Zen in Ten: Present Mind Is Ungraspable
UNNAMED TEA LADY SERVES UP THE DHARMA
The anecdote below describes a meeting between an unnamed woman who owned a tea shop and Te-shan Hsüan-chien (780-865), a Chinese scholar who became a Chan master during the late Tang Dynasty. Although we have no biographical information of this tea lady, her interaction with Te-shan was the proximate cause of him entering a Zen temple and studying under Lung T'an ('Dragon Pond'), burning all his commentaries, and becoming a revered Chan master.
“Te-shan, born of a Chou family in Cheng-tu, Szechuan, began early as a member of the Vinaya [monastic guidelines/rules] order, steeped in scriptural learning. He made a special study of the Diamond Sutra on the basis of the learned commentaries of the Dharma master Ch'ing-lung. He lectured on this sutra so frequently that his contemporaries nicknamed him “Diamond Chou.”1
“Te-shan spent some twenty years reflecting upon and writing commentaries on the Diamond Sutra. Then he heard reports of a new cult in the far southeast where followers of the ‘sudden awakening teaching’ sat facing a bare wall in order to see directly into their own buddha nature! Te-shan was full of righteous indignation—how could these people who neglect the study of the sutras aspire to buddhahood simply by seeing into their own nature?”2
Another translation of the above paragraph is: “[Upon] hearing about the propensity of the Zen platform in the south, he became indignant and said, ‘How many home-leavers have spent a thousand kalpas in studying the Buddhist rituals, and ten thousand kalpas in observing all the minute rules [vinaya] of the Buddha. Even then they have not been able to attain Buddhahood. Now, those little devils of the south are bragging of pointing directly at the mind of man, of seeing one's self-nature and attaining Buddhahood immediately! I am going to raid their dens and caves and exterminate the whole race, in order to requite the Buddha's kindness.’ ”3
“Determined to put a stop to this heresy, he put all of his commentaries on the Diamond Sutra in a backpack and set out on foot on a long journey to the far south. Arriving there, he stopped at a roadside tea shop and asked for some refreshments. These refreshments were, and still are, known as mou mou. As a play of words, the characters for mou mou can also mean ‘mind fresheners.’ ”4
“The old woman said, ‘I have a question for you: if you can answer it I'll give you some fried cakes to refresh your mind; if you can't answer, you'll have to go somewhere else to buy.’ Te Shan said, ‘Just ask.’ The old woman said, ‘The Diamond Cutter Scripture says, Past mind can't be grasped, present mind can't be grasped, future mind can't be grasped: which mind does the learned monk desire to refresh?" Te Shan was speechless. The old woman directed him to go call on Lung T'an.” 5
“As soon as Te Shan crossed the threshold [at Lung T’an’s temple] he said, ‘Long have I heard of Lung T'an (Dragon Pond), but now that I've arrived here, there's no pond to see and no dragon appears.’ Master Lung T'an came out from behind a screen and said, ‘You have really arrived at Lung T'an.’ Te Shan bowed and withdrew. During the night Te Shan entered Lung T'an's room and stood in attendance till late at night. Lung T'an said, ‘Why don't you go?’ Te Shan bade farewell, lifted up the curtain, and went out; he saw that it was dark outside, so he turned around and said, ‘It's dark outside.’ ”6
“Lung T'an lit a paper lantern and handed it to Te Shan; as soon as Te Shan took it, Lung T'an blew it out. Te Shan was vastly and greatly enlightened. Immediately he bowed to Lung T'an, who said, ‘What have you seen that you bow?’ Te Shan answered, ‘From now on I will never again doubt what's on the tongues of the venerable teaching masters of the world.’ 7
“The next day Lung T'an went up into the teaching hall and said, ‘There is one among you with teeth like a forest of swords and a mouth like a bowl of blood even if you hit him with a staff, he wouldn't turn back. Another day he will ascend to the summit of a solitary peak and establish my path there.’ Then Te Shan took all his commentaries in front of the teaching hall and raised a torch over them, declaring, ‘Even to plumb all abstruse locutions is like a single hair in the great void to exhaust the essential workings of the world is like a single drop of water cast into a vast valley.’ Then he burned the commentaries.”8
“Te-shan’s encounter with the old lady is one of the earliest examples of koan development in Zen. The hallmark of this development is a no-holds-barred approach, largely verbal but sometimes physical, which forces the listener to find meaning in his or her own inner experience, where an understanding of the situational context no longer depends on a textual or conceptual framework.”9
“The Zen tradition has tried to comprehend this wisdom through the now formalized teaching of not-knowing. Not-knowing is the intuitive wisdom where one understands information to be just that—mere information—and tries to penetrate to the heart of the mystery that language and information are trying to convey.”10
Wu, John C. H. The Golden Age of Zen. World Wisdom Publications, 2003.
Soeng, Mu. The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World. Boston, Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Wu, John C. H.
Soeng, Mu.
Cleary, Thomas and J.C. Cleary, trans. The Blue Cliff Record. Boston & London, Shambhala Publications, 2005.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Soeng, Mu.
Ibid.