The Zen Experience Part 25

_The Master took the high seat in the Hall. A monk asked, "What about the cardinal principle of the Buddha-dharma?"

The Master raised his whisk.

The monk shouted. The Master struck him.

Another monk asked: "What about the cardinal principle of the Buddha- dharma?"

Again the Master raised his whisk.

The monk shouted. The Master also shouted.

The monk faltered; the Master struck him.18

_

Yet another series of exchanges sounds a similar theme.

_The Master asked a monk, "Where do you come from?"

The monk shouted.

The master saluted him and motioned him to sit down. The monk hest.i.tated. The Master hit him.

Seeing another monk coming, the Master raised his whisk.

The monk bowed low. The Master hit him.

Seeing still another monk coming, the Master again raised his whisk.

The monk paid no attention. The Master hit him too.19

_He was also challenged by a nun, one of the few recorded

instances of a master actually matching wits with a woman who had taken Ch'an orders.

_The Master asked a nun: "Well-come or ill-come?"

The nun shouted.

"Go on, go on, speak!" cried the Master, taking up his stick.

Again the nun shouted. The Master hit her.20

_

What Lin-chi also brought to Ch'an was a dialectical inquiry into the relationship between master and pupil, together with a similar a.n.a.lysis of the mind states that lead to enlightenment. He seems remarkably sophisticated for the ninth century, and indeed we would be hard pressed to find this kind of psychological a.n.a.lysis anywhere in the West that early. The puzzling, contradictory quality about all this is that Lin-chi believed fervently in intuitive intelligence, and in the uselessness of words--even warning that questions were irrelevant:

_Does anyone have a question? If so, let him ask it now. But the instant you open your mouth you are already way off.21

_

Among his dialectical creations were various fourfold categorizations of the intangible. We have already seen his four categories of the shout. He also created the four categories of relationship between subject and object, also sometimes called the Four Processes of Liberation from Subjectivity and Objectivity. Some believe this served to structure the "four standpoints or points of view which Lin-chi used in instructing his students."22 Lin-chi's original proposition, the basis of all the later commentary, is provided in _The Record of Lin- chi _as follows:

_At the evening gathering the Master addressed the a.s.sembly, saying: "Sometimes I take away man and do not take away the surroundings; sometimes I take away the surroundings and do not take away man; sometimes I take away both man and the surroundings; sometimes I take away neither man nor the surroundings._"23_

_As Chang Chung-yuan describes these four arrangements, the first is to "take away the man but not his objective situation," i.e., to take away all interpretation and just experience the world without subjective a.s.sociations.24 (This is quite similar to the approach of the j.a.panese haiku poem, in which a description of something is provided completely devoid of interpretation or explicit emotional response.)

The second arrangement is to let the man remain but take away objectivity. As John Wu interprets this, "In the second stage, people of normal vision, who see mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers, must be reminded of the part that their own mind contributes to the appearance of things, and that what they naively take for objectivity is inextricably mixed with subjectivity. Once aware of subjectivity, one is initiated into the first stages of Ch'an, when one no longer sees mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers."25 This is merely the Ch'an commonplace that "non-attachment or objectivity liberates one's self from bondage to the outside and thus leads to enlightenment."26 As Dumoulin describes these, "In the first and second stages, illusion departs first from the subject and then from the object; clinging to subjective intellectual perception and to the objective world is overcome."27

Lin-chi's third stage is to "take away both the man and his objective situation. In other words, it is liberation from . . . the attachments of both subjectivity and objectivity. Lin-chi's famous 'Ho!' . . .

often served this purpose."28 In a blow of a master's staff or a shout there is nothing one can grasp, either objectively or subjectively.

This is the next-to-last stage in the progression toward liberation from the mind's tyranny.

In the fourth stage we find the final condition, in which objectivity and subjectivity cease to be distinguishable. What this means is that there is no intellectuation at all, that the world simply is. As Dumoulin declares, "reality is comprehended in its final oneness."29 Or as the story says: Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; during the study of Zen, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers; but when there finally is enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and rivers are rivers. In this final state the distinction and confrontation of subject and object dissolve, as we are finally at one with the nameless world.

Another of Lin-chi's famous dialectical categories is his "Fourfold Relationship possible Between Questioner and Answerer or Between Guest and Host." The point of the structure he sets up is to elucidate the interaction of master and novice, but he does so using metaphor of host and guest--where the host represents the universal Self and the guest the ego-form self.30 Lin-chi's sermon on the subject went as follows:

_A true student gives a shout, and to start with holds out a

sticky lacquer tray. The teacher, not discerning that this is an

objective circ.u.mstance, goes after it and performs a lot of antics with it. The student again shouts but still the teacher is unwilling to let go. This is . . . called "the guest examines the host."

Sometimes a teacher will proffer nothing, but the instant a student asks a question, robs him of it. The student, having been robbed, resists to the death and will not let go; this is called "the host examines the guest."

Sometimes a student comes forth before a teacher in conformity with a state of purity. The teacher, discerning that this is an objective circ.u.mstance, seizes it and flings it into a pit. "What an excellent teacher!" exclaims the student, and the teacher replies, "Bah! You can't tell good from bad!" Thereupon the student makes a deep bow; this is called "the host examines the host."

Or again, a student will appear before a teacher wearing a cangue and bound with chains. The teacher fastens on still more chains and cangues for him. The student is so delighted that he can't tell what is what: this is called "the guest examines the guest._"31_

_In the first category, according to Chang Chung-yuan, the ego meets the universal Self.32 In the second category the universal Self encounters the ego-form self. In the third category, the universal Self of one meets the universal Self of another, and in the fourth category the ego of one encounters the ego of another. Or if we are to interpret this in the concrete, in the first encounter, an enlightened master meets an unenlightened novice; in the second an enlightened novice meets an unenlightened master (which did happen); in the third an enlightened master meets an enlightened novice; and in the fourth category an unenlightened master meets an unenlightened novice, to the mutual delusion of both.33

Lin-chi has been called the most powerful master in the entire history of Ch'an, and not without reason. His mind was capable of operating at several levels simultaneously, enabling him to overlay very practical instruction with a comprehensive dialectic. He believed in complete spontaneity, total freedom of thought and deed, and a teaching approach that has been called the "lightning" method--because it was swift and unpredictable. He was uncompromising in his approach, and he was also extremely critical of the state of Ch'an in his time--a criticism probably justified. He found both monks and masters wanting. It seems that Ch' an had become fashionable, with the result that there were