case "dog has no buddha-nature." He assigns it often. Practically, he says to; rally your awareness to it (2.17.1; 2.13.2), rather than "engirding mind” and “quelling delusive thought” (1.9.1); be at ease with the uncertainty it generates (2.2.1; 2.13.2); don't understand it as owned, or understood, or seek for it in a state of waiting for awakening, or in having suddenly understood (2.20.1). He refers it with the question, "What is the state unreachable by reflection?" and advises that "when you become aware of squirming in your belly and distress in your mind," you are on the path (2.17.1).
He further gives a list of directives concerning wu 無 (1.4.2), including; not "understanding" that there is, or is not, wu 無, or any other reasoning, understanding, calculation, or reflection; not making a "lifestyle" of the word or turning it into "nothing-to-do;" not thinking you "own" it, or can prove it with words and quotes. This includes not grasping samsara or the Buddhadharma as really existent (1.5.3). Rather, in all you day-to-day activities, become one thusness with the phrase (1.8.1), until the mind becomes “like a single snowflake atop a red-hot stove" (1.9.1). Ultimately, "just concentrate mind upon reflecting on the state that cannot be reflected upon," (2.2.1), never breaking focus until the "thief is arrested" (2.4.1); "keep pressing hard with [wu 無]! Suddenly you’ll 'lose your hemp sack'!"
Even when sitting, "never lose track of the words (1.1.1)," nor allow torpor or restlessness—when noticed, bring the phrase to attention (1.4.7). When your mind is in a state of noisiness, "rally [the phrase] to awareness," and if you are gaining "[awakening] energy," do not let it go (1.4.6). Dahui says (2.6.2):
When you become aware that the huatou has no basis, that the huatou has no taste, that your mind is squirming, then it’s just the right time for applying energy—absolutely avoid leaving it to the course of events.
With similar instructions, Dahui recommends other phrases, including "dried turd," reflecting on it and where the self goes after death until the mind becomes "stupefied" (2.3.1), and making "deluded consciousness non-operational like that of a human figure sculpted from clay or wood," after which, awakening will occur when all "tricky maneuvers are suddenly exhausted (2.2.2)." In the discussion of uncertainty and inconceivability, he variously discusses the "cypress tree in the garden;" "three pounds of linen thread;" "dried turd;" "dog has no buddha-nature;" "in one gulp suck up the water of West River;" and "East Mountain walks on water" (1.10.3).
Other phrases Dahui prescribes are, in addition to what has been discussed above; Zhaozhou's "Put it down" (1.1.1); "birth-death" (2.12.1); "Mt. Sumeru" (1.1.1); a quote from the Surangama Sutra (1.2.2), and "Don't add knowing" from the Perfect Awakening Sutra (2.11.1); "What the hell is it?" (1.9.1; 2.9.1), and Layman Pang's adage (1.1.8).
Thus, we can see that Dahui's usage of the head-phrase is consistent throughout the letters, but that taking them up and repeating them to engird mind was not what Dahui intended. Rather, in the case of wu 無, it was something about the entire case that, when a student seeking to attain enlightenment focused on it, allowed them an insight into the teachings of Zen and the Linji school.
Submitted September 10, 2021 at 02:13AM by OneoftheUnfettered https://ift.tt/2X0ZclI
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