Zen Bridge by Keido Fukushima

Author:Keido Fukushima
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

17

Rough and Ready Zen

I have to say those Tang dynasty Chinese Zen masters were really quite rough and ready.

THERE ARE MANY Zen stories about the transcendence of dualism. For example, there came a time when Zen Master Hyakujo had to choose a successor. There were about eight hundred monks studying under him at the time. In order to pick his successor, one day Hyakujo set a water pitcher down on the ground in front of him and said to his disciples: “This is a water pitcher on the ground. Do not call it a water pitcher. What do you call it?” The head monk responded immediately saying, “Well, I sure wouldn’t call it a piece of wood.” This a pretty good answer that shows the transcendence of dualism. The head monk was not attached to the form of the water pitcher as a water pitcher. Hyakujo then asked his disciple Isan, “What do you have to say about this?” Isan immediately went up and knocked over the pitcher. Needless to say Hyakujo passed on his succession to Isan.

The head monk’s response was good, but compared with Isan’s kicking over the pitcher, you can see that the head monk’s Zen understanding is still incomplete. The head monk was still somewhat attached to the dualistic question of whether or not to call it a pitcher. Isan’s response went beyond the dualism of calling the pitcher this or that or anything at all; with total freedom, Isan kicked the pitcher over. We can see how great Isan’s answer was from the perspective of transcending dualism.

Looking back to the time of the Tang dynasty over a thousand years ago, we could say that the monks of that era went too far in some sense. Nowadays we might think it’s not really necessary to do something as rough as knocking over the pitcher. There was probably clean water available at the temple. Wouldn’t it have been a perfectly suitable response to simply get up, drink some water, and say, “That’s delicious?” The long development of Buddhism up to and through the Tang dynasty naturally brought it to a point where what we might call a kind of radical or extreme action revealed the truth.

Whether one names or doesn’t name the pitcher, simply kicking the pitcher doesn’t mean one has transcended duality. If that were the case, Zen masters would go around all day kicking things. Isan’s act of knocking over the pitcher was a profound Zen act, but you have to take into account the historical and cultural circumstances of that action. Still, as a modern Zen master, I have to say those Tang dynasty Chinese Zen masters were really quite rough and ready.

The legendary Zen master Fuke lived at the same time as Zen Master Rinzai, the founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen, in a town near Rinzai’s temple. Fuke had a free, unrestricted way of living without any particular dwelling. He simply came and went as he pleased. When Fuke got hungry, he’d wander over to Rinzai’s temple and get some raw vegetables from the kitchen.

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