knowing and not knowing: nothing to prove shoyoroku: case 69 by robert aitken, roshi

7/30/2019 KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING: NOTHING TO PROVE Shoyoroku: Case 69 by Robert Aitken, Roshi

1/8

[This document can be acquired from a sub-directory coombspapers via

anonymous FTP or COOMBSQUEST gopher on the node COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU or

ANU Soc.Sci.WWW Server at http://coombs.anu.edu.au/CoombsHome.html]

The document's ftp filename and the full directory path are given in

the coombspapers top level INDEX files]

[Last updated: 7 February 1998]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING: NOTHING TO PROVE

Shoyoroku: Case 69

by Robert Aitken, Roshi

This text addresses some of the most fundamental and delicate religious issues.

Therefore, it should be read, quoted and analysed in a mindful way.

Originally published in MOON MIND CIRCLE, Summer 1994 pp.14-16.

Text digitised by Don Brown, Canberra Zen Group.

Copyright (c) by Robert Aitken and Sydney Zen Center

251 Young St., Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038, Australia.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING: NOTHING TO PROVE

Shoyoroku: Case 69

by Robert Aitken, Roshi

(A teisho from a 1994 Rohatsu Sesshin, at Palolo, Hawaii)


2/8

Nansen said: "the Buddhas of the three worlds do not know it is.

The otter and the white bull do know it is."

Nansen was the ancestor of many of the ancestors that we talkedabout earlier in this sesshin. One of the great early teachers

of Zen in the Chinese T'ang period, he was the brother monk of

Hyakujo, teacher of Joshu, uncle in the Dharma of Obaku or

Huang-po and great-uncle of Rinzai.

One day he addressed his assembly and said, "The Buddhas of the

three worlds - past, present, future - do not know it is. The

otter and the white bull do know it is". Sometimes those animals

are rendered, "fox and badger know it is." Thomas Cleary

translates "cats and cows know it is." Anyway, the graphs used

for those animals are very obscure and ambiguous. Maybe it

doesn't matter much.

Knowing and not-knowing. So much is made of this among

contemporary teacher to a degree that one fears for one's

intellect and "I don't know" becomes a stock response in koan

study. But all this points to the place or the depth ofconsciousness where not-knowing or "I don't know" might be the

only true expression. "All Buddhas of the three worlds do not

know it is."

When the emperor asked Bodhidharma "What is the first principle

of the holy teaching?", Bodhidharma replied, "Vast emptiness,

nothing holy." A very unsatisfactory answer for the Emperor, who

was known as the bodhisattva emperor because he immersed himself


3/8

in Dharma studies and surrounded himself with courtiers who were

knowledgeable about the Buddha Dharma and frequently held

exchanges and discussions with them.

Of course, philosophically, one can say the first principle ofthe Buddha Dharma is that form is emptiness and emptiness is

form, but how abstract can you be? "Nothing is to be called

holy, there is nothing there at all," Bodhidharma said. "Then,"

the Emperor asks, "who is this standing there before me?" Who

are you in your fine robes, your distinguished bearing, your

venerable age, to say that the first principle of the holy

teaching is vast emptiness, nothing holy? "I don't know,"

Bodhidharma replied. Mutual disappointment.

The Tao-te ching says, "the one who speaks does not know, the one

who knows does not speak." It's a little different, isn't it.

Or maybe we can take that to the ultimate too. It seems to me

that the true teacher is always on the alert for that level of

expression that is not too far away from the truly modest.

A monk came to Kassan, you remember, and said, "What if one

sweeps away the dust and sees the Buddha?" Kassan said, "You

must brandish your sword." Yes. Cut it down a li ttle.

A monk came to Unmon, and said, "What if one realises, that's

it!" Umon [Unmon ????] said, "Golden-haired lion." Just reading

this without any previous exposure to Unmon, or to Zen

literature, one might suppose that Unmon is praising the monk for

realising, "that's it." But you'll look in vain throughout

Unmon's vast opus for any example of praise. Is this likely to


4/8

be the exception? Well, no, not bloody likely.

In his one appearance in our study, Suigan addressed his assembly

and said, "Al l summer I have been preaching to this assembly.

Tell me, do I still have my eyebrows?" It is said that preaching

false Dharma causes the eyebrows to fall off. Suigan was a

brother in the Dharma of Unmon, Chokei, Hofuku, Gensha and other

luminaries, who were all disciples of Seppo. What a wonderful

assembly that must have been. Well, the great ones all became

teachers and Siugan [Suigan ???] was the youngest. He led the

first training period and his brother monks, now teachers, Unmon,

Chokei, Hofuku, came along to help out.

That was the occasion for him saying, "All summer I have been

preaching to you brothers, tell me do I still have my eyebrows?"

Hofuku said, "The robber is in a funk." The Zen master who

steals everything away is called a robber. The robber is

dithering but Engo, the compiler of the Blue Cliff Record , says

Suigan is a clear jewel with no flaw.

I think of Tokusan also, Seppo's teacher. Kaku the attendant

said, "Where have all the past Buddhas and ancestral teachers

gone?" Tokusan said, "What did you say?" Kaku said, "I

commanded an exceedingly fine racehorse to spring forth, but only

a lame tortoise appeared." Tokusan said nothing. Next day when

Tokusan emerged from his bath, Kaku served him tea. Tokusan gave

his shoulder a gentle pat and Kaku said, "Oh, the old boss has

noticed for the first time." Tokusan again said nothing.

Conveniently deaf, deliberately not using skilful means, and yet

presenting clearly the best possible response to Kaku's initial


5/8

question.

I have told this story before about going with Anne and Taisan,

who later became Eido Roshi, in 1957 from Ryutokuji [is this

correct spelling???] to Kyoto. Taisan had been born and raised

in Kyoto and his father had been a lay resource person, an

accountant really, for Nanzenji, so Taisan had grown up admiring

the administrator of Nanzenji from afar but had never met him.

Those big temples in Kyoto have two roshis, one the

administrator, the other the teacher. So we went to call on him.

Here he was in his middle eighties and Taisan made raihai before

him, saying, "It is a great honour at last to be in the presence

of the distinguished Roshi." And the Roshi was sitting there,

saying, "Come on....don't do that."

It's so interesting for me, going back to the occasional

observances at Ryotakuji [is this correct spelling???] where I

trained so long ago, forty-four years ago, to meet the monks with

whom I trained. I think the last time was at the installation of

Sochu Roshi as the abbot, some of them coming in the most

gorgeous finery - silk and brocade robes, gorgeous colours - and

some of them much more modest, Soshu Roshi himself in a very

modest outfit, and Soen Roshi too, of course.

But ie this a matter of mere modesty, pretending to be unskil ful,

pretending to be deaf? Is it an act, or is it something really

neurotic? The reason that many people are in prison is that they

are convinced they are criminals. You can't get to then by

appealing to a so-called "better-nature". I remember when I

worked as a counsellor in a juvenile hall in San Bernadino in


6/8

California, one of the squares in my chequered career, I very

quickly found if I praised a kid, he would immediately mess up.

But if I took a kid to task and gave him hell, two minutes later

he was coming around and saying, hey, do you want to play a game

of ping-pong? No, that's not the case here.

One of the things I had noticed at Ryotokuji [is this correct

spelling???] and at Enkakaju before that was the confidence with

which those monks comported themselves. I couldn't really

understand that. I thought, "Aren't they being a little

arrogant?" Well, for sure some were. Those were the ones who

went on to become such successful priests in the hierarchy and to

wear such beautiful robes. But they were proving something,

weren't they? A true teacher is the one with nothing to prove,

it seems to me. The truly mature Zen student has nothing to

prove.

When Nansen was a young monk, he went to call on Hyakujo Nehan.

Hyakujo Nehan's teacher was Nansen's brother in the dharma, but

twenty-eight years older than he was, so more experienced. So

Hyakujo Nehan asked him, "Is there a secret and supreme Dharma

that has never been expounded for people by any of the holy ones

from the past?" Nansen said, "Yes, there is." You see, really

confident. What is this secret and supreme document that has

never been expounded for the people?" And Nansen said, "It is

not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not being," quoting indirectly

from the Lotus Sutra, and that much of the case appears in the

Mumonkan. But then in the Blue Cliff Record we have the rest of

the story, Hyakujo Nehan saying, "Oh, you have expounded like

that!" "How about you Achariya, how about you honoured priest?"


7/8

Oh," said Hyakujo Nehan, "I am not a great Zen master, how should

I know whether or not there's a secret and supreme Dharma that

has never been expounded for people?" Nansen said, "I don't

understand." Hyakuji [Hyakujo???] Nehan said, " I have already

expounded fully for you."

There are many stories of this kind. One is another about Joshu.

A monk came to Joshu and said, "I have long heard about the great

stone bridge of Joshu, but I have come and found only a simple

log bridge." Joshu said, "You don't see the stone bridge, you

only see the simple log bridge." Joshu lived in the town by that

name, and just outside the town was, and still is an

architectural wonder called the Bridge of Joshu. It had been

built two-hundred or more years before Joshu's time, and still

stands. And Joshu, in keeping with the custom of China and

Chinese Buddhism, had been honoured with the name of his

locality, the way we used to call Duke Kahanamoku, Mister

Honolulu - we were very proud of him as an Olympic champion. So

of course you see the metaphor here - I have long heard about the

great stone bridge of Joshu but I have come and found a simple

stone bridge, two logs bound together, a poor excuse for a

bridge, this shrivelled-up old priest, a poor excuse for a Zen

master, the monk was thinking. So Joshu said "You don't see the

stone bridge you only see the simple log bridge." If he was

speaking in Japanese, he would say, "Ah so....I see, is that so?"

I remember going to one of the early Roshi conferences. These

were organised by Abe Masao Sensei, a great scholar of Zen

Buddhism and they continued for about three years annually and

then fell apart when the scandals broke in San Francisco first,


8/8

then Los Angeles and New York. Anyway, on this occasion we had

our conference at Bodhi Mandala which is Sasaki Roshi's centre in

New Mexico, way up in the mountains, pretty cold at that time of

the year, which I think was spring, and pretty rude too, not very

elegant accommodations at all. And we had an evaluation meeting

at the end, and one of the teachers, a man originally from Japan

said, in Japanese, "Well, with this kind of service I don't think

I'll come to another teacher's meeting." You know he used the

Japanised English word, sabis, which means more than the English

word "service", it means generally food, lodgings, and all the

rest of it. Well, O.K. Nobody said much about that but he

doesn't qualify here as one who is conveniently deaf and acts

unskilfully.

Yamada Roshi used to say, there is nothing to distinguish the

truly realised person from anybody else, and he himself realised

that truth going to work every day on the train in his blue suit,

white shirt and tie and trilby hat, completely indistinguishable

from the hordes of other businessmen going to Tokyo to work. And

one day when I came home from Tokyo, and was on the bus riding to

our apartment, somebody tapped me on the shoulder one stop before

mine, and I looked up and here it was, Yamada Roshi, who had been

on the same train and on the same bus and I hadn't even noticed

him and he was getting off at his stop. But he still appears in

my dreams as my true teacher.

knowing and not knowing: nothing to prove shoyoroku: case 69 by robert aitken, roshi

Documents