The Zen Experience Part 20

A bowl of rice is what fills the belly;

It takes a suit of clothing to make you warm.

And yet, without stopping to consider this,

You complain that Buddha is hard to find.

Turn your mind within! There he is!

Why look for him abroad?29

_

Interestingly enough, for all his rather traditional Ch'an sentiments and admonitions, he was much more in touch with

human concerns than were most followers of Ch'an. For one thing, he lived alone in the mountains, an isolated ascetic cut off from human contact, and the resulting loneliness was something those caught up in the riotous give-and-take of a Ch'an monastery never knew. He gives voice to this loneliness in a touching poem.

_I look far off at T'ien-t'ai's summit,

Alone and high above the crowding peaks.

Pines and bamboos sing in the wind that sways them

Sea tides wash beneath the shining moon.

I gaze at the mountain's green borders below

And discuss philosophy with the white clouds.

In the wilderness, mountains and seas are all right,

But I wish I had a companion in my search for the Way.30

_

The admission of loneliness and near-despair in many of his verses has always been a troublesome point for Zen commentators. The enlightened man is supposed to be immune to the misgivings of the heart, focused as he is on oneness and nondistinction. But Han-shan worried a good bit about old age, and he also missed his family, as he admits, albeit through the medium of a dream:

_Last night in a dream I returned to my old home

And saw my wife weaving at her loom.

She held her shuttle poised, as though lost in thought,

As though she had no strength to lift it further.

I called. She turned her head to look,

But her eyes were blank--she didn't know me.

So many years we've been parted

The hair at my temples has lost its old color.31

_

But perhaps it is this non-Ch'an quality, this mortal touch, that elevates Han-shan to the rank of a great lyrical poet. He actually manages to be both a plausible Buddhist and a vulnerable human being.

Few other poets in Chinese letters managed to combine genuine Buddhism with such memorable verse. As Burton Watson has observed, "In the works of most first-rate Chinese poets, Buddhism figures very slightly, usually as little more than a vague mood of resignation or a picturesque embellishment in the landscape--the mountain temple falling into melancholy ruin, the old monk one visits on an outing in the hills. Han-shan, however, is a striking exception to this rule. The collection of poetry attributed to him . . . is permeated with deep and compelling religious feeling. For this reason he holds a place of special importance in Chinese literature. He proved that it was possible to write great poetry on Buddhist, as well as Confucian and Taoist, themes; that the cold abstractions of Mahayana philosophy could be transformed into personal and impa.s.sioned literature. . . . The language of his poems is simple, often colloquial or even slangy . . .

[but] many of his images and terms are drawn from the Buddhist sutras or the sayings of the Southern School of Zen, whose doctrine of the Buddha as present in the minds of all men--of Buddha as the mind itself-- he so often refers to. At the same time he is solidly within the Chinese poetic tradition, his language again and again echoing the works of earlier poets. . . ."32

With Han-shan we return repeatedly to the world of Cold Mountain, which was--as another of his translators, Arthur Waley, has pointed out--as much a state of mind as a locality. It was this, together with his advice to look within, that finally gives Han-shan his haunting voice of Ch'an. He seems not to have cared for the supercilious "masters" who dominated the compet.i.tive world of the monasteries. He invited them to join him in the rigorous but rewarding world of "Cold Mountain," where the mind was Buddha and the heart was home.

_When men see Han-shan

They all say he's crazy

And not much to look at--

Dressed in rags and hides.

They don't get what I say

& I don't talk their language.

All I can say to those I meet:

"Try and make it to Cold Mountain._"33_

_

Chapter Ten

HUANG-PO:

MASTER OF THE UNIVERSAL MIND

Perhaps the most thoughtful Zen philosopher of them all was Huang-po (d. 850?), who picked up where the earlier teachers had left off and brought to a close the great creative era of Ch'an. He also stood at the very edge of the tumultuous watershed in Chinese Buddhism, barely living past the 845 Great Persecution that smashed the power of all the Buddhist schools except that of the reclusive Southern Ch'anists.

Originally named Hsi-yun, the master moved at a young age from his birthplace in present-day f.u.kien to Mt. Huang-po in the same province, the locale that gave him his Ch'an t.i.tle. His biography declares that his voice was articulate and mellifluous, his character open and simple.1 He later decided to make a pilgrimage to see the famous Ma-tsu, but when he arrived in Kiangsi he was told that the master had died.2 Po-chang Huai-hai was still there, however, and consequently Huang-po settled down to study with him instead.

Huang-po is known to us today primarily through the accident of having a follower obsessed by the written word. This man, Pei Hsiu, was also a high Chinese official who served as governor in two of the provinces where Huang-po at various times resided. He studied under Huang-po both times (all day and night, so he claimed) and later produced an anecdotal summary of the master's teachings now known as _On the Transmission of Mind_.3 This doc.u.ment was extensive, representing one of the most detailed descriptions of an early master's thoughts. Pei Hsiu also reports in his preface (dated 858) that he sent his work back to Kuang T'ang monastery on Mt. Huang-po to have it authenticated by the old monks there who still remembered the sayings of the master.4