The Prologue
Not distinguishing east from west, nor north from south, day
after day, morning to evening, evening to morning, so it remains. Is
this being fast asleep? At times, the eyes are like comets, the mind is
like lightning. Can it be said that this is wide awake? At times facing
south and calling it north, is this mindful or mindless? Is this a
person of the Way or a person of delusion? All traces of enlightenment
having fallen away, one puts on clothing and takes a meal. Where
spiritual powers wander at play among the ten thousand things, there is
no way to frame it or to name it. Is this a sage or an ordinary being?
The Main Case
Master Dogen taught, “As for mountains, there are mountains
hidden in treasures; there are mountains hidden in marshes, mountains
hidden in the sky; there are mountains hidden in mountains. There is a
study of mountains hidden in hiddenness. An old master said, ‘Mountains
are mountains and rivers are rivers.’ The meaning of these words is not
that mountains are mountains, but that mountains are mountains.
Therefore we should thoroughly study these mountains. When we thoroughly
study the mountains, this is the mountain training. Such mountains and
rivers themselves spontaneously become wise ones and sages.”
The Capping Verse
When an ordinary person realizes it,
she is a sage.
When a sage realizes it,
he is an ordinary person.
This is the last of five talks on the teachings of mountains and
rivers. In these passages from the “Mountains and Rivers Sutra,” Dogen
spoke of various characteristics of the mountains. He talked about being
in the mountains as a flower opening in the world, of blue mountains
walking, of mountains flowing. He spoke of rivers rising up to the
heavens and descending into crevices. He referred to a mountain giving
birth to a mountain child. He described various possible attributes of
mountains and rivers—indeed, the attributes of all sentient beings—in
terms of the Five Ranks of Master Dongshan. Finally we arrive at the
concluding paragraph of this incredible sutra, quoted above, where Dogen
brings it home to the fifth rank. But keep in mind that each rank
contains all of the other ranks. Each of the eight gates of training of
the Mountains and Rivers Order contains all of the other gates. Each of
the ten stages of practice contains all ten stages. Each of the
paramitas, or perfections, contains every other one. These are not
separate and distinct entities. We need to speak of them in terms of
separate entities in order to study them and make them intelligible, but
the truth is that everything that Dogen is talking about in this sutra
is not only the total interpenetration of those five ranks—of absolute
and relative—but is also the body and mind of each one of us. This very
body and mind are these mountains and rivers. All of these virtues and
characteristics of the mountains and rivers are the virtues and
characteristics of all buddhas, all sentient beings.
In the prologue we have a description of a person who has integrated all of the five ranks in his or her own existence:
All traces of enlightenment having fallen away, one puts on clothing and takes a meal. Where spiritual powers wander at play among the ten thousand things, there is no way to frame it or to name it. Is this a sage or an ordinary being?
Photo by Brian Lary
These ranks cannot be understood hierarchically. They are
simply ways of looking at the relationship between absolute and
relative, and between all dualities. Among them are enlightenment and
delusion. On one side is enlightenment, on the other side is delusion.
One side is heaven, the other side is hell. One side is male, the other
side is female. One side is monastic practice, the other side is lay
practice. One side is good, the other side is evil. However you create
dualities, those dualities and the dynamics of their interactions can be
understood through these Five Ranks. Then, as you proceed through these
ranks, you reach the point of perfect integration, mutual
accomplishment, absolute and relative totally integrated, totally
unified. Neither absolute nor relative, neither male nor female, neither
good nor bad.
The first of those ranks is the absolute basis of reality. The
second rank is the emergence out of the realization of the absolute. The
third rank is the manifestation of that realization in the world of the
ten thousand things. It’s a synthesis of form and emptiness. It’s here
that compassion begins to manifest effortlessly, with no sense of doing.
The fourth rank is mutual integration. This is the characteristic of
the bodhisattva in the world, acting according to conditions, according
to karma, according to vow.
Then, finally, we reach the fifth rank, where no trace of
enlightenment or non-enlightenment remains. Dongshan’s verse on that
fifth rank says:
Who can be tuned to that beyond what is and what is not?
Though everyone wants to leave the ever-flowing stream,
each is still sitting in darkness black as charcoal.
Perfect integration falling into neither form nor emptiness,
who can join the master?
Who can be tuned in to reality beyond what is and what is not?
Who can be in touch with that place that falls into neither the
absolute nor relative. No one can tune into it—even a buddha or a sage
cannot recognize it. Though everyone wants to leave the ever-flowing stream, each is still sitting in darkness black as charcoal.
Though all of us want to leave the ceaseless turmoil of this world,
there’s always a sense of needing to accomplish further, needing to be
part of that continual stream of functioning. The third line is rendered
in different ways. Each returns to sit among the coals is another translation. There’s nothing lacking, nothing extra. Everything is perfect and complete just the way it is.
The first two ranks show the two sides: absolute on one side,
relative on the other side. The absolute is in relationship to the
relative, the relative in relationship to the absolute, just the way we
chant in the Heart Sutra: “Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form. Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form.” In the Identity of Relative and Absolute
we chant “Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before and the
foot behind in walking.” There is an interdependent relationship between
the two. In the third and fourth ranks, they’re independent. Absolute
is absolute, and relative is relative. A devil is a devil, a buddha is a
buddha, white paper is white paper, elephants are elephants. In the
fifth rank, unity is attained. Everything is seen together—the devil is
white paper. Looking south, the North Star is seen.
Perfect integration falling into neither form nor emptiness. Who can join the master residing in this realm?
All others strive to rise above the common level. This one unites
everything. In his “Genjokoan,” Dogen says, “No trace of enlightenment
remains and this traceless enlightenment continues endlessly.” We call
this endless activity “filling a well with snow,” the seemingly inane
occupation of the ancient sages. No one can tell whether they’re sages
or whether they’re crazy, whether they’re ordinary or holy. One of them
hires a few others and they all climb the mountain to get to the
snow-capped peaks. They fill their buckets with snow and they carry them
down and throw the snow into the well, trying to fill it. Of course,
filling the well with snow is impossible. Yet they do it, trip after
trip, day after day. Saving all sentient beings is impossible, yet we
practice it day after day. Putting an end to desires is
impossible—desires are inexhaustible—yet I vow to put an end to them.
The dharmas are boundless, yet I vow to master them. I vow to try to put
a frame around them, though it can’t be done. The Buddha Way is
unattainable, yet I vow to attain it. It’s an impossible task, an
impossible dream, yet we practice it day after day.
In the fifth rank, all our sense of reaching a goal, of
accomplishment, has completely disappeared. All that remains is putting
one step in front of the other. All traces of enlightenment having
fallen away, one puts on clothes and takes a meal. Just simple everyday
activities. But everybody does this—what makes it so special?
Misunderstanding this extraordinary ordinariness is the cause of the
widespread self-styled Zen epidemic that we experience in this country.
“Where spiritual powers wander at play among the ten thousand things,
there is no way to frame it or to name it.” Because there’s no way to
frame it or to name it, anybody with a loud voice and a little bit of
charisma can deceive people. It’s hard to know if this is a sage or an
ordinary being, but there’s a big difference. They may appear the same
on the surface. Dogen says about the mountains: “An old master said,
‘Mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.’ The meaning of these
words is not that mountains are mountains, but that mountains are
mountains.” Is he just repeating himself? Clearly he’s trying to say
something. It’s not that mountains are mountains, but that mountains are
mountains.
The zazen of a beginner, with its beginner’s mind, is innocent.
It’s free, open and receptive. After a while, as practice continues,
people get very sophisticated with their Zen. They know the jargon and
how to do the Zen schtick. It’s one thing to look like a Zen
practitioner, to sit in the posture of a buddha and look like a buddha,
and quite another to really practice this incredible Way with the whole
body and mind. In the final stage of training, that same innocence of
the beginner comes back. In a sense, the zazen of someone in the final
stages of training is exactly like the zazen of someone in the first
stage of training—very innocent, very open. But the zazen of someone in
the first stage of training is not the zazen of someone in the final
stages of training.
Photo by Dave Sackville
An ancient master said, “Monks, do not have deluded notions.
Heaven is heaven, earth is earth. Mountains are mountains, rivers are
rivers. Monks are monks and lay practitioners are lay practitioners.”
And yet another master said, “Thirty years ago, before I had studied
Zen, I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. And then later,
when I had more intimate knowledge, I came to see mountains not as
mountains and rivers not as rivers. But now that I have attained the
substance, I again see mountains just as mountains, and rivers just as
rivers.”
Dogen says, “The meaning of these words is not that mountains are
mountains, but that mountains are mountains.” This “mountains are
mountains and rivers are rivers” doesn’t mean what ordinary people think
it means. This is the mountain of the nature of all dharmas, the river
of all dharmas, the ten thousand things, the whole phenomenal universe.
It doesn’t belong to either yin or yang. It pervades all time and space,
from the beginningless beginning, before the kalpa of emptiness, to the
endless end. In other words, it’s the body and mind of the ten thousand
things—and it’s just a mountain. Therefore we should thoroughly study
these mountains. “When we thoroughly study the mountains, this is the
mountain training.” When Dogen says “thoroughly study the mountains,” he
means to take these mountains and rivers as a koan of our lives. He
uses the word “study” in a sense of complete devotion to and practice of
the dharma. It can be understood as training in the mountains or as training of the mountains. On this mountain, it’s the training of the mountains and rivers.
The mountains and rivers are a sutra, a teaching, a proclamation
of the true dharma. Whether we look at these mountains and rivers with
the eyes of a biologist, a geologist, a hydrologist, a sage, a deer, as
the mountain itself, as the river itself, they constantly proclaim the
dharma. The river sings the eighty-four thousand verses. The mountain
reveals the form of the true dharma, the virtue of harmony. Dogen says,
“Just by thoroughly studying these mountains, this is the mountain
training. These mountains and rivers themselves spontaneously become
wise ones and sages.” To realize the mountain is to be the mountain.
That’s the mountain as a wise one and a sage. To study the mountains is
to study the wise ones and sages. To study the mountain, to realize the
mountain, to enter the mountain—these are not three separate activities.
They are one reality.
The states of consciousness that are revealed in “Mountains are
mountains” and in “The meaning of these words is not that mountains are
mountains, but that mountains are mountains” can be traced through the
life of the great Master Deshan as it is described among the koans that
appear in the traditional koan collections.
Photo by Jon Wisbey
Deshan was a great scholar of the Diamond Sutra who lived
in northern China. He was an expert lecturer held in very high esteem,
even though he was a very young man. One day he heard about the special
transmission outside the scriptures that was going on in the south of
China, and he said, “These people are heretics. I’ll go south and
disprove all of them.” He packed the copy of his Diamond Sutra
and his lecture notes and started the journey south. As he was
traveling, he encountered on the road an old woman who was selling rice
cakes. He asked for a cup of tea and some rice cakes and she said,
“First tell me what you’re carrying in that big pack of yours.” That big
pack is symbolic of all the stuff we carry with us—our credentials, our
identity, the way we understand ourselves, our accolades, our
importance, our separateness. All that is stuffed in a big pack of our
ego as we trudge through life. Instead of making it lighter as we go
along, we keep stuffing things into it. And when people come into Zen
training, they immediately start looking for more stuff to put into the
pack. They create a compartment which they label “Zen.” The pack now
fills with books, sayings, special experiences of insight, profound
exchanges with teachers. All of this is more and more stuff for the
pack, when the whole point of practice is to not only empty the content
of the pack, but to let the pack itself go. That’s a hard thing to do
when you’ve spent a lifetime filling it.
Deshan’s pack was filled with his Diamond Sutra notes, with his identity as a scholar. “What have you got in that pack?” asked the old woman. “Oh, those are my notes on the Diamond Sutra,”
he replied smugly. “Do you know a lot about the Diamond Sutra?” “Yes,
I’m an expert in it.” The old woman said, “I’ll tell you what. Let me
ask you a question about the Diamond Sutra. If you can answer
it, I’ll give you a cup of tea. If you can’t answer it, I won’t even
serve you.” Deshan said, “Go ahead, ask.” The old woman said, “In that
sutra it says, ‘Past mind cannot be grasped, present mind cannot be
grasped, future mind cannot be grasped.’ Is that true?” “Oh, yes, it’s
true.” The old woman continued, “If that’s true, with which mind will
you accept this tea?” Deshan couldn’t believe this question. He just
stared at her dumbfounded. He had no answer.
Photo by Brian Lary
Seeing Deshan’s potential, the old woman sent him to study with Master Longtan. When Deshan arrived he discussed the Diamond Sutra
all night long with the master. They talked about the nature of mind,
of impermanence, of being and non-being. And just as Deshan was getting
ready to leave, he stepped outside and found it was dark. He went back
in and said, “It’s dark outside.” Longtan lit a candle for him and said,
“Here, take this.” Deshan took the candle and as he stepped out into
the darkness, the master blew it out. At that moment, Deshan became
enlightened. He prostrated himself before Longtan, thanking him
profusely. The next day he burned all his notes and said he would never
rely on words and ideas again. He then began a pilgrimage to various
monasteries. He went across China from east to west, from north to
south, saying nothing to no one. Much later, clarifying his
understanding further, Deshan became a great teacher, and one of the
characteristics of his teaching came to be known as “thirty blows of the
stick.” No matter how a monastic responded to his question, Deshan
would hit him with thirty blows. There was no way to avoid it. He was a
terror.
But in his eighties, the waning years of his life, Deshan
underwent another transformation, best illustrated by his encounter with
Xuefeng, who later became his successor. One evening Deshan went down
to the dining hall from his quarters carrying his bowls. Xuefeng, who
was the cook, said, “Where are you going, master? The bell hasn’t rung.
It’s not time for the meal yet.” Deshan looked at him, turned around,
and meekly walked back to his room. Xuefeng thought that he had defeated
his teacher in this dharma encounter and started bragging to everybody
about it. “Did you see what I did with the old man? I sent him back to
his room.” Yantou, who was the head monk, heard about this and said to
Xuefeng, “Great man that he is, Deshan hasn’t realized the last word of
Zen yet.” Suddenly the whole monastery started buzzing about this—Deshan
was an eighty-year-old master of great fame and yet his head monastic
was saying he hadn’t heard the last word of Zen. Deshan, hearing about
this, sent for Yantou and asked him, “Don’t you approve of me?” Yantou
leaned over and whispered something in Deshan’s ear. The next day Deshan
mounted the rostrum and gave a talk like nobody had ever heard before.
It was fresh, and completely unlike anything he had done in his forty
years of teaching. Everybody was astounded. When the talk was over,
Yantou jumped up, clapped his hands and said, “Wonderful! Marvelous! At
last the old man has realized the last word of Zen. No one can ever make
light of him again.”
These incidents in Deshan’s life show his development as a
practitioner and a teacher. And they illustrate a progression within the
Five Ranks. The first—Deshan traveling south as the expert on the Diamond Sutra—is
not even on the chart of the five ranks. It is minus-one level. He
hadn’t even raised the bodhi mind yet. His mind was filled with
expertise and fixed knowledge. There was no aspiration for
enlightenment; there was no search. To enter the Way is to begin with
the search. It means to become a student. Deshan wasn’t a student. He
thought that he was a teacher, a teacher with the mission to correct
others’ understanding. That’s a closed mind; it’s not a beginner’s mind.
It wasn’t until the old woman selling tea cracked that mind for him
that he was ready to hear the teaching and to realize himself with the
blowing out of the candle.
Deshan was puffed up with all of his knowledge of the Diamond Sutra.
Then he was humbled by the woman selling tea. Next he went to see
Longtan and became enlightened. With his gained insight, he puffed
himself up again. He burned the Diamond Sutra. Next he took his
sack and went to visit monasteries, saying nothing. In other words, he
was showing off his understanding of emptiness. But he was deeply stuck
in emptiness. Yet the process continued. Through his practice, training,
and teachings—his spiritual maturation, this dragon-fanged teacher of
thirty blows turned into a mellow old guy who went hobbling down the
stairs carrying his bowls. When the cook said, “The bell didn’t ring. Go
back to your room,” he just turned around like a leaf blown by the wind
and returned to his room. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this
traceless enlightenment continues endlessly. Neither being nor nonbeing,
absolute freedom of action and inaction.
“‘Mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.’ The meaning of these
words is not that mountains are mountains, but that mountains are
mountains. Therefore we should thoroughly study these mountains. When we
thoroughly study the mountains, this is the mountain training. Such
mountains and rivers themselves spontaneously become wise ones and
sages.”
The capping verse:
When an ordinary person realizes it,
she is a sage.
When a sage realizes it,
he is an ordinary person.
When a sage realizes it, he becomes an ordinary person
indistinguishable from the hundred million people that inhabit this
great earth. And yet, “mountains are mountains” is not the same as the
“mountains are mountains” that we began with. The zazen of the first
stage practitioner is not the same as the zazen of the tenth stage
practitioner, but the zazen of the tenth stage practitioner is identical
to the zazen of the first stage practitioner.
When you really go deep into yourself, when you really engage zazen
fully, that zazen becomes the zazen of all buddhas past, present, and
future. It is the verification and actualization of the enlightenment of
Shakyamuni Buddha and all of the subsequent buddhas that followed, as
well as that of the buddhas that are to follow this time and place. It
is also the practice and verification of these mountains and rivers
themselves, and of your life and my life, the life of all beings.
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