Zen by Roshi P. Kapleau

Author:Roshi P. Kapleau [Kapleau, Roshi Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76358-7
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

When the rice-pounder heard these words repeated by a young monk in the granary area, he realized that the author had not yet perceived his Self-nature, so later he composed his own verse and asked this same monk to write it down for him:

Fundamentally no bodhi tree exists

nor the stand of a mirror bright.

Since all is voidness from the beginning,

where can the dust alight?

The Fifth Patriarch, upon reading this verse and learning who had composed it, went to the granary and told the young granary worker to come to his quarters at night so that he would not be seen by the others. That night the Fifth Patriarch transmitted to him the robe and bowl, saying, “Now you are the Sixth Patriarch.” The Fifth Patriarch knew that the monks would never tolerate this novice as the master’s successor, so he urged the Sixth Patriarch to return to his native place in secrecy, telling him to live incognito while maturing his enlightenment and only after doing so to begin his formal teaching. He also told him that because the transmission of the robe might easily become a source of contention in the future, there were to be no further transmissions of the robe after him and that hereafter it was to be a transmission strictly from mind to mind. Then the Fifth Patriarch ferried the new Ancestral Teacher to the other shore of the river, where they parted, never again to see each other.

The present koan revolves around the incident of the Sixth Patriarch’s departure from the monastery carrying with him the robe and bowl. Now even though the old patriarch had made the transmission in great secrecy, it soon became known that his heir was departing with the robe and bowl as the Sixth Patriarch. The succeeding events are related in the koan:

“The Sixth Patriarch was pursued by a monk into the mountains.” This monk, it seems, was a rough and impulsive man who had been a general before he became a monk. But it would be a mistake to think of him as a villainous person. He should rather be looked upon as a zealous defender of the Dharma, to which he was overly attached. To this middle-aged, simple-minded monk, and the others as well, it was inconceivable that the precious Dharma, symbolized by the robe and bowl, be entrusted to the care of a young layman with practically no formal training. Such concern, misguided though it was, shows in itself that this general-turned-monk was a sincere and ardent follower of the Buddha’s Way.

“The Patriarch, seeing him coming, laid the robe and the bowl on a rock and said, ‘This robe and bowl symbolize the faith; are they to be fought for? I allow you to take them away.’ ” To get a handle on this koan you must first see why this statement by the Sixth Patriarch was not simply an attempt to avoid violence but was made as a challenge. Why the challenge? This is the first barrier of the koan.

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