Zen in Ten: Mighty Miaoxin's Acquiescent Mind
Startling Monks into Enlightenment
As is true with many female Chan teachers, there is little historical information about Miaoxin. We know she was born around 840/880 CE. “Her nickname, Huaizi, ‘child of the Huai River,’ suggests she was born on the banks of the Huai, which flows west to east in central China. The name Miaoxin means ‘wonderful belief.’”1
Miaoxin was a disciple of Yangshan (d. 883) who in turn was the Dharma heir of Guishan, who was the teacher of Iron Grinder Liu Tiemo.
“Guishan’s teaching relationship with Liu Tiemo may have helped Yangshan teach and recognize Miaoxin’s ability, perhaps ‘like father, like son.’ We can guess that since both Liu Tiemo and Yangshan studied with the same teacher, either Yangshan knew Liu Tiemo personally, or he knew his teacher’s respect for her.”2
Miaoxin is one of the female teachers that Dogen extols in his fascicle “Getting the Marrow by Doing Obeisance” or “Raihaitokuzui” (book 28 in Treasury of the True Dharma Eye). “Without Dogen’s efforts to teach his monks to see beyond their prejudices, we might have lost the story of Miaoxin and her inspirational teaching, which remains influential to this day. Japanese Soto nuns used Dogen’s seminal teaching and ‘Raihaitokuzui’ to encourage twentieth-century Soto bureaucracy to recognize them as equal participants in the Soto Zen institution.”3
Here’s an excerpt from “Raihaitokuzui”:
The nun Miaoxin was a disciple of Yangshan (807-883). When Yangshan was looking to choose a director of the monastery’s office for secular affairs, he asked around among the retired senior and junior officers, “Which person would be suitable to appoint?”
After an exchange of questions and answers, Yangshan at last said, “Although [Miao] Xin, the “kid” from the Huai [river region], is a woman, she has the determination of a person of great resolve. She is truly the one qualified to serve as the director of the office for secular affairs.”
All in the assembly agreed. When, in the end, Miaoxin was appointed director of the office for secular affairs, the dragons and elephants among Yangshan’s disciples had no misgivings. Although this was not an important office, she was careful [in performing her duties] as befitting one who had been chosen [for this responsibility].Yangshan’s elevating Miaoxin to this role led to her immortalization as an enlightened Zen master. As the director, Miaoxin encountered 17 monks who traveled to meet with Yangshan. These monks spent the night debating the meaning of the Sixth Ancestor’s teaching “It is your mind that moves”—a koan from 150 years before. Their minds were stuck in intellectualization and clinging to past teachings. Miaoxin told the monks to come closer, and then stopped them in their tracks by shouting: “The wind is not moving. The flag is not moving. The mind is not moving!” All 17 monks were enlightened and asked Miaoxin to be their teacher. They left without ever meeting with Yangshan.
In his fascicle, “Dogen portrayed a woman embodying the Zen master’s role who gained recognition by teaching in a way that enlightened monks. Not only was the teacher Miaoxin masterful, but the inquiring monks were not caught by dualistic judgments about whether to invite a woman to teach them.”4
“Miaoxin was unafraid to surpass the teachings of the great Sixth Patriarch of Zen. Perhaps it was because she was a woman, not despite that fact, that the seventeen monks were intrigued by her teaching. They heard a bold voice from Yangshan’s unusually high placed woman leader. The very fact of her gender signaled her genuine transformation—enlightenment breaking through the barriers of culture, time, and place.”5
“Today, as Western Zen women, we are all Miaoxin. We have entered an originally male wisdom tradition. . . . The truth for Miaoxin is our truth: rehashing words from the male or female Zen ancestor won’t do. . . . We need to fully inhabit our own teaching moment and shine our own surprising light.”6
Shoren’s verse: “Wind-flag-mind-monk, flow like a stream through the sky.”
http://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Miaoxin,_Woman_Master_of_Flag,_Wind_and_Mind
Schireson, Grace. Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters. Somerville, MA, Wisdom Publications, 2009.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Caplow, Florence and Susan Moon. The Hidden Lamp. Boston, Wisdom Publications, 2013.
Ibid.