Kyōzan's Mind and Environment

Banshō's commentary on the case

Kyōzan once asked a monk, “Where have you come from?” The monk said, “From Youzhou.” Kyōzan said, “I happen to want news of Youzhou. What is the price of rice there?” The monk said, “When I came, for no reason I passed through the market and trod their bridge to pieces.” Kyōzan stopped. Kyōzan was called the Little Shakyamuni. He did not receive people in only one way. This public case shows precisely a student's momentum on entering the gate and the place where effort first gains purchase. Kyōzan asked the Youzhou monk, “Do you still think of that place?” What if the monk had said, “I do not think of it”? Kyōzan certainly would have had another strong point. The monk instead said, “I think of it constantly.” Honest words call for repentance. Kyōzan said, “What can think is mind; what is thought of is environment.” Environments differ in a thousand ways. How many forms does the mind that thinks have? Unmon once said that, from compassion, Kyōzan used talk that “descends into the weeds.” The monk was indeed quick-witted. He said, “When I arrive here, I see none of them present at all.” People today may never reach this state. If they do reach it, they point to their chest and carry a board. Not knowing the joy of the road, in the end they do not arrive home. Kyōzan had once traveled the road down the mountain, so he separately indicated a living road. Years earlier, while Kyōzan was in samadhi before the monks' hall, at midnight he no longer saw mountains, rivers, the great earth, monastery buildings, people, things, or even his own body. Everything was the same as empty space. The next morning he related this to Isan. Isan said, “When I was with Hyakujō, I attained this state. It is the work of pervasive delusive thought melting away into clarity. In the future, when you teach the Dharma, there will be no one who surpasses you.”³ Banshō says: it is not that Kyōzan failed to realize it, nor that Isan failed to recognize it. The Surangama Sutra says that when moving thoughts are exhausted and floating imaginings dissolve, the awakened luminous mind is like a surface from which dust has been removed. One class of birth and death is illuminated from beginning to end. This is called exhaustion of the aggregate of perception; such a person can transcend the turbidity of affliction. Examining its source, the scripture names pervasive delusive thought as its basis.³ Here too one sees Isan and Kyōzan, father and son in Dharma, subtly accord with the Buddha-mind. One day Kyōzan presented his understanding: “If I myself am made to look, on arriving here there is no position of completion and nothing that can be cut off.” Isan said, “According to your seeing, a dharma still remains, and you have not yet left mind and environment.” Kyōzan said, “Since there is no position of completion, where could mind and environment remain?” Isan asked, “Just now, did you form this understanding or not?” Kyōzan said, “Yes.” Isan said, “If so, this fully is a dharma of mind and environment. How can you say there is none?” Kyōzan saw that this monk still had “this.” Judging according to principle, he said, “The position of faith is so; the position of the person is not yet so.” Another version reads, “The position of faith is attained; the position of practice is not yet.” The Vajra Samadhi Sutra enumerates a position of faith, thought, cultivation, practice, and relinquishment. The present “faith position” and “person position” are not necessarily altogether the same system.² Reverend Zhugan Gui said, “At opening and closing the mouth, distinguish this side and that side. Where there are words and no words, distinguish the position of faith and position of the person.” This is yet another house's interpretation. Isan asked Kyōzan, “Huiji, speak quickly; do not enter the realm of the aggregates.” Kyōzan said, “Huiji does not even establish faith.” Isan asked, “Do you not establish it after believing, or do you not establish unbelief?” Kyōzan said, “There is only Huiji—whom else should I believe?” Isan said, “If so, you are a fixed-nature hearer.” Kyōzan said, “Huiji does not see even buddha.” Zen Master Haosheng of Qingju says in the sixth panel of his oxherding pictures: The position of faith gradually matures and distorted objects are felt more distantly. Though pure and defiled are distinguished, this is like a sword cutting mud. The nose-rope still remains and cannot yet be trusted; therefore the ox is half white and half black. His verse says: Though herding in the wild has lasted long, the hand gradually releases the lead. Conduct is not obscure, advancing practice follows no dependency. In pure ground, calmly enjoying ease, still he repeatedly holds the long whip. Green mountains, fragrant grasses fine— one flavor fills his hunger day by day. At the twelfth panel he says: The position of the person is originally empty; body and mind have no attachment. Gain and loss are purified away. On the mystery within mystery road, distinctions are remote. Deliberate over the phrase beyond and at once you fall. Its verse says: Delusion arising, one labors to watch the herd; the ox is not, the person too is not. Within the true, imagined images; beyond, a mystery still subtle. From the great sea rises a speck of dust; through the vast furnace flies one flake of snow. Meeting, you seek explanatory understanding— it does not fall within your mental mechanism. Banshō says: Kyōzan does not establish even faith; Qingju says the position of the person is originally empty. If within these two teachers' sayings you can distinguish the faith position and person position, they will appear brilliantly clear. This is what is called stepping back and coming to oneself: not one in ten thousand is lost. The monk asked, “Reverend, do you not have some other instruction?” There is a thorn in the rotten mud. Kyōzan said, “A separate having or separate not-having does not hit the mark.” Having adds frost atop snow; not-having dies beneath the phrase. Therefore he indicated one mystery and told the monk to look for himself. Yongquan said, “Take emptiness as the seat and the ten thousand practices as the robe.” Some explain “sitting” as seated meditation and quiet contemplation, and “robe” as pulling the patchwork cloak over one's head. Others explain “sitting” as opening the hall and ascending the seat, and “robe” as adorning the body with Dharma vestments. Each has reason on its side. Now tell me: when he says, “Look for yourself from then on,” what is he to look at? Ask Tendō. Tendō first versifies turning thought back upon what can think: how could it have many kinds? Unmon said, “Understand, and it is wrapped up before your eyes. Fail to understand, and it is wrapped up before your eyes.” This is “with no outside, it contains.” Mountains, rivers, towers, people, animals, and other things—the one and the many unobstructed, person and environment participating together—are “unobstructed, it pervades.” National Teacher Shao said: The summit that penetrates mystery is not the human world. Outside mind there is no dharma; green mountains fill the eyes. “The summit that penetrates mystery” is the thought-of environment. “Not the human world” is the mind that thinks. “Outside mind there is no dharma” is “I see none of them present at all.” “Green mountains fill the eyes”—only this one line. Between this monk and National Teacher Shao lie the faith position and person position, one mystery and three mysteries. Thus walls and gates rise sheer and barriers and locks multiply; in the end it is difficult for them to meet. The verse also treats the monk's seeing as a drunken guest and slumped farmer, and Kyōzan's indication as the Wondrous-Winged and roaming dragon. The Lotus Sutra compares it to a person who visits a close friend and falls asleep drunk. The friend must leave on official business and sews a priceless jewel into the person's robe. The person sleeps on, wholly unaware.⁴ A teacher of Xiaozhou said, “I once heard that one full meal makes one forget a hundred hungers. Today this mountain monk's body itself is it.” Jōshū's “one full meal makes one forget a hundred hungers” deserved wondrous offerings from humans and gods. This monk, a sated and slumped farmer, could hardly digest even a drop of water. A clear-eyed person should distinguish them. The Sanskrit garuda is translated “Wondrous-Winged Bird.” It beats the wind, parts the sea, and seizes dragons to swallow. This is mythic zoology used as an image of unimpeded movement.⁵ Confucius asked Lao Dan about ritual and reportedly said after seeing Laozi, “He is just like a dragon.” A roaming dragon appears and disappears among cloud and mist, unlike one hidden in hibernation.⁵ This versifies “the position of the person is not yet so,” “you have attained only one mystery,” and “look for yourself from then on.” Why does Kyōzan make the monk shift his body and change his step? Wherever there is a road by which one can ascend, a person higher still travels it.