The Zen Experience Part 48

13. KUEI-SHAN, YUN-MEN, AND FA-YEN: THREE MINOR HOUSES

1.Accounts of the lives and teachings of the masters of the Kuei-yang school can be found in a number of translations, including Chang Chung- yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism; and Luk, Ch'an and Zen Teachings, Second Series. Both provide translations from The Transmission of the Lamp. Other sources appear to be used in Wu, Golden Age of Zen, which includes a lively discussion of Kuei-shan and the Kuei-yang sect.

2.Wu, Golden Age of Zen, p. 159.

3.Charles Luk (Ch'an and Zen Teaching, Second Series, p. 58) makes a valiant try at explication when he says, "[Huai-hai] wanted him to perceive 'that which gave the order' and 'that which obeyed it.' . . .

[Huai-hai] continued to perform his great function by pressing the student hard, insisting that the latter should perceive 'that' which arose from the seat, used the poker, raised a little fire, showed it to him and said, 'Is this not fire?' . . . This time the student could actually perceive the reply by means of his self-nature. . . . Hence his enlightenment."

4.See Ibid., p. 58. Ssu-ma seems to have had a good record in predicting monastic success, and he was much in demand. Although the reliance

on a fortuneteller seems somewhat out of character for a Ch'an master, we should remember that fortunetelling and future prediction in China are at least as old as the I Ching.

5. Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, p.

202.

6. Ibid., p. 204.

7. Luk, Ch'an and Zen Teaching, Second Series, p. 67.

8. Ibid., p. 78.

9. Wu, Golden Age of Zen, p. 167.

10.Ibid., p. 167.

11.John Wu (Golden Age of Zen, p. 165) says, "The style of the house of Kuei-yang has a charm all of its own. It is not as steep and sharp- edged as the houses of Lin-chi and Yun-men, nor as close-knit and resourceful as the house of Ts'ao-tung nor as speculative and broad as the house of Fa-yen, but it has greater depth than the others."

12.See Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, p. 269.

Other translations of Yun-men anecdotes, as well as interpretations and appreciations, can be found in Luk, Ch'an and Zen Teaching, Second Series; Chou, _Dhyana_ Buddhism in China; Wu, Golden Age of Zen; and Blyth, Zen and Zen Cla.s.sics, Vol. 2.

13.He had six koans out of forty-eight in the Mumonkan and eighteen koans out of a hundred in the Hekiganroku. Perhaps his extensive representation in the second collection is attributable to the fact that its compiler, Ch'ung-hsien (980-1025), was one of the last surviving representatives of Yun-men's school.

14.Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism p. 284.

15.Ibid., p. 286.

16.Ibid., p. 229.

17.Ibid., p. 228.

18.Ibid., p. 229.

19.Sekida, Two Zen Cla.s.sics: Mumonkan & Hekiganroku, p. 349. This koan is from Hekiganroku, Case 77.

20.From the Mumonkan, Case 21. The Chinese term used was kan-shin chueh, which Chang Chung-yuan (Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, p.

300) characterizes as follows: "This may be translated either of two ways: a piece of dried excrement or a bamboo stick used for cleaning as toilet tissue is today."

21.Blyth, Zen and Zen Cla.s.sics, Vol. 2, p. 142.

22.Those with insatiable curiosity may consult Wu, Golden Age of Zen, pp. 244 ff.

23.Translations of his teachings from The Transmission of the Lamp are provided by Chang Chung:yuan in Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism and by Charles Luk in Ch'an and Zen Teachings, Second Series. A translation of a completely different source, which varies significantly on all the major anecdotes, is provided in John Wu, Golden Age of Zen. A translation, presumably from a j.a.panese source, of some of his teachings is supplied by R. H. Blyth in Zen and Zen Cla.s.sics, Vol. 2.

Heinrich Dumoulin offers a brief a.s.sessment of his influence in his two books: Development of Chinese Zen and History of Zen Buddhism.

24.Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, p. 238. A completely different version may be found in Wu, Golden Age of Zen, pp.

232-33.

25.Buddhism Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an, p. 242.

26.

14. TA-HUI: MASTER OF THE KOAN

1.See Dumoulin, History of Zen Buddhism, p. 128.

2.Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Zen Dust (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), pp. 10-11.

3.Ibid., p. 10. This individual is identified as Nan-yuan Hui-yang (d.

930).

4.This is Case 1 in the Mumonkan, usually the first koan given to a beginning student.

5.This is Case 26 of the Mumonkan. The version given here is after the translation in Sekida, Two Zen Cla.s.sics: Mumonkan & Hekiganroku, p. 89.

6.This is Case 54 of the Hekiganroku. The version given is after Ibid., p. 296, and Cleary and Cleary, Blue Cliff Record, p. 362.

7.Isshu and Sasaki, Zen Dust, p. 13.

8.There are a number of translations of the Mumonkan currently available in English. The most recent is Sekida, Two Zen Cla.s.sics: Mumonkan & Hekiganroku; but perhaps the most authoritative is Zenkei Shibayama, Zen Comments on the Mumonkan, trans. Sumiko Kudo (New York: Harper r Row, 1974; paperback edition, New York: New American Library, 1975). Other translations are Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps, "The Gateless Gate," in Paul Reps, ed., Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (Rutland and Tokyo: Tuttle, 1957); Sohkau Ogata, "The Mu Mon Kwan," in Zen for the West (New York: Dial, 1959); and R. H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Cla.s.sics, Vol. 4, "Mumonkan" (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1966).

Three translations of the Blue Cliff Record are currently available in English. There is the early and unsatisfactory version by R. D. M. Shaw (London: Michael Joseph, 1961). A readable version is provided in Sekida, Two Zen Cla.s.sics, although this excludes some of the traditional commentary. The authoritative version is certainly that by Cleary and Cleary, Blue Cliff Record.

9.This is the case with the version provided in Sekida, Two Zen Cla.s.sics.

10.See Dumoulin, History of Zen Buddhism, p. 128.

11.See L. Carrington Goodrich, A Short History of the Chinese People (New York: Harper & Row, 1943), p. 161.

12.The most comprehensive collection of Ta-hui's writings is translated in Christopher Cleary, Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui (New York: Grove Press, 1977). Excerpts are also translated by Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series.

Biographical information may also be found in Isshu and Sasaki, Zen Dust.

13.Translated in Isshu and Sasaki, Zen Dust, p. 163.

14.A work known today as the Cheng-fa-yen-tsang. See Isshu and Sasaki, Zen Dust, p. 163.