"The Moon's Sea of Serenity"
A Chapter from Dosho Port's New Book
Below is a chapter from Dosho Port’s recently published book, Going Through the Mystery’s One Hundred Questions, which is a collection of interactions between “a passionate Zen pilgrim, Yuantong” and the 13th century Soto Zen master Wansong, also the teacher of Genghis Khan. Fortunately for us, Wansong’s attendant Linquan was present during these meetings. Linquan writes a verse to clarify the meaning of each interaction. And fortunately for us, Dosho Port has translated these Q&A’s and added his own commentaries. In the introduction, Dosho states:
“The book is intended to offer inspiration and guidance for any earnest spiritual seeker. However, this book is primarily about urgent, spiritual questions. What is this one great life-and-death that we share? How can the intimate truth be realized and embodied with great compassion for the benefit of all living beings?”
#61:
Are there no Bodhisattvas of Compassion who enter the gate of the inner pattern?
Yuantong asked: “Hearing it’s time to ascend to the Treasure Hall, strike the drum, clammer up the empty sky. Are there no Bodhisattvas of Compassion who enter the gate of the inner pattern?”
Wansong replied: “Lower your voice. Lower your voice.”
Linquan’s Verse:
Lower your voice, rise and present without false pride
Without enmity what meritorious deeds can be born?
Compassion, wisdom, and the resolute mind—the moon’s Sea of Serenity
Deeply hear and ponder the branches of the tradition
Fellow practitioners, stop!
Do not squander time
How can the fruit ripen if you follow sound, pursue color?
Commentary (by Dosho Port)
It is time to go up to the dharma hall, also known as the Treasure Hall, and demonstrate the profound meaning to the community. I wonder if there will be any Bodhisattvas of Compassion who will then penetrate the principle, the essence of the essence?
Hush it! The family treasure does not come to those who yammer away on the street corner. What is needed to taste the Sea of Serenity is compassion, wisdom, and resolution.
The phrase in the third line of Linquan’s verse, “the moon’s Sea of Serenity,” 澄海月, is quite an eye-popper. I don’t know that the Chinese in the thirteenth century had the moon surveyed. The Sea of Serenity didn’t get a name in the West until 1651. But there it is in the text.
The fourth line of verse, “Deeply hear and ponder the branches of the tradition,” is quite challenging to translate and so this is an especially provisional translation. “Hear and ponder,” though, are two of the three strategies to realize wisdom. Meditation is the third. “Hear” refers to hearing the Buddha’s teaching. “Ponder,” 思, is often translated as “thinking,” but has the sense of deeply reflecting on the dharma, not a nuance that “thinking” often carries.1 “Tradition” is also “wind” and refers to the teaching style of a lineage, palpable in everyday hearing and seeing.
The same four characters that conclude the last line of the verse, “How can the fruit ripen if you follow sound, pursue color?” 隨聲逐色, are also found in a famous verse in The Diamond Sutra that Yuantong asks about next in Question 62, as well as “Question 92: Why follow sounds and chase colors?2 And so I’ll save a more thorough focus for a bit. For now, though, here is that verse:
Seeking me by using form
or seeking me by using the sound of my voice
A person walks a mistaken path
And cannot perceive the Tathagata.3
Wumen in The No Gate Barrier also entwines his teaching with this Diamond Sutra verse: “In general, in practicing Zen and studying the Way one should by all means avoid following sounds or pursuing colors.” Wumen goes on with these practice pointers for anyone who wants to realize the wisdom that blows through the trees,
Even if by hearing sounds one becomes aware of the Way, or seeing colors one understands the heart-mind, this is ordinary and not realization. A patched-robe monk rides sounds and hides in color, every tip bright, every touch a wonder. Yet even though it is thus, say: does sound come to the ear, or does the ear go to the sound? Or forgetting both sound and silence, what would you say?4
These are but two examples of the many times in the branches of the Zen tradition that this phrase can be found. Seeking thusness through something outside or something inside is a waste of time. It’s like heading south and expecting to see the North Star. Instead, ride sounds, hide in color.
“Fellow practitioners, stop! Do not squander time.”
思, for example, is also the character in Yaoshan’s koan that Dogen uses to express the heart of zazen: “Ponder not pondering. Not pondering is the how’s pondering. Nonpondering – this is zazen’s vital method!”
For one excellent translation, see http://www.acmuller.net/bud-canon/diamond_ sutra.html#div-27
The Diamond Sutra, Chapter 26, trans., Dosho Port (unpublished).
Wumen Huikai, The No Gate Barrier, Case 16: The Sound of the Bell and the Seven Piece Robe, trans., Dosho Port (unpublished).
This is precisely the kind of post that I subscribed for.
I read Chinese and a bit of Japanese, so it was great to see the original Hànzì included in the text. Including them goes a long way towards helping me understand what precisely is meant.
As time goes on, more and more people in the US will have studied Chinese, and I hope writers will continue to show the 漢字 in their texts.