The phrase "Zen Master" is the standard term for referring to those within the Zen tradition who speak authoritatively with respect to Zen enlightenment and who simultaneously embody that. As I understand it, this is a literal translation of the title "chánshī" which itself is a romanization for a mode of address used since ancient times. On top of that, there are many users on this forum whose opinions I highly respect who use the phrase "Zen Master" without qualification. Yet despite all this, I find myself reluctant to do so.
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When I think of the term "master" two things principally come to mind. 1) The master/slave opposition and 2) The mastery of some skill or field of knowledge. I don't think it would be controversial even in this rather divided forum to assert that Zen is fundamentally unlike either of these two things. A "Zen Master" is not someone who has any moral or legal authority over others and Zen itself is not something reducible to techniques or information. But since the Zen tradition already acknowledges the inability of words to encompass its essence, is there any particular reason to find the concept of Zen "Mastery" problematic?
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I still think so; but only on a relative level. Consider the analogy of a surfer. Even a surfer at the highest level of expertise, a Surfing Master if you will, still has no power over the waves they ride. But then in chess conversely, where the game is fundamentally abstract and devoid of hidden variables, it certainly makes more sense to speak of mastery since ability here is largely contingent on individual choice. Now, placing Zen on this spectrum, where does it lie? I'd say at the complete opposite end of things like chess or mathematics. Zen after all isn't reducible to rationality or logic; to borrow a term from the logicians, it is not susceptible to "formalization." And in Zen, even control itself is regarded as an impediment to true freedom; "If you fast and control yourself, practice meditation and cultivate wisdom, these are afflicted roots of goodness." - Baizhang
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If that's the case though, how do we slough off the dead skin that constrains us within the conceptual framework of mastery? Not by just giving up the term "mastery" obviously; it's no more tainted than any other word and regarding it as especially obstructive is simply succumbing to the error of a new artificial bias. But to the extent that it is uncriticized, to the extent that it isn't regarded as something provisional due to its ubiquity, Zen Mastery, like any other ossified expression, becomes something to let go of. Or more insightfully perhaps, something that never even had any substance with which we could grasp it to begin with. Master Muping however really expressed it with consummate skill (Ha ha!) in Dahui's Treasury (449)
Master Muping picked up his staff, showing it to the assembly, and said, "If I pick it up, you then turn to before picking up to construct a theory; if I don't pick it up, you then turn to when it's picked up to construe mastery. Now tell me, where is my effort to help people?" At that time a monk came out and said, "I don't presume to arbitrarily create a gap." The master said, "I know you're not out of your depth." The monk said, "The lowest place, when leveled, is more than enough; the highest place, when gazed upon, is lacking." The master said, "You're creating gap upon gap." The monk had nothing to say. The master said, "If you cover your nose to steal incense, you'll uselessly get penalized."
Submitted March 31, 2023 at 04:56AM by wrathfuldeities https://ift.tt/d5UAGj0
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