The Mind of Clover by Robert Aitken

The Mind of Clover by Robert Aitken

Author:Robert Aitken
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466895249
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux


CHAPTER TWELVE

Eating the Blame

At the monastery of Fūgai Ekun, ceremonies delayed preparation of the noon meal one day, and when they were over, the cook took up his sickle and hurriedly gathered vegetables from the garden. In his haste, he lopped off part of a snake, and, unaware that he had done so, threw it into the soup pot with the vegetables.

At the meal, the monks thought they had never tasted such delicious soup, but the Roshi himself found something remarkable in his bowl. Summoning the cook, he held up the head of the snake, and demanded, “What is this?”

The cook took the morsel, saying, “Oh, thank you, Roshi,” and immediately ate it.1

This is one of the many mondo in Zen literature that teaches us how to use a challenge, and not be used by it in the ordinary way. What would an ordinary reply have been? “Oh, the ceremonies went on so long I had to hurry up to prepare dinner. I didn’t notice that I had part of a snake in the soup. Please excuse me.”

A very poor response, you will agree. But the cook in our story had nothing to defend. He did not for one moment take the roshi’s challenge as an accusation. He took the matter from there and gave everyone a wonderful teisho.

How do you handle challenge? You have two options. One is to defend and the other is to dance. There are many kinds of defense: to accuse the other, to excuse oneself, or simply to stand mute. In any case, the defense is not a dance. There is no teisho: that is, there is no presentation, no teaching.

The dance, too, is of many kinds. Sometimes there is an opportunity, as in this case, to make the whole matter disappear. Sometimes you can bundle it up neatly and toss it back. Sometimes a laugh is enough. Certainly we may be sure that this mondo ended with a laugh. Sometimes the dance can be a question, “What is your opinion?” or “How would you handle it?”

Ching-ch’ing asked a monk, “What is that sound outside?”

The monk said, “The sound of rain dripping.”

Ching-ch’ing said, “Ordinary people are upside down, falling into delusion about themselves, and pursuing outside objects.”

The monk said, “How would you handle it, Your Reverence?”

Ching-ch’ing said, “I am on the brink of falling into delusion about myself.”

The monk said, “What do you mean, ‘On the brink of falling into delusion about yourself’?”

Ching-ch’ing said, “To attain to the world of emptiness may not be so difficult, but to express the bare substance is hard.”2

The monk had not the foggiest notion of what Ching-ch’ing was talking about but he danced very nicely, leading Ching-ch’ing on. Another person might have been intimidated and reacted protectively with Ching-ch’ing’s first admonition, and we would have been deprived of the full teisho. The monk came back a second time too, you will notice. Yasutani Roshi used to say, “You should always ask”—meaning, “Speak up when things are not clear and get them clarified.



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